Tim Gunn's Guide to Style: Stephanie Lichten (Episode 4)

This week’s victim is Stephanie Lichten, age 31. She’s a pediatrician from New York, who’s very active with muscular dystrophy charities. She has trouble convincing her patients’ parents that she’s old enough to practice medicine, as she looks and dresses like a pre-teen. (“She’s like a female Doogie Howser,” laments Tim.) For a typical first date, she says, she wears jeans and “two tank tops.” Tim and Veronica get a kick out of this (“Not one but two tank tops!”). In her video, Stephanie begs Tim to turn her into someone who can be taken seriously.

Veronica Webb calls Stephanie to warn her that they’ll be at her house in twenty minutes. Whereas most participants use this particular moment to totally freak out, Stephanie doesn’t flinch. “Okay, sounds perfect,” she says, like she’s planning to meet an old friend for drinks. I like her already.

Stephanie and her mother work on choosing an outfit to wear for Tim and Veronica. They eventually settle on a dress that the Salvation Army already turned down, with a polite reminder that they’re not the American Foundation for the Blind. She opens the door and greets Tim and Veronica. I think Veronica just finished the dress rehearsal for her starring role in Cinderella. Seriously, there is a rag on her head. Not a headband. Not a hat. Not even a turban. It is a rag, and it is lying on top of Veronica’s head.

Before we can step through the other painfully formulaic parts of this show, we have to do “The Contract.” Blah blah blah “the hard work in this journey with us is on your head.” Um, actually, Tim, it may well be on Veronica’s head. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a damn hot dog stand on Veronica’s head. Anything could be hiding beneath that gigantic rag. “We can’t want you to succeed more than you do.” Stephanie agrees. One of these days, I want one of these women to be like, “Oh, shit, really? Because that doesn’t make any sense. I mean, do I look like the fabulous gay man in the room? Am I the one whose name constitutes the first two words of this show’s title? Is it my career on the line here? No, bitch, it’s not. So I’m not sure how you think I have more invested in this than you. Now, listen: I’m going to sit in front of the television here and eat my Americone Dream and you’re going to get your ass to my goddamn closet and work some of your gay man magic, and then you come and get me when you’re done. Capiche?”

Anyway.

Veronica looks at her dress and asks her if she just got home from the club. Stephanie says no. Veronica, politely, is like, “I thought you were salsa dancing all night,” which implies that this dress might be appropriate for salsa dancing, which implies that this dress might be appropriate for any activity that involves leaving the house, which would be grossly inaccurate. Veronica calls the dress “a bottomless pit of print,” because of all the busy patterns on it, but, truly, it’s a bottomless pit of ugly. Tim’s like, “Is it really what’s right for you?” which, again, carries the implication that this dress might be right for anybody anywhere, which, again, is grossly inaccurate.

It’s time for last week’s outfits.

Okay, this is kind of funny. Veronica grabs the first photo and screams. Like, literally screams. “It’s cute!” argues Stephanie. “It is not cute,” says Veronica, like she’s actually angry with her. “You look like you escaped from the set of Elf.” Which is pretty much exactly the joke I was going to make, except I was going to go a step further and imply that she’d been kicked out of Santa’s factory for drinking in the mornings. Like, before she got dressed. It’s this horrific green skirted jumper with a long-sleeved white shirt underneath. It’s bad, you guys.

I’m not going to go through all the outfits here, but, basically, Stephanie dresses like a thirteen-year-old with mediocre fashion sense. You half-expect to find she’s drawn anarchy symbols all over her arm in ballpoint pen during algebra class.

Stephanie’s “big event” is her ex-boyfriend’s wedding, and it takes a minute to convince Tim that a person can attend an ex-boyfriend’s wedding without being a total headcase or toting an AK-47. “It’s healthy,” Veronica assures him, but you can tell Tim still has his misgivings, and frankly I’m siding with Tim on this one. Anyway, we all eventually decide to do whatever it takes so that Stephanie can outshine the bride on her big day. Healthy, healthy.

They tell her to get dressed as if this event were happening in five minutes. Stephanie appears in a cream-colored strapless dress that, it is revealed, she once wore as a bridesmaids dress. “You can’t wear it,” declares Veronica.

It’s time to go through Stephanie’s closet. Veronica compares a pair of Stephanie’s pants to “a dead sea scroll: it’s falling apart.” Stephanie wants to keep everything, which has Tim very concerned, because most of it is horrendous. Stephanie has an array of oversized, over-patterned knit sweaters that reduce Tim and Veronica to tears of hilarity. “I think we have a serious taste problem,” says Tim, as Stephanie's eyes fill with tears of frustration. The bedroom of this 31-year-old woman is filled with toys and stuffed animals, and her clothes echo that theme.

