What do you picture when you think of classic “makeover shows”? Gok Wan hurling a long tasselled scarf around anyone in his vicinity? Trinny and Susannah on What Not to Wear (2001-2013) telling some poor unsuspecting woman that she has “tits down by her knees”? Or someone’s mum being trotted out on a British high street for 10 Years Younger (2004), while members of the public guess her – ostensibly much younger – age? After which she has her face cut up and sewn back together, or sometimes her fat sucked out, before being swaddled in a tasteful blazer and kitten heels?
Makeover shows at their peak, in the 2000s, were famously unhinged, arguably even more so across the Atlantic. The US had Extreme Makeover (2004), whereby “ordinary” people underwent invasive surgery, strict exercise regimens and a wardrobe overhaul. On The Swan (2004), Fox’s controversial reality show, two “ugly ducklings” were completely physically transformed – including the use of surgery – before battling it out for the title of “the swan”. Some, too, might remember Bridalplasty (2010), in which 12 women fought to win their perfect wedding as well as an entirely new face or body (to be revealed down the aisle. I’m not making this up.)
These sorts of shows eventually went out of fashion. In recent years, however, we’ve seen the format make a tentative return – this time with empowering new branding. Gone are the rampant body-shaming and catty asides about a mum who’s “let herself go”. Instead, shows such as Netflix’s Skin Decision: Before and After (2020) and Queer Eye’s lovely 2018 reboot, and the BBC’s You Are What You Wear (2020) have generally signified a kinder approach to makeovers. This week, we also have Channel 4’s Unique Boutique – described as a “groundbreaking series offering fabulous new looks for a wide range of people not served by mainstream fashion”.
One episode in, and it’s clear that much has shifted since the humiliations of earlier eras. One woman, Lisa, whose body has changed after cervical cancer treatment, gets her favourite clothes reworked to fit her shape. Emma Jane, whose arthritis means she uses a wheelchair, is presented with new outfits designed with the chair, and her tastes, in mind. With its jazzy soundtrack and peppy colour palette, this is uplifting, fuzzy-hearted daytime television, in which nobody is made to feel like they have fundamentally failed as a human. “I’ve got sparkle,” says Lisa, towards the end, her voice cracking. “It feels good.”
Unique Boutique leads with empathy. But with makeover shows in the past, this hasn’t always been the case. Lhouraii Li, remembers being cast on BBC Three’s Snog Marry Avoid in 2008 – in which participants were given a “makeunder”to achieve a more natural look – and being dressed in minimal, plain clothes that she wouldn’t usually wear. Li absolutely loves makeup. Online, she is now famous for painting her face blue and experimenting with surreal, alien-like looks. So the process was out of her comfort zone.
“The worst part of it was that I specifically told them I don’t show my arms or legs,” she says. “They dressed me in a room with my eyes closed and I felt the dress. I said, ‘No, absolutely not, I can’t show my arms or legs.’ But they convinced me they weren’t showing and I didn’t realise [they were] until the reveal … I’m not sure how they convinced me I was covered when I could feel I wasn’t.”
Melissa Howe, 33, also appeared on Snog Marry Avoid in 2009, with her twin sister, Carla Howe. The two are presented as ditzy and looks-obsessed. “I could tell that, with the editing, they were trying to make people look stupid,” remembers Howe. “In one scene, my dress wasn’t pulled down properly and they were like ‘leave it like that’ – it was them trying to make people look silly. I didn’t like my outfit, either. They [dressed] me in grandma-style clothes and pinned my hair into a sleek ponytail. It wasn’t my choice at all.”
It wasn’t uncommon for participants to be shoehorned into a show without being privy to the full picture. When Cheyenna Stoll, then 21, from New Jersey agreed to be on Bridalplasty, she says she wasn’t informed about the plastic surgery element when she signed up to the show (its working title, Stoll tells me, was originally House of Brides). By the time she found out that contestants might go under the knife, she just ran with it. “I was like, OK, whatever, I’ll just see what happens as it goes, and then of course I was the first person to win and get plastic surgery, which was super nerve-racking.”
Stoll was filmed immediately after a nose job. She is dazed, her face plastered in bandages. “It was a little weird because you don’t feel well, and then you have cameras in your face and you’re thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, people are going to see me in such an unpleasant light,” she says. Still, Stoll doesn’t view the experience as negative. She’s an “easygoing person” and had no qualms about having plastic surgery. “It wouldn’t be for everybody … if you’re not a very open person, it wouldn’t be a good scene.”
Sheila Conlin, a casting director and producer on numerous US makeover shows throughout the years, including The Swan and Skin Decision, remembers how, in the 2000s, the onus was often on achieving the big physical reveal. These days, an inner transformation is pushed front and centre; it’s what audiences care about most. “The Swan did incorporate inner transformation,” Conlin says. “However, back then, with the style of those shows … we only showed the physical.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Nicky Hambleton-Jones, who presented 10 Years Younger from 2004 until 2008. She tells me that participants often underwent a huge amount of inner growth, and were “amazed by the end result.” But now that aspect is prioritised. “There’s definitely more of a holistic thread to makeover shows these days; they are much more about wellness and the emotional side of it, rather than, ‘Come in, do this, do this, do this, and boom! You look amazing, and off you go’.”
Shows in the 2000s that involved plastic surgery often appeared violent: women lay on their backs in yellow-lit rooms as surgeons sliced their eyelids or carved into their stomachs. But, Conlin points out, “technology has changed completely” in the years since. So, even on recent shows that include cosmetic procedures, such as Skin Decision, everything appears a lot more subtle, less dramatic. “We have lasers, liposuction has a quicker turnaround, you can have cellulite dissolved … What happened was, there became more options that involved non-cutting,” says Conlin.
Our attitudes towards cosmetic procedures have also shifted massively. Getting a round of Botox or filler might be almost as normal as a manicure now, but it wasn’t always like that. “People were horrified that we were doing Botox, never mind plastic surgery, because nobody did that stuff at all … it created quite a stir,” remembers Hambleton-Jones. “Ironically, now it’s quite normalised.”
“It used to be fascinating – to watch and be almost appalled by what these women were doing,” says Stoll. “But now people are going to be like, ‘I had that done last week, what’s the big deal?’”
We’ve come a long way since women were regularly lambasted on TV for being frumpy and in dire need of physical transformation. The rise of body positivity and the mainstream rise of feminism has meant that, watching back, these shows are often uncomfortable. Sure, they were entertaining, even funny in their absurdity, and plenty of cast members were pleased with the results, but it’s not necessarily an era anybody wants to repeat.
Still, the slate has yet to be wiped clean. Many newer makeover shows – Unique Boutique in particular – are in some ways quietly defined by what they are not: they are po-faced as opposed to caustic, compassionate instead of shaming, more focused on inner confidence than conventional beauty standards. Are they as shocking, and therefore as engaging, as makeover shows at their peak? Maybe not. Is that a good thing? Most definitely.
