‘Queer Eye’ Designer Bobby Berk on Meaningful Makeovers
Before Netflix streams season 2 episodes June 15, we talk with Berk about designing for happiness and finding your style
There’s an episode in the first season of Netflix’s rebooted Queer Eye series where the show’s style experts make over an overworked father of six who has a cluttered, dysfunctional house.
For Bobby Berk, the Los Angeles-based designer behind Queer Eye’s home redos, the moment after he and his co-hosts revealed Bobby Camp’s revamped living space exemplified just how powerful home design can be.
For Bobby Berk, the Los Angeles-based designer behind Queer Eye’s home redos, the moment after he and his co-hosts revealed Bobby Camp’s revamped living space exemplified just how powerful home design can be.
Berk has a heart-to-heart with makeover subject Camp in season one. Photo from Netflix
Of course, not every living room renovation prompts such deep revelations. But as Queer Eye’s popular and surprisingly poignant first season showed, putting effort and feeling into the place where you live (and other parts of your life) can make a big emotional impact. According to Berk, fans can expect even more heartfelt life overhauls when season two debuts on the streaming platform June 15.
Of course, not every living room renovation prompts such deep revelations. But as Queer Eye’s popular and surprisingly poignant first season showed, putting effort and feeling into the place where you live (and other parts of your life) can make a big emotional impact. According to Berk, fans can expect even more heartfelt life overhauls when season two debuts on the streaming platform June 15.
The “Queer Eye” Fab 5 in season two: Berk, Karamo Brown, Tan France, Jonathan Van Ness and Antoni Porowski. Photo from Netflix
The weightier elements that have garnered much of the show’s buzz came as a surprise even to Berk and Queer Eye’s fellow lifestyle pros (known to fans as The Fab 5). In addition to the importance of skin care and smart home storage, episodes have touched on race relations, self-confidence, and reconciling homosexuality and religion. “It was just supposed to be a makeover show,” Berk says. “I was just supposed to be putting in a new sofa and painting a wall like the original show [which aired on Bravo from 2003 to 2007]. Never did we ever expect to be touching on the subjects that we are.”
Berk says it was the happiness-boosting potential of good home design that first sparked his interest in the industry at a young age. He remembers visiting a Target store with his mom soon after the retail chain had launched its first-ever designer collaboration — in 1999 with architect Michael Graves — and leaving inspired.
The weightier elements that have garnered much of the show’s buzz came as a surprise even to Berk and Queer Eye’s fellow lifestyle pros (known to fans as The Fab 5). In addition to the importance of skin care and smart home storage, episodes have touched on race relations, self-confidence, and reconciling homosexuality and religion. “It was just supposed to be a makeover show,” Berk says. “I was just supposed to be putting in a new sofa and painting a wall like the original show [which aired on Bravo from 2003 to 2007]. Never did we ever expect to be touching on the subjects that we are.”
Berk says it was the happiness-boosting potential of good home design that first sparked his interest in the industry at a young age. He remembers visiting a Target store with his mom soon after the retail chain had launched its first-ever designer collaboration — in 1999 with architect Michael Graves — and leaving inspired.
A dining room design by Bobby Berk Home
“I remember walking in and seeing these teakettles and toasters and spatulas and things, and just thinking never before had I thought of things in the home as being design, or things in your home as being things that could make you happy. A toaster was just a toaster,” Berk says. “But to go in there and see [that] there are things out there that are not only functional but are cool and can actually give you a sense of happiness was a new concept for me growing up in Missouri.”
On the show, and in his projects with his product line and Bobby Berk Interiors + Design firm, Berk works to pay that sense of home-based happiness forward (his Twitter bio even says he’s “using decor to help change lives”). The Queer Eye makeovers (or “makebetters,” as Berk lovingly describes them) typically call for that life-changing to take place in just a few days — putting some added pressure on Berk, who is sometimes reconfiguring a whole apartment or floor instead of taking subjects clothes shopping or styling their hair, as his Fab 5 peers do.
