Real Dolls

See more photos of the Pussycat Dolls

Here’s a sweet birthday present: getting to be a Pussycat Doll for a night. That’s the gift a Russian banker has purchased for his wife, a trim 35-year-old blonde, at a lavish party he’s throwing at The Beverly Hills Hotel. The gift has been giving for a week now—before her transformation was complete, she attended sex-kitten boot camp with the quintet’s assistant choreographer, learning how to prance, gyrate, bend and spin, and finally mastering all of the above while bound in layers of sparkly latex. (OK, it doesn’t sound like such a bad present for the banker, either.)  

Tonight, at the party, the Pussycat Dolls gather in an upstairs suite to do their hair and makeup. They’re each debuting a new look, just in time for their second album, Doll Domination. Kimberly Wyatt (spiky short blond hair) wears a single lightning-bolt earring and comes across like some anime biker-chick superhero. Ashley Roberts (flowing Jessica Simpson do) sports a black corset and red spandex hot pants, like a stripper on her way to the gym. Jessica Sutta (dyed red hair) taps an old-school Hollywood-pinup vibe. Melody Thornton (brunette with golden highlights) has hoop earrings with the word baby inside them, to remind everyone that she is the group’s youngest. And then there’s Nicole Scherzinger—part Hawaiian, part Filipino, part Russian—dressed for a night of light aerobic bondage in a black bra, black shorts and knee-high black boots.

Before the show, they sip champagne on a sprawling terrace, taking in the city view. They’ve just devoured room-service mac ’n’ cheese, a small act of rebellion: In addition to twice-daily workouts, the Dolls’ diets have been restricted to home-­delivered meals calibrated down to the calorie. But in PCD land, being sexy means breaking the rules—these girls get paid to act out a salacious fantasy of appetite-indulging, convention-smashing female liberation, making the case with every bump ’n’ grind performance that you can’t spell midriff without id—so, tonight, mac ’n’ cheese is sexy.

As they walk through the hotel kitchen to the ballroom, they’re wearing elaborate Venetian masks—red, blue and leopard print. They invite the birthday girl to join them in a pre-show huddle (“1,2,3: PCD!”) before bounding onto the stage, cheerleaders as styled by a classroom of 14-year-old boys. Halfway through “Don’t Cha”—the 2005 single that introduced them to the world as down-for-whatever, ­boyfriend-snatching nymphs—they rip off the masks, revealing the birthday girl to her cheering guests. If her father is here, let’s hope he’s taking a cigarette break right now.

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