Characters from fairy tales can be found on city streets, in an orphanage or a tailor's workshop. Yet the story of Fausto Barbarico starts off badly when, at the age of seventeen, he loses his parents and is plunged headlong into a rough and difficult world. But Fausto has a gift: he can turn the most desperate situation to his advantage. He makes a friend at the orphanage: his confidant and brother, fat Raymond, the tender-hearted "pétomane" who swears by his new buddy Fausto. No sooner does Fausto start working as an apprentice than he finds a second father in his boss Mietek Breslawer, the hunchbacked Jewish tailor who tells such marvelous stories and wields the scissors so skillfully. And the colourful neighbours adopt Fausto as their lucky mascot thanks to the flamboyant costumes he creates. Just like in all fairy-tales, the orphan will end up with everything: love, firendship, a family talent and renown... We can always dream, even at the end of the 20th Century...