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"  I&amp;#039;m swaddled in an enormous terry-cloth robe in a master bathroom at Manhattan&amp;#039;s swank Mark Hotel, poised for a transformation at the hands of Katy Perry&amp;#039;s glam squad. The pop star&amp;#039;s stylist and best friend, Johnny Wujek, wants me to try a garland-green Elie Tahari pencil dress and plum stiletto booties. &amp;quot;Katy loves a skirt or a dress,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;A suit will never happen. Never androgyny.&amp;quot; He wraps a skinny belt around what should be a waist and cinches\u2014tight! It&amp;#039;s not easy carving Katy curves in my straight torso, the cankle of midsections. Wujek&amp;#039;s model boyfriend, Ricky Bennick, reclines on the bed, watching him work. &amp;quot;She looks sort of old, no?&amp;quot; It doesn&amp;#039;t sound like a compliment, but in this case, it is one. On the cusp of my twenty-fifth birthday, I&amp;#039;m the kind of girl who chooses leather sweatpants and oversize button-downs over pencil skirts and plunging necklines. Asked who I wanted to channel for a recent corporate headshot, I hesitated. &amp;quot;Olivier Theyskens?&amp;quot; Not his designs, but the man himself\u2014bare, even skin; lank black hair; a sort of listless, waifish beauty. Making an obvious effort with one&amp;#039;s appearance breaks certain codes of the millennial guidebook. Curled hair? Nipped waists? Uncool. But on the other end of the womanhood spectrum, there is Perry\u2014only four years my senior and evincing a kind of brazen power-femininity that gives me pause. Perry didn&amp;#039;t build her empire\u2014at last count, nine number-one hits, $39 million in earnings, and a spot between Simon Cowell and David Beckham on Forbes&amp;#039; World&amp;#039;s Most Powerful Celebrities list\u2014by borrowing from the boys; she&amp;#039;s made her very woman-ness the core of her wildly successful brand. And while full-throttle glamour may not translate to my everyday life\u2014unlike Perry, I don&amp;#039;t have a team of stylists that travels, parties, and lives with me\u2014I&amp;#039;m curious to see how far a flash of Perry power can take me. Anyway, when a pop star&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;people&amp;quot; call you up and offer you a chance to step into her shoes, whether you regard it as social anthropology or mere voyeurism, it&amp;#039;s an offer you can&amp;#039;t refuse. Earlier in the week, before my makeover, I&amp;#039;d met Perry herself in the same hotel suite. She held my perennially cold hand a few moments longer than is businesslike for a handshake, with genuine concern. &amp;quot;Is this something you were born with?&amp;quot; she asked. &amp;quot;Is it genetic?&amp;quot; I buried my chilly, purplish mitt under my notebook and diverted the question: &amp;quot;What about your hands? Your nails! They&amp;#039;re stunning!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Regular lacquer chips in two days,&amp;quot; Perry said, reaching out a glossy Bordeaux (gel-manicured) fingertip to pluck a celosia flower from a bouquet in front of her. &amp;quot;Aren&amp;#039;t they so nice?&amp;quot; Perry has a Disney-princess voice, clear and melodic, each sentence delivered in a rhythmic singsong. The regal bloom she was stroking is a key note of the project that brought us together: her new fragrance, Killer Queen, out this month. The sweet, heady scent features notes of wild berries, jasmine, praline, and patchouli, together forming a potent, ultrafeminine blend\u2014seductive, sophisticated, and adventurous\u2014as unabashed as its creator. &amp;quot;I love a strong, confident woman,&amp;quot; Perry told me. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s what I hope to put into this bottle.&amp;quot; Killer Queen&amp;#039;s tagline is &amp;quot;Own the Throne!&amp;quot; And as the only artist (after Michael Jackson) to score five number-one singles from one album, 2010&amp;#039;s Teenage Dream, and the only artist with six singles to each have sold more than 4 million copies, Perry&amp;#039;s reign is secure. But it wasn&amp;#039;t always so: Starting out in 2001 as forgettable Christian rocker Katy Hudson, she saw her first label deal go bust. Island Records dropped her. Then Columbia. Finally, she reinvented herself brilliantly, as bubblegum sexpot Katy Perry (assuming her mother&amp;#039;s maiden name), landed a deal with Capitol, and pumped out the attention-seeking anthem of 2008, &amp;quot;I Kissed a Girl,&amp;quot; at age 23. The pop star credits her now famous chutzpah to having been told no over and over again. &amp;quot;When you&amp;#039;re rejected so much when you&amp;#039;re younger, you build up an incredible desire to show what you&amp;#039;re worth,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;You can go two different ways; you either become incredibly insecure, or you become incredibly excited to show them that you&amp;#039;re exactly the opposite of what they think.