Tim Gunn's Guide to Style: Karen Vito (Episode 8)

For the season finale (yay!), this week's victim is Karen Vito, a 41-year-old mother and wife who dresses like an 18-year-old whore. It embarrasses her husband and her 8-year-old daughter. She doesn't want to look like a "slouchy" soccer mom, but she's sick of dressing like a hooker.

Tim and Veronica head over to Karen's house, where she greets them wearing a patterned halter top and brown pants. Tim does "the contract" with her. "We can't want you to succeed more than you do," blah blah blah. They tour her house. "The house has a sophistication that Karen's lacking," comments Tim. It's a nice house.

We go through Last Week's outfits. Karen's dressed like a biker chick for a non-biker happy hour,  wore a shirt with a TON of cleavage to a PTA meeting, and generally dresses in totally inappropriate ways. They bring up her daughter. "I don't want her to start dressing the way I dress," says Karen. That's always a good sign.

Karen's big event is a presentation she's making to 500 women in order to drum up business for her salon. They tell her to go upstairs and get ready for this event as if it were happening in five minutes, while they sit downstairs and talk shit about her with her sister. "She doesn't have any girlfriends," says her sister.

Karen comes downstairs wearing black pants straight out of 1976 and a black cleavage-baring top. "I'm falling into your cleavage like a black hole," says Veronica.

Let's go through Karen's closet. It's very well-organized, but there's a lot of clothes in there. We start sorting into keepers, menders, throwaway and giveaway. Tim is disgusted with most of her wardrobe, as am I. Karen is very, very set on staying "sexy." Karen doesn't realize that there is a line between "sexy" and "trampy," and she's so far away from "sexy" she can't even see it. Karen basically refuses to give away anything. She's getting pissed, and Tim's
getting stressed.

"Straight up, it's stripper," says Veronica about one particular top Karen refuses to give away. "All you're missing is a pole ... What she was wearing says slut." And Veronica is totally correct. We finally get Karen to reconsider on a few items, but she's generally not willing to budge. It's making Tim crazy.

Veronica asks to go through Karen's underwear drawer, and Karen refuses. This woman is quite the challenge. They keep at her and she finally lets them. She has a TON of padding in her bras. Surprise, surprise.

We take Karen bra shopping, where she decides the first bra is "too pointy" for her. She's disappointed in the overall lack of cleavage in the bras, but eventually finds some items she can live with. This woman is such a headache.

Back to Tim's office and the Super Computer O' Fashion. Tim gives her a talking-to. Karen is terrified of aging, basically. But Tim seems to be able to convince her that he knows what he's talking about. I still have a nagging feeling that this woman's going to be a problem.

Guest star #1 is Jared Weiss, once again. I love Jared. Karen loves Jared less than I do. Jared plays some stupid game with Karen to help her be more comfortable with the aging process. Sage advice coming from a gorgeous man
in his 20s. He makes Karen list the pros and cons of being in her 20s. She can't think of any cons. In her 40s, Karen can think of lots of cons, but she's happy with her kids, house and career. Karen's been saving a Betsey Johnson dress since she was 21, and Jared instructs her to throw it away. She's very unhappy about this, and tries to negotiate her way out of it. "I'm really not much of a negotiator," says Jared. Karen eventually has to agree to throw it away.

"In some ways you're addicted to being 21," says Tim, which is totally correct.

They're sending her shopping with a special surprise. Tim's nervous Karen won't like her gift; as am I. It's a big, classy purse from Coach. "Oh, I love it!" exclaims Karen. This gives Tim some hope. Karen's mother meets her at Macy's. Karen wisely avoids the juniors section -- but it's tough for her. That's so strange to me. I remember how excited I was when my mother finally allowed me to stop shopping in the juniors section; why anyone would want to go back there at Karen's age is a mystery to me.

Karen's done a decent job of shopping in terms of not finding super-slutty clothes, but Tim and Veronica still  aren't impressed. They take her shopping themselves.

Karen starts crying. "It's just such a weird transformation," she says. "It's not me." T&V comfort her. It's sweet; they really want to help her.

Guest star #2 is Michael, the creative head at Bill Blass. We get Karen in some designer gowns, and she finally starts smiling. Designer-wear cheers up any woman.

Hair and make-up! Yay!! Karen is going to be sooo upset about this, I can tell, but she desperately needs her hair changed. It's ridiculously overprocessed and unhealthy. She has one of those tacky perms that went out with the '80s, but Karen's gonna go down kicking and screaming on this one. She's actually nauseous about this, she says. She wants to keep her hair long. The hair guy finally figures out how to work with Karen. "You're sexy," he says, "way sexy," and she smiles genuinely for the first time since this show started. "I want to take it to a new level: hyper-sexy." This seems to be the way to Karen's heart; she agrees to let him cut her hair a little.

They remove the 800 pounds of make-up Karen's wearing and teach her how to get a more sophisticated look. My Lord, she looks so much better with the new make-up. And Karen actually likes her hair. "It's a stupid-beautiful haircut," she says.

It's fashion show time! Plus another gift! Karen gets a stunning black pearl necklace. She's blown away by it.

Her family is thrilled with her new fashion, and she really looks 100 percent better. Her mother is happy. Her husband is happy. Her daughter is happy.

We put on Karen's special occasion outfit, a gold trenchcoat Bill Blass dress. "I swooned," said Tim. "This dress is a changing point in my life," says Karen.

We bring out her daughter, Sarina, in a matching Bill Blass dress. She's cute as hell.

As a final gift, they give her back her Betsey Johnson dress -- "because we trust you now" -- in a a special box to preserve it. This elates her.

We follow up with Karen, who has embraced her new style and is looking great. "I've been working really hard to stay true to what you taught me," she says.

And we're out!