Thursday,October 5,2000

IT WAS CHER & CHER ALIKE FOR MAKEUP ARTIST

By LIBBY CALLAWAY

WHEN Kevyn Aucoin met blonde Alexandra von Furstenberg at a dinner party last year, he was immediately struck by her resemblance to Cher.

The makeup artist, who was working on his third book, wasted no time in asking the pretty socialite if she would be photographed for "Face Forward"- made up to look like the mono-monickered singer/actress.

Von Furstenberg agreed and told Aucoin his revelation wasn't exactly news.

"Over the years I've been told I look like her - and not by just one or two people," says Von Furstenberg, who is the working mother of a little girl. "I do have an oval-shaped face like her, and we have similar almond-shaped eyes."

Even so, Von Furstenberg - and her family, including husband Alexander von Furstenberg, son of fashion designer Diane - was blown away by the final results.

"When I saw the pictures, I was pretty amazed," she says. "I didn't think it would be so realistic."

Cher was similarly wowed. "She looks more like me than me!" she gasped when Aucoin showed her the photos of her doppelganger, he said.

To "become" Cher, Aucoin covered Von Furstenberg in tan body makeup, had her put in deep-brown color contacts and thick false eyelashes, and pull her blond hair up under a dark, straight wig so long it fell to the waist of the silver sparkle Bob Mackie gown she wears in the photo.

The shoot took an entire day - a time commitment von Furstenberg was happy to make to help Aucoin with his project.

"Kevyn is an artist," she explains. "He does makeup in ways that I've never seen it done before on other photo shoots. It's really old-school - like from the 1940s, when people wore a lot of makeup and were really into shading and texture."

Though von Furstenberg says she has no current plans to revisit her day spent in Cher's skin, she's happy to have been among the famous mugs in "Face Forward."

"I'm really glad I did it," she says, "because it's one of those things I'll probably never do again - not for any reason other than this is one of those books that doesn't come around very often."