&amp;quot;  Now it seems Perry wants to surprise us again\u2014this time by growing up. When we met, she was wearing a hunter-green Moschino dress with a white Peter Pan collar, a look indicative of the new Perry, a woman who prefers clean tailoring and a silhouette that shows her famous curves, without flashing so much as a single Hershey&amp;#039;s Kiss\u2013inspired undergarment. &amp;quot;When I was younger, I was a lot more silly,&amp;quot; she said, in what might be the understatement of the century. The cupcake bras may have been shelved, but she&amp;#039;s still got that playful retro wink. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not wearing St. John just yet!&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;At 28, I&amp;#039;m okay with being a real grown-up, and I like it,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;Some days I feel more feminine than others; some days I want to bring more of a power presence. It&amp;#039;s almost like having multiple personalities. Which one do I want to bring out of the closet today?&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s an appealing concept\u2014not committing to one persona. Perry smiled. &amp;quot;I can look at a 22-year-old and be like, &amp;#039;Listen, honey, this is how we do it.&amp;#039;&amp;quot;  Perhaps, though, a glimpse behind the machine will offer more insight than even Perry&amp;#039;s advice could\u2014this, after all, is where Katy Perry, Pop Sensation, is built. And my new beauty entourage\u2014Wujek, hairstylist Renato Campora, makeup artist Jake Bailey, and manicurist Patricia Yankee\u2014allows me access to the wizardry of Katy-Land in more ways than one.  &amp;quot;We went to a dodgy jazz club last night,&amp;quot; Wujek says, securing a bib of sparkle around my neck. Did Perry sing? &amp;quot;She freestyled!&amp;quot; (It seems impossible that a star of Perry&amp;#039;s magnitude could have had a somewhat normal night out, but Wujek says the pair even rode the subway on their last NYC visit.)  Campora starts in on my hair, clipping in layer upon layer of glossy extensions for signature Perry volume, then wrapping the combined length around a big-barrel curling iron, creating a tumble of silky waves. He&amp;#039;s giving me Old Hollywood red carpet, but lacking Perry&amp;#039;s innate playfulness, I feel more Real Housewives. I&amp;#039;m beginning to realize that pulling a Perry requires more than just the component parts.  Though Perry may have undergone many beauty transformations since her &amp;quot;I Kissed a Girl&amp;quot; days, the doll eyes, milky skin, and jet-black brows have remained immutable. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s always lashes and liner,&amp;quot; Bailey says. &amp;quot;Katy likes a really elegant arch. A defined lip is always part of it.&amp;quot; He breaks to smoke an e-cigarette, and I sneak a look in the mirror. So masterful is Bailey&amp;#039;s work it&amp;#039;s as though I&amp;#039;ve undergone a face transplant: I look not like Perry, exactly, but like a cartoon version of myself, with saucer eyes, porcelain skin, and full, curvy lips. Meanwhile, Yankee has lengthened my stubby nails to elegant almond-shape talons, embellished with bits of gold.  &amp;quot;What do you think?&amp;quot; Bailey asks when they&amp;#039;re finished. Despite my initial doubt, it&amp;#039;s impossible not to feel more powerful wearing stage makeup, extra hair, and an all-lady dress\u2014the key trappings of a woman to be reckoned with.  A few weeks later, I receive an invitation to attend the black-tie Fragrance Foundation Awards. I go against my initial instinct to choose a girl tux and instead slither into a tight, backless black Alexander Wang dress and dash to the event, barely checking a full-length mirror. The formfitting number is my equivalent of a costume\u2014a complete departure from my oversize daily uniform\u2014but Perry&amp;#039;s coaching makes me feel slightly more equipped for an industry event where I&amp;#039;m a good 15 years younger than the average guest.  Later that night I head to a friend&amp;#039;s concert, still in the dress. The sweaty venue is packed wall-to-wall with an entirely different crowd\u2014teen fans in snapbacks and cutoff shorts\u2014but despite looking entirely out of place, I feel like a boss. Or, come to think of it, like a woman who owns the throne. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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