Dawn Davenport is a rebellious, troubled high school student in Baltimore, who becomes furious when she doesn't receive the coveted pair of cha-cha heels for Christmas. She runs away from home and embarks on a path of crime and deviant behavior. Dawn's life spirals further out of control as she soon finds herself pregnant and abandoned. She gives birth to a daughter, Taffy, and struggles through an existence of petty crime and moral corruption.

As she descends deeper into the criminal underworld, Dawn meets Donald and Donna Dasher, owners of a beauty salon who are fascinated by criminality as a form of high art. The Dashers use Dawn as a model for their avant-garde beauty experiments, pushing her further into a spiral of violence and self-destruction. Surrounded by sycophants and enablers, Dawn's worldview becomes increasingly warped, leading her to commit shocking acts that blur the lines between vanity, fame, and infamy.