And it’s underwear time. Veronica actually approves of most of her bras, but her socks are a different story. She has Care Bear socks. Her socks have ducks on them. So we go to Eres to find some sexy lingerie for the pediatrician. Done and done.

Back at Tim’s office, we’re teaching Stephanie to work with her petite shape. She notices that her legs are really short. Tim and his computer program recommend high-waisted, fitted skirts that end just above the knee and fitted, cap-sleeve shirts.

Before we send Stephanie shopping, she gets a little gift. It’s a bunch of glasses, because the ones Stephanie wears now aren’t very cute at all. The ones Tim has selected, honestly, don’t seem all that much better. If they’d really wanted to help, they should have just gotten her Lasik, but Stephanie seems pretty excited about the new frames.

We’re at Macy’s looking for Stephanie’s ten essential items. They’ve brought her friend Sarah in to help. Stephanie expresses her concern about being able to do this on her own. “You can do this on your own!” says Veronica. “You’re a smart doctor, with a good friend to help you.” She gestures at Sarah, who raises her eyebrows and says, “Very good friend” in a tone of voice that makes me think they have sex sometimes. But, for now, they’re shopping. They look for items in Stephanie’s petite size zero, while Tim voices over that she’ll probably need a good tailor.

Per usual, Tim and Veronica are not particularly impressed with Stephanie’s finds. “The challenges of a petite woman are so profound,” says Tim. Yes, Tim. So profound. Kind of like someone with muscular dystrophy. It's that hard.

“Let’s head over to the petites,” suggests Tim, and I am really confused right now. Has no one thought of this before? Did they not have her shopping in the petite section previously? Is this what we need Tim Gunn for? To mention to a petite woman that she should be shopping in the petite section?

Anyway, after Tim’s unleashed his brilliant Gunn Theory of Petite Women Shopping in the Petite Section on the world, Stephanie seems to do much better. That’s all it took! Shopping in the correct section of the department store! Seriously, Jerry's Kids could have told Stephanie that. The high-waisted stuff does look really good on her, though, and it’s a vast improvement.

We take Steph to meet designer Cynthia Rowley, who “understands the petite woman.” Cynthia’s going to help her find a dress to wear to the ex’s wedding. Stephanie’s trying on a boring dark purple silk dress that practically brings Tim to orgasm when Nina Garcia walks into the room. Why? Why does she have to be here too? How many fashion experts does it take to style a perfectly healthy, normal young pediatrician? My guess is someone had a contractual obligation to someone else over at Bravo, but, for whatever reason, Nina Garcia’s there to mention – thank God – that maybe we should consider a different color. We go with pink, and it’s a lot better, but Steph says she preferred the darker dress. We teach her how to walk in heels. We try a variety of other ugly dresses on. Cynthia Rowley talks about how awesome her dresses are, and then tells Steph whatever dress she chooses is on the house.

Hair and makeup time. The stylist wants to cut Stephanie’s dark hair – now a little past shoulder length – up to her chin. Stephanie freaks out, but they convince her it’ll make her look more mature and sexier. They cut and highlight her hair, they plug Garnier Fructis, and we’re on to makeup. When they’re done, Stephanie looks a little more grown-up, but, I’ll be honest: she still kind of looks like a 13-year-old who’s headed to her Bat Mitzvah. She just has this inextricable little-girl quality to her, and all the makeup in the world can’t blot that out.

Another gift. It’s a Tacori necklace. You know, for product placement. And the wedding outfit.

It’s fashion show time. Stephanie shows her friends and family her new look, they scream and cheer and, as we look at her before pictures, the improvement is obvious. She still has a child-like face, but her clothes are much more sophisticated. Finally, Stephanie has chosen a silver Cynthia Rowley dress to wear to the wedding. “I feel hot in this dress,” she says. As a final gift, they’re sending Steph to Las Vegas to Jerry Lewis’s muscular dystrophy telethon and giving her VIP backstage passes. Finally, Stephanie cries tears of joy. “This is my dream since I was eight years old,” she says, “to meet Jerry Lewis and go to the telethon.” Man, my dream when I was eight years old was, like, to eat ice cream for breakfast. Stephanie’s a way better person than I am.

We check up on Stephanie today. She had an amazing time at the wedding. Her dating life has improved tremendously. And she loved going to the telethon. She’s very grateful. The end.

Until next week, kids!