“I remember walking in and seeing these teakettles and toasters and spatulas and things, and just thinking never before had I thought of things in the home as being design, or things in your home as being things that could make you happy. A toaster was just a toaster,” Berk says. “But to go in there and see [that] there are things out there that are not only functional but are cool and can actually give you a sense of happiness was a new concept for me growing up in Missouri.”
On the show, and in his projects with his product line and Bobby Berk Interiors + Design firm, Berk works to pay that sense of home-based happiness forward (his Twitter bio even says he’s “using decor to help change lives”). The Queer Eye makeovers (or “makebetters,” as Berk lovingly describes them) typically call for that life-changing to take place in just a few days — putting some added pressure on Berk, who is sometimes reconfiguring a whole apartment or floor instead of taking subjects clothes shopping or styling their hair, as his Fab 5 peers do.
Photo by Alex Generales
What Happens Behind the Scenes
Berk usually first sees a Queer Eye home late on a Tuesday afternoon, he says, and needs to have his work completed by Friday morning. “What you don’t see, because our show is predominantly about being made better on the inside instead of on the outside, is the fact that the moment my other Fabbers leave on Tuesday, I have a whole team of people,” he says. “All of the construction part happens in the first two days, and then the last day is me and my team going in there and installing all of the furniture, and we’re usually steaming curtains as they’re setting up the cameras to start filming on Friday.”
Fans also don’t get to see some of the renovation issues Berk and his team run into behind the scenes. In the second season, for example, Berk says he was sealing off an awkwardly placed, underused dining room closet in one home to create a bigger master closet on the opposite wall. “While we were doing that, we found out that the home was severely infested with termites,” he says. “So we had to rip out a lot of walls to save their house. None of that makes it on the show.”
What Happens Behind the Scenes
Berk usually first sees a Queer Eye home late on a Tuesday afternoon, he says, and needs to have his work completed by Friday morning. “What you don’t see, because our show is predominantly about being made better on the inside instead of on the outside, is the fact that the moment my other Fabbers leave on Tuesday, I have a whole team of people,” he says. “All of the construction part happens in the first two days, and then the last day is me and my team going in there and installing all of the furniture, and we’re usually steaming curtains as they’re setting up the cameras to start filming on Friday.”
Fans also don’t get to see some of the renovation issues Berk and his team run into behind the scenes. In the second season, for example, Berk says he was sealing off an awkwardly placed, underused dining room closet in one home to create a bigger master closet on the opposite wall. “While we were doing that, we found out that the home was severely infested with termites,” he says. “So we had to rip out a lot of walls to save their house. None of that makes it on the show.”
Berk talks with makeover subject Remington Porter in season one. Photo from Netflix
What always does seem to make the final cut, however, is a process so many homeowners struggle with: zeroing in on their unique personal aesthetic. Creating a joyful space that reflects someone’s style and needs, Berk says, starts with determining what a homeowner feels drawn to generally. “When I first start working with a residential client, I tell them [to] make me a vision board and don’t just include things that have to do with the home,” Berk says. “I’m like, ‘I want you to include sweaters. If there’s a painting that you love or a building that you love or a pool float, include all that.’ So that way you really start to get a sense of what you like and enjoy that’s going to make you happy.”
In the case of Remington Porter, a young Queer Eye season one makeover subject who was living in his late grandmother’s 1970s-decor-time-capsule of a home, Berk had to start from scratch. “He had no idea what his aesthetic was,” Berk says. “The only thing I had to go on was that he wanted to open up his own marketing firm, his favorite show was Mad Men, his icon was [Mad Men protagonist] Don Draper and his ideal vacation was Cuba.”
Berk eventually combined those qualities into a sleek midcentury modern bachelor pad with colorful Cuban flair. “He loved it, and he was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I never would have thought this was my style, but oh my gosh, this is exactly my style,’” Berk says.
