The Transformers.

The

Transformers

Celebrities are no strangers to makeovers-they perform some version of them every day before setting foot on a soundstage. Now, five stars share their latest (and greatest) transformations. By Judith Newman

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eing natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know," said Oscar Wilde. A hundred years on and an ocean away, hardly anyone seems to agree. Americans revere the natural beauty, scrubbed and artless, with her unspoken suggestion of virginity. Artifice, on the other hand, suggests falseness in word and deed. (Kirsten Dunst: natural beauty; Pamela Anderson: manmade.) This equation doesn't always play out in real life, but it could be argued that when we mold ourselves into our ideals, we reveal who we really are: sexual, first of all, and openly desirous of attention and love. Maybe, just maybe, a little artifice can reveal not a lie, but a bit more of our truest selves. In other words, Oscar Wilde was on to something.

Each of the women photographed here began their transformations years ago. For one, it meant ditching the ballast of extra pounds, for another the baggage of teenage marching-band nerdiness. The key step could be leaving behind kinky hair that spoke of the old country-or the crooked teeth of leaner times. All Allure really did was step in to take these carefully crafted beauties to a level of fantasy and glamour they had never considered. If you look at these photos and think, Boy, I'd like to be her for a day, take heart: These women, no strangers to the makeover machine, would, too.

Mena Suvari This month Suvari plays Jennifer Aniston's "incredibly annoying sister" in Rumor Has It...-annoying because she has, as Suvari puts it, "absolutely no boundaries." Not that boundaries have ever been a problem for Suvari, particularly when it comes to her looks. "I always knew what I wanted, and I have expensive taste," she says. Being the only girl, and the youngest, in a family of three boys, "I was the princess," she adds. "I was never a casual girl." She is now known for forever changing the style and color of her hair. (The world first noticed her as a honey blonde when she played that object of middle-aged male lust in American Beauty, but in her private life she goes from platinum to chocolate brown, with the occasional pit stop at flaming red.) After hairstylist Damien Boissinot finished with her, adding waves and tousled volume to her stick-straight hair, Suvari looked like the princess she knew herself to be.