Tan France is a bit bleary eyed when I talk to him. Swigging a coffee, he explains he looks like he has been hit by a truck thanks to the melatonin (a natural sleep aid) he took the night before to try to be rested for the slightly gruelling day ahead. It’s 9:30am for him in New York, and he is on Netflix’s Next in Fashion season two press tour with his co-host and supermodel Gigi Hadid.
Obviously the impeccably groomed presenter, South Yorkshire-raised and of Pakistani heritage, who rose to stardom as Netflix’s smash hit Queer Eye’s fashion expert (six seasons and counting, plus a couple of global spin-offs), does not look like he’s been struck by a heavy goods vehicle. His sculpted grey quiff is complemented by a matching sweater vest and that trademark, but still disarming, warmth (he calls me “sweetheart”, with a grin) that has made him so loved across Queer Eye’s fanbase.
That warmth, coupled with a firmness and openness that cuts through even the thickest layers of self-loathing on that show – where he bustles round stores with unconfident people, makes them try on clothes and shows them, with a neat French tuck here and a skimming jacket there, that they too can be beautiful and sexy – has made him a formidable figure in TV, and one of the reasons Next in Fashion works. But France, 39, gives gushing credit to his new on-screen partner.
“Gigi was one of the first famous people I got to know and befriend. Even my friends see pictures of us in the press and are like, ‘that’s so weird that you’re friends with this superstar’,” he says. “The amount of times I’ve had to remind them, she’s just a person.”
A person, maybe. But one whose 77 million Instagram followers and global stardom is likely to set this second instalment of the reality fashion competition, which sees 12 designers battle Bake Off-style for $200,000, up for success. It comes after the series was originally reported to have been cut following its first season in 2020, which was hosted by France and London’s own Alexa Chung (“the greatest host the UK has ever churned out,” he drops in).
“We were made aware that this season was gonna be a little different,” France says. Not just in terms of the hosts. “In season one, we had designers who had worked in design for at least 10 to 15 years. This time, many of them are at the start of their career, some of them self-taught,” he says. Expect to brace at their finishings and construction of garments which, as France, who prior to his TV career ran several of his own successful fashion lines, politely puts it, “isn’t where it could be if it was going to be sold.”
But in sync with the fashion industry at large, he says: “we’re not looking for the next great sewer or seamstress or tailor. We’ve never been about that. We’re looking for the next creative mind who could be the head of the house and atelier who can say – this is what I’m looking for, now the people who actually sew and pattern cut will bring my creations to life.” It is a model increasingly followed by the world’s most successful luxury houses – from Loewe, where designer Johnathan Anderson’s fashion training was window dressing for Prada, to Louis Vuitton, who last month announced their new men’s creative director is to be musician Pharrell Williams.
Chung’s departure notwithstanding, France is delighted with the new set-up. “Working with Gigi was like somebody put a camera on us at home,” France says. The pair appear to have boundless energy, rushing like kids on Haribo-highs around the studio, chatting with the contestants and hosting special guests including Hailey Bieber, Donatella Versace, and, naturally, Gigi’s sister Bella Hadid.
The pair have been close for a long time. Pre-filming, Hadid was the first non-family member he FaceTimed with the news he was expecting a child, via surrogate, with Rob, his husband since 2007. “She just had her baby seven months prior,” he says, of Hadid’s son with former One Direction singer Zayn Malik, from whom she is separated. “I was like, what the eff do I do? What do I need?” France says.
The arrival of his son, Ismail, a year and a half ago, saw the presenter look back on his childhood, resulting in the BBC documentary Beauty and the Bleach, last April. In it, he travels to Britain from the US, his home of 15 years, to discuss how racism and colourism experienced as he was growing up led him to attempt skin bleaching at nine and 16 years old. It is a sombre watch; a side of France that we rarely see in his other work.
“It was the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever done,” he says. “I didn’t actually go back to Doncaster on documentary. The plan from the BBC was to go home – but sometimes I’m okay being a bit of a diva and saying ‘I ain’t doing it’. I’m in a position of power, I can say what I’m not going to do. I didn’t want to put myself back in that situation.”
It was clearly very painful. Would he raise a child in the UK today? “In South Yorkshire? No. I wouldn’t want to put my son through that. But could I raise him in Manchester or London where I think he would have a relatively fair shot? Yeah, I could,” he says.
That’s not to say that France, who was one of the first out gay Muslim men on US television, is particularly impressed with South Asian representation here in the UK. “It sucks. It really sucks. We do a much better representation of minority groups in the US. Look at the fact that me, an Asian, could get a massive show – a couple of big shows in the US, that have become global, even though there are so few Asians here,” he says. “We are still the largest minority group in the UK, Asian [9.3 per cent, ONS], and where are we on prime time? We’re not.”
I suggest a shift may have come with Rishi Sunak’s rise as the UK’s first South Asian Prime Minister, but France says he hasn’t felt the effect. “I don’t know who Rishi Sunak is – I know I’m going to sound really stupid but I just don’t care. I’ve made my career by saying what I’m thinking,” he says.
France is similarly out of touch with LGBTQ+ developments in the UK today, he admits. “I know, I have blinkers on.” In America, though, he says the situation for queer people is dire.
“A lot of rights have been taken away. Drag shows are being banned. It’s a real slippery slope – a tag-on to say, you’re corrupting our children,” he says. “It seemed like things were getting better for a few years, but we’ve seen a real left turn. People are rushing in to take away the rights of the queer community.”
For this reason, he deems his shows, like Queer Eye (“the new season coming out this year – I can’t say when,” he winks) and Next in Fashion, alongside the juggernaut that is RuPaul’s Drag Race, of great conseqeunce.
“They help people who have never seen anyone like us understand our humanity. They might not even realise it’s happening,” he says. “They’re just watching a fashion competition show and they fall in love with a contestant they don’t realise is queer, trans, whatever. Hopefully that re-frames their idea of who we actually are.”
