Television Transformers

A Style Network producer and cameraman knocked on her door in September and started getting footage of Carrie picking out clothes, doing her hair and walking her dog.

Then they asked her to leave the house while Cheryl and Jessica (whom the show dubbed "accomplices") and the producer got ruthless. They went through every item in Carrie's closet, pulling out the worst offenders.

They found plenty of clothes long past their fashion expiration dates - everything from floral pants to a plaid flannel jumpsuit Carrie wore out in public.

"I don't shop that often," Carrie admitted. "I have clothes circa 1990-92. These clothes are old."

Yet, she thought the shapeless dresses and neon-colored boyfriend jackets still looked good.

Unfortunately, the critique was just beginning. And she could only guess what lay in store during the taping in Los Angeles.

"It's going to be a huge change for me. I'm nervous," she admitted. "Nobody likes to be analyzed."

Down, out in L.A.

The following Sunday, The Style Network flew the three women to Los Angeles for an all-expenses-paid week.

Carrie showed up for filming Monday, and liked the show's host, Finola Hughes, who has starred on "General Hospital," immediately.

Still, Hughes put Carrie though a grueling day.

It started with an on-camera interview, with Hughes asking probing questions about Carrie's interior life, and how that got expressed in her exterior look.

"I talked about why I was stuck in this time warp of clothing. It was very emotional," Carrie said.

Carrie admitted to an emotional attachment to her clothes: Each piece had a story. Plus, she's frugal and hates shopping; a trip to the mall is "torture."

Ultimately, though, her baggy clothes reflected old issues about body image and an eating disorder she conquered long ago, she said.

"Afterward, you're like, 'I can't believe I just bared my soul,'" Carrie marveled. "But everybody does things for a reason."

After the interview, the producers hauled out the clothing specimens they had taken from Carrie's closet. And they threw away the hot rollers she used to give her hair its '80s volume.

Carrie felt the sting of having her looks criticized.

"All of a sudden," Carrie recalled, "your clothes are gone, you have to listen to them criticizing, and you're thinking, OK, when is the good part?"

She walked away shell-shocked, reeling from being told her clothes, makeup and hair were wrong, wrong, wrong.

This footage would make up the first, "before" part of the show, in which the host shows how what the "victim" is thinking can wreak havoc on her wardrobe.

"We should say that we were forced by the producers to be rudely honest and have kind of an intervention with her on camera," Cheryl said afterward. "That was a little tough for us."

Jessica was concerned about Carrie, too.

"It was kind of traumatic for her. There were a lot of emotional ups and downs," she said.

The producers tried to soothe Carrie by giving her the L.A. star treatment, pampering her with manicures and pedicures and supplying go-fers who would bring lunch and Starbucks coffee.

The fear of change

After the brutality of Monday's critique, Carrie got two days to relax while Cheryl and Jessica got a task to do.

The two "accomplices" and "Extreme Makeover" fashion stylist Sam Saboura, a Hollywood consultant who was born in Park Ridge, had to go shopping.

Each one had to purchase three complete outfits for Carrie: a casual ensemble, clothing for the office and a getup for a night on the town.

They had to also choose a hairstyle and makeup style to go with the look.

At this point in each show, the producers assemble each of the three collections on mannequins and display them as if in a shop window.

On Thursday evening, they told Carrie she had to choose one complete collection - Cheryl's, Jessica's or Sam's. She would have to agree to the hair and makeup style that went with the collection she chose.

Luckily, she fell in love with Jessica's collection.

So she woke up Friday morning, transformation day, ready to face the scissors -but not without trepidation.

Though Carrie had trimmed her long hair herself, she hadn't been in a real salon in nine years.

"I had been in this mold for so many years," Carrie fretted. "Going to a different style of clothes was one thing. Changing my hairstyle was one thing. And changing my haircut was another thing. So I was facing three huge things."

What got her through it was emotional support from Cheryl, Jessica and her stylist.

"When I had that big hair, that's the first thing people would notice, and I would kind of hide behind it," Carrie says.

She says the stylist was right in suggesting that the hairstyle, and her overalls, weren't right for a single woman who's interested in meeting men.

"He said, 'It's a disservice to yourself. You have a great figure and you don't show it off. You have a beautiful face and you don't wear the right makeup.'

"He wanted the best for me - it was sweet."

Likewise, she felt Cheryl and Jessica were completely in her corner, and wanted her to be happy.

Hollywood glamour

And so she let the pros go to work, cutting, coloring, applying makeup, primping, dressing and glamorizing.

The excitement mounted for the big "reveal" late Friday. Naturally, Cheryl, Jessica and Sam were awed with the results.

Carrie's own family hadn't flown out for the reveal, as it would have been at their own expense. So the studio supplied extras who posed as family and friends.

"There's nothing real about reality TV," Cheryl quipped. "It was interesting because the fake family was perfectly diverse."

"Yeah, there was the blonde woman, the Hispanic older man, the Asian-American woman," chimed in Jessica, laughing. "But Carrie was having fun with it, saying, 'Uncle George, it's been so long since I've seen you.'"

The three women went out in L.A. that night to celebrate Carrie's triumph. Then it was back to Chicago, and to work.

At that point, Cheryl and Jessica noticed Carrie was wearing her old clothes and not doing her hair. They worried she was going to relapse.

But friends kept encouraging her and going with her on shopping trips to spend the $700 in gift certificates the show had given her.

Within a week or two, something clicked.

"Now she's blossomed and has totally embraced the look," Jessica said. "She carries herself differently. And she's been going on dates."

Carrie says she feels lucky to have had this experience.

"I'd be lying if I didn't say there were some bad parts," she admits. "It was hard being the center of attention, and being told you look ridiculous.

"I'm grateful that in the end there was so much more good that any of the bad was totally overshadowed."