Call it a wardrobe facelift

Oprah may have cornered the market on makeovers, but she isn’t the only one giving people a dose of medicinal style. YStyle’s continuing obsession with everything Oprah has resulted in one of the best feaures ever to hit print – drumroll, please – our very own makeover magic show.

Meet Kian Vargas and Marielle Acevedo, our willing labrats. Unused to the hectic whirlwind that is a makeover, the girls were shipped off to some Mediterranean island where they went through several weeks of punishing workout routines under a former navy officer. After weeks of living only on water and crackers, they emerged beautiful and skinny, with vibrant complexions nourished by the Mediterranean’s polite sun. Yeah right.

Due to budget and schedule constraints, the girls went through the normal makeover route: makeup by experts, clothes styling by a brilliant team of crack fashion specialists and a photo shoot, showing off their new looks.

Though the actual process was much quicker than our fantasy makeover, it was just as successful. See the startling transformation as our stylish neophytes change from not-so-well-dressed girls to quite-well-dressed-girls.

Wallflower no more

Communication student Kian Vargas is a wee bit quiet. And shy. And reserved. Her responses to questions ranging from her college course to her hobbies tend to be monosyllabic. It’s not that she’s snobbish or anything. This stunner is just naturally bashful. "She makes me look outgoing," Marielle said laughingly. But don’t let her quiet demeanor fool you. This stunner has one of the sweetest personalities on earth, a trait I quikly discovered as I circled around the Taguig area for hours in search of Chocolate’s office, which was home base for the makeover. While I was busy cursing the misleading street signs and my own lack of map-reading abilities, she was the personification of patience and calm.

Kian’s fashion tends to reflect her personality, which means that, like a certain other makeover subject, she favors plain styles and lackluster colors. Which is unfortunate since her alabaster skin and dainty features deserve more than her regular jeans and T-shirt combo. "I don’t really like to show my legs," she confessed quietly, as, once again, the whole room erupted with "Why not?!" and "But you’ve got great legs!"

It soon became everyone’s job to coerce – er, convince – Kian that her legs were photo shoot worthy. Through a mix of hypnotism and prisoner of war-style manipulation, Kian resignedly donned a pair of gaucho pants and a miniskirt that looked fabulous on her. As she posed for the shoot, her former wallflower-garb forgotten, she looked ready to hit the runway. We couldn’t help but whisper to ourselves in a world-weary Justice League kind of way, "Our work here is done."

The girl next door

Marielle Acevedo, a junior software engineer, isn’t what you’d call a hardcore shopper. "I don’t really shop all that often," she says. "Work takes up a lot of my time, and the commute from home to office leaves very little time to shop." Whatever leftover time she has, between driving from Quezon City to the Ayala Stock Exchange where she works, is devoted to working out at the gym and spending time with her family – which leaves Marielle with a wardrobe that you could call conservative at best.

"I’m not really a fan of short skirts," she explains shyly during the makeover amid exclamations of surprise from Chocolate owner Ana Antonio and trainee Pam Robes. Her daily uniform consists of pencil skirts and high-necked blouses, usually in sedate colors like brown, taupe and white.

What Marielle needs is some color. And clothes that’ll show off her thin form – without offending her conservative principles. "Would you wear this?" I ask Marielle, holding up a short denim skirt. She shakes her head quickly and makes a negative sound. "I guess that’s a yes then," I stated brusquely, quickly piling on the short skirts into a mound of potential outfits. "You need to work with what God gave you," I informed her wisely, sans a superior God-voice intonation. She sighed. "Maybe I should’ve said that I really like miniskirts," she says in resignation. "That’s the spirit, sister!" I said enthusiastically.