Phil Cohen came to the makeover project at a pivotal point in his life. Having recently divorced and shed 30 pounds, he was ripe for transformation and, I think, he blossomed under our fashion ministrations.

Menswear stores are few and far between in this town, so shopping for Phil was a challenge — and his clothes ended up costing way more than those we bought for our ladies.

But watching Phil smile as he checked out his butt in the mirror when he tried on pants from Corsini was worth it.

Phil wanted "casual elegance." We wanted something that would show his new and improved physique in its best light.

A pair of pants that fit him perfectly, thanks to free tailoring from Corsini, was a good place to start. To that, we added a white shirt and neutral colored vest so Phil's extraordinary strawberry-blond coloring could really be the star of the show. It took some doing to convince him that leaving the shirt untucked was the "casual" part of "casual elegance" and didn't just make him look sloppy, but hopefully now he's a believer.

A pair of well-made leather shoes provided the "elegance."

We threw in some sunglasses — which we borrowed from someone in the newspaper's advertising-design department — just to up his cool quotient one more notch.

At the salon, Julie Moss cropped Phil's curls short all over, but left him a little fringe to reduce the appearance of his forehead.

She used a sprinkle-on lightener to give Phil's hair the appearance of being sun-kissed, too. After that, a man-icure (sorry, I couldn't resist) and a little bit of tinted moisturizer to even out his skin tone were all Phil needed to be camera-ready.

But I believe his mind got as much of a makeover as his body.

Phil came to this project a skeptic, who seemed to believe that caring about fashion and valuing people's inner worth were mutually exclusive. But he turned out to be one of our best students, espousing by the end, almost word-for-word, my personal philosophy: that caring about our own appearance is a way of honoring those we love.

"You know (dressing well) does show a certain respect to other people, particularly those close to you," Phil said last week when I called to chat with him about his impressions of the project. "And I think it's probably OK to relax into the fact that we do live in a society that is very visually oriented, and to strike a balance, I guess is what is important ... a little bit of focus on the external things in moderation is probably healthy."

Phil said he also learned to look for clothes that fit him correctly and to consider lighter tones and a greater range of colors than the grays, blacks and blues he stuck with before.

The makeover "changed my approach a little bit and opened my mind to other possibilities," he said. "Putting any forethought into it at all was a new concept. I had a blast."