This isn’t much of a secret, but Tan France’s generosity knows no limits. He’s provided several lifetimes’ worth of fashion and life advice through his work on eight seasons of Queer Eye (with the newest set to premiere in January) and Next in Fashion, the competition show he hosts with Gigi Hadid. But his taste extends beyond closets—and it shows in every corner of his home.
Fresh off a move into his dream house, which he made with his husband and two toddler-aged children, France has a decor style as polished and personal as his wardrobe.
While not everyone has the luxury of creating their ideal home from scratch like he did, France says the biggest impact comes from customizing even the smallest of details. From wallpapering to deciding on a cohesive theme that feels like you to kid-proofing without sacrificing your biggest wants, his design process is one-size-fits-all.
And while he’s every bit as posh as he comes across on TV (in the best way), his House Rules couldn’t be more relatable. France loves a relaxed get together—when you come over, everything is provided for you; he’s doing the cooking (and baking). The only things he asks of you: Take off your shoes, keep food out of the living room, and don’t look in his closet.
Tan France’s House Rules—and Making Your Space Your Own
If you had to hang a list of rules in your home, what would they be?
- As you enter my home, you must remove your shoes. It’s a very Eastern thing; my family is South Asian. We are also Muslim, and therefore we’re not allowed to have shoes in the house, and I just think it’s a kindness. You know that episode of Sex and the City where Carrie was asked to take her shoes off at a party? I remember watching that episode because it was such a to-do, and even the articles coming out about it saying how insane it was that you would ask somebody to remove their shoes in your house—like, what are you talking about? Everywhere else in the world they do that because it’s clean.
- No food in my living room. There’s a dining room that’s for food; eat there. When you come to my home, if I’m cooking for you, I will ask you about your dietary restrictions beforehand so that you can eat everything, and therefore everything will be provided for you. Everything is for you; you can eat everything.
- No use of things that could destroy the walls. That’s for my kids.
- No one’s allowed to enter my closet; nobody’s allowed to enter my bedroom.
- We have a guest house at the new house, and that is especially for guests who will hopefully stay a few days. No treating it like it’s just my house—do whatever you want. Eat whatever you want that’s in that fridge; use whatever appliance that is there. Asians in particular, maybe a lot of other cultures feel this way, but as soon as you enter that home as a guest we want you to feel as comfortable as possible. Don’t ask—do it. If you want something from the fridge, go get it.
- No gaming in my house. We typically have gals and gays evenings because all of our friends are female, and they’ve brought their husbands. And their husbands sat on a sofa for about six hours gaming. So if you come into my house, you will partake in whatever else everybody else is doing. You will sit around the dinner table. You will not sit there just because you’re all straight dudes playing. And when I say gaming—I mean I’ve never done it so I don’t understand it—but fully gaming. They brought it with them. I’m like, ‘If you want to come to my house, enjoy what we’re all doing. Don’t bring your own devices so you can just play Call of Duty with people.’
- No football on TV. No sports on my TV. [If you’re staying in the guest house] go stay, but when you’re just staying for a couple of hours, you don’t put sports onto my TV, thank you so much. I hate sports; not in my house.
I’m like, ‘If you want to come to my house, enjoy what we’re all doing. Don’t bring your own devices so you can just play Call of Duty with people.’
You recently moved into your dream home—how did you know it was the one, and what are some of your favorite elements?
We officially moved three days ago, but we are currently moving out of this home which is the home that we’ve lived in the last six years. The new home—we had it built; my husband and I designed the home over the last two and a half years. I don't have a favorite section quite honestly because I’m obsessed with everything. The house is so gorgeous, and I can’t wait for the world to see it. I think it is magical, and what makes it my dream home is that it’s a Tudor home. It’s the kind of home I’ve always wanted to live in, and it’s the kind of home that I just know I will never want to sell; I’ll never want to move from—it’s my forever home. It’s in the location I’ve always been obsessed with, and I can't wait for my kids to be raised there.
When you’re decorating a space, what’s your process like once you have your vision, and how do you execute it? Is it similar to the way you might put together an outfit?
So the first thing we talked about when we were doing the house and designing every space… we were so particular about every damn space, like down to the hardware—we got custom designed hardware, custom designed the furniture, the wallpaper, so that feels just so uniquely us.
So the first question is, ‘What do we want to feel in this space? [We don’t] just want it to be pretty, want it to be nice, what do we actually want to feel?’ I want to feel calm; I want to feel peace; I want to feel joy; I want to feel excitement. I want this room to give me energy. And so that's how we start. And then, ‘What are the colors that make us feel that way?’
Then we typically start with—the whole house is wallpapered. What kind of wallpaper do we look at in this space that’s going to make us feel that thing that we want to feel? And once we’ve got the wallpaper, we then start to work on everything else that goes in it because of the patterns that’s on the paper, the color that’s on the paper.
ANNIE SCHLECHTER
Basically, I see it as an extension of what I do with clothes in fashion, which is when I’m designing a collection, I will usually start with a print that I love. And it’s typically a print that I've seen on an actress in the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s. I love vintage, so I’ll watch old Hollywood and Bollywood movies and see colors I love together, then try and create a print around those.
Then I’ll take that, put it onto paper, and then extract colors from that to build out the rest of the room. For example, our dining room right now: That gorgeous wallpaper [has] elements of pink and burgundy, and so for the fireplace brick we chose was terracotta, but it’s got a hint of pink to it. And it has this tiny bit of blue throughout the paper, so the dining chairs are blue. It has a tiny bit of burgundy, so the rug that we use is burgundy. So at every turn, we’re looking at the paper to see what we can take from it that will pull the room together.
