Intimate Apparel follows the story of Esther, a black seamstress who lives in a boarding house for women and sews intimate apparel for clients who range from wealthy white patrons to prostitutes. She remains, lonely and longing for a husband and a future. Her plan is to find the right man and use the money she's saved to open a beauty parlor where black women will be treated as royally as the white women she sews for. She begins to receive beautiful letters from a lonesome Caribbean man named George, who convinces Esther to get married, sight unseen. When George arrives in New York, however, he turns out not to be the man his letters painted him to be. Deeply wounded by the betrayal, but somehow unbroken, Esther returns to the boarding house determined to use her gifted hands and her sewing machine to refashion her dreams.