Tan France

Queer Eye’s Sartorial Expert Of The Gorgeous Brows And The Life-giving French Tuck, Talks To Iva Dixit About His Overnight Rise To Global Fame And The Rewards And Responsibilities Of Being A Queer Brown Celebrity.

- Iva Dixit

“I had exactly six days off last year; I’m trained for this, don’t worry,” is Tan France’s reassurance to me when I suggest he take a minute to recover from the eight hours of nonstop photo-taking, where he’s been twirling in a Moschino couture cape and a sequinned jumpsuit, balancing a series of elaborate floral headpieces, and tottering in six-inch thigh-high platform boots shaped like Pikachu. His schedule has been like this ever since he went from wholesaler of modest clothing for a largely Mormon clientele to one of the stars of Netflix’s Queer Eye, where he became the sartorial soothsayer to an enraptured nation that couldn’t get enough of his French tucks, his wry sunniness, and that impeccable, immovable quiff. “I feel like the luckiest boy in the world because I got this extra career that I never planned on,” he says.

Before Queer Eye, before the parts on SNL, before he caused the Google search for ‘French tuck’ to skyrocket and taught hapless straight men across America an easy trick about the marvels of proportion, the soft-spoken Utahn had his life all mapped out. He’d sold the two modest clothing brands that he’d started in his twenties (“The first couple of years were hellacious, but after that they became quite successful, quite quickly!”). He retired at 33. He was going to have children with his husband, the illustrator Rob France, and be a stay-at-home dad. His plan proceeded quite smoothly… for five days, before a friend of a friend called to tell him about the Queer Eye auditions. He promptly said no.