A Guide to Tan France's Life and Career in Fashion

Tan France is a television personality and the fashion guru and style expert of Netflix's renewed Queer Eye series. Born Tanveer Safdar, Tan grew up in a strict Pakistani Muslim family in South Yorkshire, England. When he was seven years old, he visited his grandfather’s denim factory and fell in love with fashion. Tan held on to that feeling throughout his adolescence, altering and elevating his own clothes at home before eventually studying fashion in college.

As an adult, Tan moved to London and worked corporate jobs for major retailers like Zara, Selfridges, and Chanel. After taking a leap and moving to the United States, he struck out on his own as a fashion designer, starting the fashion lines Kingdom & State and Rachel Parcell Inc.
By 33, Tan was successful enough to be able to sell his businesses and retire comfortably.

In 2018, Netflix cast him in its reboot of the makeover show Queer Eye, which became a popular, Emmy-winning sensation. Tan became one of the most visible, sought-after personal stylists in the world—and made history as the first openly LGBTQ South Asian man on television. Tan also co-hosted the fun and fast-paced 2020 Netflix fashion design competition series, Next in Fashion alongside Alexa Chung.

Over the last decade, Tan has become a recognizable style expert and a bona fide household name. Here are some of his notable media projects, from TV shows to web series, to his best-selling memoir.

1. 1. Queer Eye: Originally premiering on Bravo in 2003 and resurrected by Netflix in 2020, Queer Eye was an instant hit that brought Tan’s fashion expertise into homes across America and around the world. Along with the rest of the fab five—including Jonathan Van Ness, Karamo Brown, Antoni Porowski, and Bobby Berk—Tan helps to revamp and refresh their subjects’ lives. He starts by asking the makeover subjects a number of questions, including “Was there ever an outfit that made you feel amazing?” Armed with the results from the questionnaire, he and a team of stylists hunt for items that can help evoke the feelings of that one memorable outfit over and over again. Then, Tan and the subject will do a store visit and try on various items before Tan finally assembles an ideal capsule wardrobe.
2. 2. Dressing Funny web series: In 2019, Tan launched his own web series through Netflix's YouTube channel, called Dressing Funny. In the series, Tan gives humorous makeovers and style tips to celebrities including Miranda Sings, Rachel Dratch, Nick Kroll, and Ali Wong. The series won the Webby People's Voice Award for Best Variety Show in 2020.
3. 3. Next in Fashion: Tan co-hosted the Netflix fashion competition show Next in Fashion alongside model and designer Alexa Chung. The show centered on designers from around the world as they compete in a series of weekly design challenges for a grand prize of $250,000 and a capsule collection released on the fashion retail website Net-a-Porter.
4. 4. Naturally Tan: Love, Family, Queer Eye, and What I Wore: In 2019, Tan published his memoir, Naturally Tan: Love, Family, Queer Eye, and What I Wore, which became a New York Times bestseller. In the book, Tan writes about growing up in South Yorkshire as a person of color and discovering his sexuality in a religious household. He talks candidly about his experiences on the Netflix show Queer Eye, and about meeting his husband, a Mormon cowboy from Salt Lake City. The book was named one of the hottest books of the summer by USA Today and one of the best nonfiction book of 2019 by Women's Day.

Get a MasterClass Annual Membership and let Tan France be your very own style maestro. Queer Eye’s fashion guru spills everything he knows about building a capsule collection, finding a signature look, understanding proportions, and more (including why it’s important to wear underwear to bed)—all in a soothing British accent, no less.