Glamour Photo Studio Can Make Everyone a Model

It’s Tuesday night, and a small crowd has gathered in front of Clix, a glamour photography studio in Westminster Mall, to watch a brunette in a gold bustier and star-spangled earrings pose on a wide video screen.

While Paula Abdul pulsates from the loudspeakers, the woman plays with the gold lame wrap that falls around her bare shoulders, angling her head so that the wind from a nearby fan will blow through her long curls.

She’s not a cover girl; she’s a customer.

She has paid Clix to paint her face, tease her hair and take her picture.

To the crowd, she’s proof of something they’ve suspected all along--that with enough makeup and the right lighting, an ordinary person can be transformed into a Cindy Crawford or a Shari Belafonte or a Madonna.

More than just making pretty pictures, Clix and other businesses like it want to give customers the illusion for two hours or so that they are among the glamorous, pampered fashion models they see on the covers of Vogue or Elle.

To a generation fed on images, the idea is enormously appealing. During its first two weeks of business last month, says Jim Neal, co-owner of Clix, the studio logged 200 appointments.

“We’re in an age when people are concerned about their appearance. They’re going to extremes to look good, and they want to memorialize it,” Neal says.

Glamour photography isn’t a new idea--studios have been popping up all over for years.

But Neal says he has already had repeat customers. One woman has had four photo sessions, he said, and now she has booked the studio for an entire day to shoot a wedding party.

“Why can’t middle America be treated like Beverly Hills?” he asks. “People don’t come in just for pictures and a make-over. They come to be pampered.”

Clix boasts of sleek surroundings that include oversize mirrors and posters of sultry faces suspended from open wood beams. Bright track lights give everything a high-gloss look. There are fresh flowers in the bathroom. And there is wine for nervous patrons.

“It’s a Disneyland for grown-ups,” says Jan Thomas, creative director and co-owner of Clix.

Clix employs many of the same tricks used to enhance the looks of real fashion models--a very bright flash to erase facial flaws and give skin a porcelain look; heavy foundation applied all over the face, chest and shoulders to even out the skin tone, and shading powder to carve out Linda Evans cheekbones where none exist.

Clients can choose from a “toy chest” of props--faux jewels, shiny lame wraps or sheer netting, hair switches, flowers and feathers.

Each customer can expect about an hour of primping with the help of at least two stylists who will work on her hair and makeup before she goes in front of the camera.

A large video monitor that flashes the patrons while they’re being photographed draws looky-loos from the mall. Five Marines stop in to ogle.

“They asked if they could work here weekends. I think they just want to look at the customers,” Neal says.

Sitting fees are $55 for women, $35 for men and children. (Men and children are charged less because they require less makeup and styling, Neal says.) The photographs are extra; for $60, for instance, the customer will get a package of five sheets of prints--one sheet can contain prints ranging from eight wallet-size pictures to one 8-by-10.

Clix attracts all kinds of people, from middle-age women to teen-agers who dream of being cover girls, Neal says. Recently, he said, Clix shot two teen-age twin girls, a man in his 20s who aspires to be a model, and an accountant who doffed her pinstripe suit and bounced around before the camera like a professional model.

“The ones you get excited about are the everyday women who have no idea what’s about to happen to them,” Thomas says. “They see themselves getting the same treatment as Christie Brinkley, and it flips them over.”

Leslie Markley, 36, of Fountain Valley, a self-described “housewife with two kids,” was having her picture taken as a birthday present for her husband.

“I’ve never done anything like this--I’ve never even had a massage,” she says. Markley is sitting before a mirror swathed in a red and gold lame wrap, her brown hair teased into a fluffy cloud.

“I want a nice, glamorous picture because I’ve lost weight,” she says. “Back then, I didn’t feel sexy at all.” She holds up a Polaroid of herself taken when she was 105 pounds heavier. The large woman in the housecoat bears little resemblance to the one about to be photographed. This one looks like a candidate for Revlon’s most unforgettable women.

By the time she emerges from the camera room, about 45 minutes later, her ego is thoroughly bolstered.

“The photographer makes you feel beautiful. He kept telling me, ‘Oh, you look great,’ and I told him, ‘Aren’t you getting tired of saying that all day?’ ”

Not all women have Markley’s confidence in their looks. Teresa Scarlett arrives for her appointment filled with trepidation.

“I don’t want to be a sexpot,” says the 54-year-old Palm Desert resident, fretting. Most customers change out of their clothes and into a white terry sarong for their sessions. Teresa modestly pulls the sarong over her plaid skirt and red knit top to avoid showing too much skin.

She has come to have her picture taken with her daughter, Maria Scarlett, a 27-year-old Costa Mesa resident who works in the mall. Teresa wants to give the portrait to her husband on their 31st wedding anniversary in June.

“We want the make-over, the whole shot,” Maria says.

“Before more wrinkles show up,” puts in her mother.

While waiting for the makeup artist, Teresa bites her fingernails. “I’m nervous. I don’t know how I’ll look,” she says.

Not until she’s under the spell of makeup artist Shelly Woodhouse does she begin to relax.

Woodhouse begins by sponging a thick layer of foundation on Teresa’s face, chest and shoulders. She strokes on blusher to define her cheekbones, then shades her eyelids with taupe and bronze shadows. She pencils in her lips, then adds lipstick to make them appear full and shiny.

“She knows what she’s doing,” says Teresa, peering shyly at herself in the mirror.

As the finishing touch, Woodhouse gives Teresa a pair of dangling rhinestone earrings to wear, then pins yards of lavender organza around her shoulders. Teresa stops her, though, when she attempts to lower the fabric to expose more flesh.

“My sexy time is gone,” she says, pushing the fabric up.

From the shoulders up, she looks like a character from “Dynasty.”

“When I came here, I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, it’s hopeless.’ But look at me now,” Teresa says.

Maria, who showed up at the studio with her auburn hair pulled back in a pony tail, emerges with a full head of curly hair and face made up with dramatic purple eye shadow and full pink lips. A wrap of iridescent lavender organza is pinned around her shoulders.

To get them to relax and open up, photographer Raul Reformina coaxes them with a steady stream of compliments and jokes--much like the Herb Rittses and the Francesco Scavullos do shooting for national magazines.

“You look mahvelous,” he says, imitating Billy Crystal. “You’re both beautiful. Let’s do the sweet mother-daughter thing. Maria, try not to squint. Chin up. Oh yes, yes. You’re so pretty. Teresa, tilt your head.”

“You look great,” says Neal, peering into the room. “I feel like a movie star,” Teresa says.

But when it’s over, she steps out of the camera room and immediately pulls off the earrings.

“Now, back to reality,” she says.