Pressing her stern and obstinate father, who objects to Western clothing, she finally convinces him to let her leave school to pursue her dream.
She finally convinces a sewing machine saleswoman to teach her Western dressmaking, and succeeds in designing and creating the uniforms of a Shinsaibashi department store, but Zensaku still makes her work at a series of establishments after he complains of her lack of business acumen.
Itoko's former schoolmate Natsu, who ran a high-class ryōtei, has to sell it when business goes bad and then flees town to escape her debtors.
Itoko joins the local fabric guild and meets a young tailor from Nagasaki named Ryūichi Suo.
Yūko, the eldest, initially wants to go to an art college, but when Itoko challenges her on whether she really wants to be an artist, she decides to attend a fashion design school in Tokyo instead.
Yūko returns to Kishiwada after graduating to help her mother, but Naoko stays in Tokyo to open her own boutique.
When it begins to flounder due to Naoko's abrasive personality, the gentler Yūko travels to Tokyo, despite being married and with a daughter, to help out.
Meanwhile, Satoko, the youngest, who seems furthest removed from the clothing world, gives up a promising tennis career to learn dressmaking under her mother.
Itoko, however, starts to feel her age as fashions change from Dior to Louis Vitton to miniskirts, and contemplates handing over the business to Yūko.
The many she helped gather at her home and watch the Danjiri Festival from the window—while Yōko tells her sisters that a TV network wants to do an asadora of their mother's life.