THE JOURNAL

Left to right: Messrs Karamo Brown, Bobby Berk, Tan France, Antoni Porowski and Jonathan Van Ness. Photograph by Mr Christopher Smith/Netflix
We’re not crying; you’re crying. That just about sums up our feelings upon completing the third outing of Queer Eye, Netflix’s rebooted, reimagined and, some have posited, revolutionary series based on the early-2000s show of the same name. If you haven’t tuned in, it would be easy to dismiss our lachrymose reaction as hyperbolic, but then you’ve yet to experience the overwhelming catharsis that comes with one of Mr Karamo Brown’s pep talks.
If its updated tagline, “More than a makeover”, hasn’t clued you in, the new Queer Eye is less about primping or perfecting its subjects’ exteriors and more about buoying their self-esteem. It does this without judgement or sneering asides, but with honest and earnest compassion and, it must be said, just a spoonful of saccharine sweetness. Each episode plays like a week-long therapy session, interrupted with flying visits to the barber, tailor and West Elm. Style, quite rightly, is secondary to the Fab Five’s mission. But it is there, nonetheless – in Mr Tan France’s French tuck, Mr Antoni Porowski’s 1980s-inspired gym kit and Mr Jonathan Van Ness’s generously oversized knitwear collection. Read on for three sartorial lessons we gleaned between sobs.

01.
Return of the 'tache
Most men’s grooming regimes are set in stone, with little deviation from a tried-and-tested formula, right? That might have been true in the past, but that was before Mr Van Ness (with the good hair) showed up. The personal maintenance expert and fierce proponent of the “spray, delay, then walk away” doctrine spent the bulk of this season proving that a moustache is not just for Movember. Mr Van Ness wears his expertly curled handlebar variety with a full beard and heels, paving the way for what we hope to be further facial hair experimentation in the future.

02.
Try a (slight) heel
While an iota of Mr France’s advice is recycled with undue regularity (does a printed shirt really serve as a “conversation starter”?), most of the fashion consultant’s style tips are precision-tailored to the sartorial needs of the individual. So, no, a pair of Cuban heels won’t be for everyone, but for those who need a slight vertical lift from time to time – or are wont to wear skinny-fit jeans – they’re not a terrible idea. And, to quote the usually self-deprecating Robert from episode four, they can, er, make you feel “sexy”. The jury’s still out on whether anything higher than an inch will hit the mainstream anytime soon, but hey, it’s got legs.

03.
Go hell for leather
Whether it’s Mr Porowski’s skin-tight leather trousers or the reckless abandon with which Mr France dishes out moto jackets, the main takeaway from season three style-wise is that leather is back in the sartorial good books. Not that it ever left. Leather jackets are hardly the “everyman” of outerwear, given their associations with Mr Marlon Brando’s 1953 film The Wild One, but it’s precisely for this reason that every man wants to wear one. And the good news? As these eight episodes prove, pretty much everyone looks great in one.