Basically, I see it as an extension of what I do with clothes in fashion, which is when I’m designing a collection, I will usually start with a print that I love.
Wallpaper has been huge recently.
Well, here's the thing: The Americans were sleeping on wallpaper. The Brits have been using wallpaper. We don’t typically use paint in our spaces other than the trims because it’s cold, and wallpaper adds so much warmth and reduces the echo. I don't understand why it’s taken so long for the Americans to catch up.
Are there any other ways that you add personal touches to make your house into a home?
Yeah, when it comes to the soft furnishings that we use—this is an obvious thing, but for anyone who’s not excited or doesn’t really understand interior design or design—those layers of texture are really important to me, just as important in fashion when I’m throwing on an outfit, I’m not wearing the same fabric in every piece I'm wearing. So I’ll wear denim, then I'll add leather—I want those layers of fabrics to really complement each other but also highlight the differences between the things that I wanted to highlight.
And so that’s the case with the household. So the fabric for the rug is very different from the fabric on the sofa, which is very different from the fabric of the ottoman, which is very different from the fabric of the pillows that we’re using. And so all those things help it feel a lot more like a home. It’s not just a studio; it’s not just a showroom. I curated every one of these fabrics to make it feel like a home because of my family.
And speaking of families—I’m sure there are many, but how have some of the ways you decorate changed since becoming a father?
Because we have two children—we have a two-year-old and a five-year-old who is getting into literally everything. We know that he’s going to destroy this new house. However, we didn’t want to compromise the walls. Having children really implements the kind of furniture we have in the house—where we place hardware, what kind of art we can have—so we’ve tried to do things that don't have sharp corners. Everything has a rounded corner so that if one of them bumps their head, it’s not going to cut them. We put hardware on the fridge and freezer that’s a lot higher than we typically would have so they can’t open that easily. The spacing of our banisters is a lot tighter than it ever would have been if we didn’t have kids.
But when it comes to things like the wallpaper, I still wanted those gorgeous custom murals. And I just know they’re gonna ruin it, and I’ll just say, ‘Okay. I had it for a few months. I had the home of my dreams, and you ruined it.’ And then later we’ll change it out for a few months then later we’ll change it out to something that you won’t ruin.
Holidays at the Frances’
Two reasons I keep [my tree] up late: I’m lazy. It takes ages to take it down. Putting up is really easy, taking it down is a nightmare. But also, why wouldn’t you want that joy?
When do you start decorating for the holidays?
Halloween. For the last 12 years, we have put up our tree on Halloween, and it comes down on Valentine’s Day. And I know everyone thinks I’m crazy. It brings me so much joy. And I say, ‘Why would you limit joy to three or four weeks?’ That is bonkers to me. And so if you’re in your home, and everyone else appreciates it, who cares if the general public thinks you’re nuts? As long as it makes you happy and you’re not doing any harm to anyone else, do it.
Two reasons I keep [my tree] up late: I’m lazy. It takes ages to take it down. Putting up is really easy, taking it down is a nightmare. But also, why wouldn’t you want that joy?
Do you have any favorite holiday traditions to celebrate? Are there any that you’ve brought over from the UK that you’d like to share with people?
So I know that that's a very, very American way of doing a Christmas dinner or a Thanksgiving feast. Whenever we do Thanksgiving or Christmas, we do a more British version of it, which is a little more simple and a lot less sweet.
So it’s typically always the same—it’s a roast of some sort, whether it be—well, it’s usually chicken in our house or turkey. We don’t really love the rack of lamb or anything like that. And then we do roasted vegetables and Yorkshire puddings which are not at all part of American standards. We like German pancakes. We always have English gravy. We get it from Amazon, and that’s the gravy we use. We use parsnips a lot as opposed to other American vegetables. We don’t have sweet potato casserole with marshmallows; we find mixing dessert and savory very odd. We don’t have cranberry juice, that’s also a sweet thing—we don’t mix savory and sweet, so our holiday food is very much English.
Speaking of UK traditions, are there any in general you’re passionate about introducing here?
Almost every nation has a version of this, they just maybe don’t have a name for it—but also many places have a name for it. Australia does, New Zealand does, Canada does, and England really does: We call it Elevenses.
Elevenses is the time of day around about 10:30 or 11 o’clock when you’re typically at work, and you start to get peckish. That’s a very English term—hungry, snackish. And so typically in England, you’re going for a breakfast bar or a yogurt, but very typically yogurt. And so Noosa asked me if I would help them name this time in America because obviously they are a yogurt, and they’ve heard me say many times over the last few years, they’re my favorite yogurt. Even though I was not endorsed by them in any way back in the day, I would say there’s only good yogurt in America, and that’s Noosa. And so they asked if I would join their campaign to simply encourage Americans to attach the British name to it, which is Elevenses. Because of all the names across the world for this big morning snack, it’s the one that is the most obvious that makes it very clear what it is. So get your yogurt.
Editor’s note: France has partnered with yogurt brand Noosa to promote the concept of Elevenses in the U.S.
How do you like to set the mood for a holiday get together?
A candle for sure, usually something piney. I do love Christmas music. And I dim the lights. And always get some kind of stew going.
Do you prefer a casual or formal feel when it comes to hosting?
Always casual. Whenever somebody comes over to our house, I always say please wear sweats or pajamas. I’m not dressing up; don’t you feel pressured to dress up.
I know you're a big baker; what’s your favorite thing to bake for the holidays?
Do you know what—my favorite bake all year is Ina Garten’s chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. But then I do my version of it, which is I add so much ginger in many forms. Crystallized ginger, stem ginger, ginger powder—and so with every layer you've got a different kind of ginger. It’s magical. I love ginger and chocolate together.