See how to use ideabooks to gather inspiration photos
What always does seem to make the final cut, however, is a process so many homeowners struggle with: zeroing in on their unique personal aesthetic. Creating a joyful space that reflects someone’s style and needs, Berk says, starts with determining what a homeowner feels drawn to generally. “When I first start working with a residential client, I tell them [to] make me a vision board and don’t just include things that have to do with the home,” Berk says. “I’m like, ‘I want you to include sweaters. If there’s a painting that you love or a building that you love or a pool float, include all that.’ So that way you really start to get a sense of what you like and enjoy that’s going to make you happy.”
In the case of Remington Porter, a young Queer Eye season one makeover subject who was living in his late grandmother’s 1970s-decor-time-capsule of a home, Berk had to start from scratch. “He had no idea what his aesthetic was,” Berk says. “The only thing I had to go on was that he wanted to open up his own marketing firm, his favorite show was Mad Men, his icon was [Mad Men protagonist] Don Draper and his ideal vacation was Cuba.”
Berk eventually combined those qualities into a sleek midcentury modern bachelor pad with colorful Cuban flair. “He loved it, and he was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I never would have thought this was my style, but oh my gosh, this is exactly my style,’” Berk says.
See how to use ideabooks to gather inspiration photos
Builder magazine’s Responsive Home Gallery House by Bobby Berk Home
It was just one example of the guidance a home design pro can offer an uncertain or overwhelmed homeowner, Berk says. “We do this all day long, so we’re really good at being able to take cues and hearing things that you’re talking about that give us a little view into what you love without you even realizing it.” Even if you don’t have the wisdom of The Fab 5 at your disposal, hiring a design professional can save you a lot of headaches and often, he says, a lot of money since they can help you spend where it counts and avoid getting ripped off.
Find interior designers and see photos of their work
It was just one example of the guidance a home design pro can offer an uncertain or overwhelmed homeowner, Berk says. “We do this all day long, so we’re really good at being able to take cues and hearing things that you’re talking about that give us a little view into what you love without you even realizing it.” Even if you don’t have the wisdom of The Fab 5 at your disposal, hiring a design professional can save you a lot of headaches and often, he says, a lot of money since they can help you spend where it counts and avoid getting ripped off.
Find interior designers and see photos of their work
The Fab 5 with season two makeover subject Tammye Hicks and her son. Photo from Netflix
What’s New This Season
With season two, Queer Eye fans can look forward to Tammye Hicks, the show’s first female makeover subject (or “makebetter hero,” as Berk would say), and the first transgender makeover subject. “We’re helping out our first trans guy, and I’m really excited about that because I think it will really open up a window for the general public and the world to kind of see the struggle that our trans brothers and sisters go through,” Berk says. “And with knowledge comes acceptance.”
Also on the season two docket, according to Berk: “more designs that I can’t believe that we had time to pull off.”
All episodes of Queer Eye season two will start streaming on Netflix on June 15.
More: See fellow Queer Eye star Antoni Porowski’s Brooklyn apartment in our 2015 feature
What’s New This Season
With season two, Queer Eye fans can look forward to Tammye Hicks, the show’s first female makeover subject (or “makebetter hero,” as Berk would say), and the first transgender makeover subject. “We’re helping out our first trans guy, and I’m really excited about that because I think it will really open up a window for the general public and the world to kind of see the struggle that our trans brothers and sisters go through,” Berk says. “And with knowledge comes acceptance.”
Also on the season two docket, according to Berk: “more designs that I can’t believe that we had time to pull off.”
All episodes of Queer Eye season two will start streaming on Netflix on June 15.
More: See fellow Queer Eye star Antoni Porowski’s Brooklyn apartment in our 2015 feature
“When he came in and saw the end product, he looked at me with tears and said, ‘Every time I came home and saw this house like this, I was reminded that I wasn’t enough. This messy home made me feel like I was not enough as a husband and a father,’” Berk recently recalled to Houzz. “And he said, ‘You’ve helped me hit reset. I feel like I’m enough now.’”