New show offers style tips for the straight and clueless

By Lynn Elber
Associated Press

Fashion savants, from left, Carson Kressley and Thom Filicia rescue a straight guy with help from Kyan Douglas, Ted Allen and Jai Rodriguez on Bravo's new program "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," a makeover show featuring help from gay style mavens. Bravo

That's the premise of a Bravo series in which style-challenged straight men are overhauled by experts whose credentials include being gay.

"Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," debuting at 7 tonight with two back-to-back hours, is a clever and entertaining twist on the newly popular makeover shows. It even manages to impart a message.

Straight and gay men "are just guys, and they want to feel good about themselves," said David Collins, the series' creator. "We all do."

In "Queer Eye," gay and straight men forge a new kind of brotherhood, bonded by properly applied hair gel.

Gay men in the series are leagues ahead in knowing how to achieve lifestyle perfection. The straight men are a group of sad sacks in need of rehab. They don't know how to dress or groom themselves properly, make their homes comfortable or entertain.

"Let's talk about the shaving, or lack thereof," one "Queer Eye" expert tells a stubbly subject. "Shaving is one of the simple things you can do to make it look like you've given some thought to your look."

"He looks like a clown," a wife says, lamenting her unkempt spouse.

A second gay-themed series arrives on Bravo on July 29. In "Boy Meets Boy," a gay leading man will choose from 15 potential mates — with the twist that some are actually heterosexual.

Bravo has run gay-themed programming in the past, including last summer's documentary series on same-sex weddings and, for several years, the "Out of the Closet" film festival.

While there is some stereotyping in "Queer Eye," Collins emphasizes that each of the style mavens — the "fab five" — stands on his professional credentials.

"We were very specific about the fact that just because you're gay doesn't give you style, taste and class," Collins said.

The pros include food and wine connoisseur Ted Allen, co-author of Esquire magazine's "Things a Man Should Know" column; and Thom Filicia, named by House Beautiful magazine as one of America's top designers. Culture maven Jai Rodriguez, "grooming guru" Kyan Douglas and fashion sage Carson Kressley round out the advisory board.

Kressley is a hoot. "You put a living room where a crack den used to be," he exclaims, lauding a colleague's apartment makeover. When he hears a menu includes an expensive kind of ham, he quips:

"I love a good designer meat."

The experts are quite serious about helping their straight charges look, feel and live better. In the first episode, they get a scruffy artist ready for a gallery exhibit. The second hour features a scruffy husband — there's a trend here — and his home get overhauled for the wife's birthday.

The series, said to be the first to promote same-sex relationships, already has drawn criticism from the Washington-based Traditional Values Coalition.

The idea for the series came to Collins while gallery-hopping in Boston. He overheard a woman compare her spouse unfavorably to a trio of sharp-looking gay men. The three men, who heard, intervened to offer constructive criticism. "As I left with my buddy,

I jokingly said, 'That was kind of the queer eye for the straight guy.' These guys swooped in there and helped this man out," he said.

Collins marched into Scout Productions, the film and TV company he co-founded, and suggested a show had been born. He enlisted a straight colleague, David Metzler, to join in producing it for Bravo.

The "straight guy/gay guy perspective" is at the heart of the show, Collins said. "We're hoping to break down some walls here."

In what turned out to be a lucky break, Bravo was bought by NBC after the channel picked up "Queer Eye" — and Jeff Gaspin, the NBC executive vice whose responsibilities include the cable channel, was enthusiastic about the series.

That support has translated into on-air NBC promotions as well as high-profile billboards touting "Queer Eye" on Times Square and Sunset Boulevard.

Like NBC's gay-themed sitcom "Will & Grace," the Bravo series breaks ground, Gaspin said. "We're taking a common genre, the makeover show, and we're being really honest with it, we're having fun with it."

Men aren't usually attracted to makeover programs, but Gaspin thinks "Queer Eye" has a chance to pull them in. He's not promising they'll take advantage of the tips.

"One thing the show is saying is if you look better, if you feel better, it's part of overall confidence-building," he said. "Take the time to have a manicure, a shave, cut your hair, get some highlights. It doesn't make you gay."