DITCHING THE DRAB PROVES TO BE A DELIGHT.

Byline: PHAEDRA HAYWOOD

Paige Kitson is truly stranger than fiction. As I mentioned last week, I chose Paige as much for her personality as for her potential to be the piece de resistance in our Big Reveal shoot. And she certainly did not disappoint on either score.

From the moment we entered her apartment, she began to delight and amuse. On one wall was a collection of "man plans" lists that Paige and one of her roomies had created to define, and thus manifest, the ideal partners in their lives. Guys: If you enjoy both raucous laughter and routine, you might have a chance with Paige. But only if you have the kind of animal magnetism that makes you irresistible to her.

Homemade art and charts tracking friendly competitons between Paige and her roomie were also evident throughout the apartment, including the bathroom.

Despite her madcap persona, Paige admitted she was nervous about the makeover and had actually lost sleep the night before because she was Googling fixes for bangs gone wrong.

In her closet -- really just a rolling rack in the corner of her dorm-sized room -- hung her uniforms: Four identical zip-up hoodies exactly like the one she was wearing, two in gray, two in black.

"I do wear colorful underwear," she said proudly. Paige color-coordinates her undergarments with her mood in the following manner:

Red is In Charge. Gray is Wise. Blue is for Good Communication. Pink is Unconditional Love. And orange is for when Paige is "looking for a man."

We had many adventures shopping with Paige but two themes ran through the day. One: She tries to spot homeless people, firemen, police officers and ambulance drivers as if she were playing a game of Slug Bug (where you try to spot VW Bugs, then punch the person next to you, for those who have never played). Luckily, she didn't sock us every time she saw one. But she did call out excitedly.

The second thing that was a constant through our day was this: Paige apologized sweetly in advance to every shopkeeper and sales associate we encountered for what she was about to do to their dressing rooms. Then she would enter the dressing room and proceed to try on and discard clothes with reckless abandon, tossing everything cavalierly into a heap on the floor. We determined that changing clothes very, very fast is one of Paige's superpowers. At one point, when we had a pile of about 30 pairs of jeans the corner of a dressing room at The Gap, even I felt a little bad, so we did tidy up.

When it came to the clothes we chose for her, Paige started out with a little diplomacy at first, saying things such as: "I don't think this would look attractive on me, but I very much appreciate the outfit."

Refreshingly, that didn't last long, and soon she was telling us exactly what she thought.

One garment was pronounced very "medieval circus." About another she said "If I had a job and this were my uniform, I would quit."

At one point we had to take a needle and stick it through her ear to get her to stop. Figuratively. Believe it or not, Paige -- who has her nose and several other unmentionable bits pierced and the word "freak" tattooed on the inside of her bottom lip -- did not have pierced ears. So we took her to the Piercing Pagoda at the mall to remedy that.

Eventually (after about 12 hours of shopping), we succeeded in finding Paige an outfit. Now we could proceed to the salon stage of the process.

At the salon, as everywhere, Paige charmed the staff with her random exclamations such as "That is not a wart -- it's scar tissue," and "This is what I would look like if I was a meth user. I love meth users. They are some of my favorite people."

When Ana Moreno was polishing Paige's nails, the young women bonded over underwear symbology.

Moreno's grandmother, it

seems, recommends wearing two pairs of underwear on New Year's Eve: yellow for money and red for passion all year long.

Tune in next week: You'll see the 'do that made Paige say: "I've never had hair this short in my entire life, or bangs. Now I'm in the shocked phase. I think I need two hours and then I'm going to be in love with my hair!"