When a TV producer heard a group of gay men giving fashion advice to a straight man, he knew he was on to a winning TV show. One Sunday afternoon, three years ago, TV producer David Collins was at an art exhibition in Boston, Massachusetts, when the peace and quiet of the gallery was shattered by a woman berating her husband. 'She was shouting at him because he wasn't as well dressed as a group of fabulous-looking gay men standing nearby,' recalls Collins. 'She kept demanding to know why he couldn't look as good as other guys. Her poor husband just stood there taking it while she destroyed him in front of everyone.' But while Collins watched and listened in embarrassment, to his surprise the gay men sprang to the husband's defence. 'Instead of agreeing with her, they did their best to protect him. They told her, "Take it easy. You've got some great raw material here with this man. A little pomade, a tuck here, an untuck there... you must get rid of those shoes, oh, and a nose-hair trim, and you're in business." Rather than criticising him for the sake of it, they were giving him some real help.

'I turned to a friend and said, "You know, that was like a queer eye for a straight guy." I had a production company and, after that episode in the art gallery, I thought how cool it would be to have a group of gay guys come and save the world - or at least rescue a few scruffy straight men from themselves. We came up with the title Queer Eye For The Straight Guy and even though that alone would have made some TV network executives very nervous, we were naive enough not to worry.' Inspired by that fateful art gallery incident, Collins created a makeover show in which five gay men transform the looks, fashion sense and homes of hopelessly unstylish heterosexual men.

Their mission statement is to the point: 'Every second, a straight man puts on a pair of pleated trousers - oh, the shock. Every minute, a man lathers his head with a bar of soap and shaves it with a cheap throwaway razor - the horror. Right now, there are men eating beans out of a can, grooming like Neanderthals and dressing in the darkness of utter couture-ignorance - the tragedy. You need us and we are there.' The show has been so successful in the U.S. that it has now packed its gay uniform of Prada loafers and Von Dutch T-shirts and come over to Britain, to much acclaim. Digital channel Living TV already has its own British version of the show, Queer Eye For The Straight Guy UK, but it is the American original, now on Channel 4, that remains the best.

And, as with all makeover shows, it's the resident experts, not their hapless victims, who are the stars. Thom Filicia, 35, is the programme's Design Doctor, and the man in charge of making over the victims' homes - 'Oh, the eternal conundrum of the bachelor pad,' he sighs. Kyan Douglas, 34, is the show's Grooming Guru, the most fancied (among women) of the five, and the man charged with getting his victims to exfoliate - 'It's the gentle art of manscaping,' he says. Ted Allen, at 38 the oldest of the presenters, is the Food and Wine Connoisseur, whose job it is to woo men away from chilled beers and onto the pleasures of dry white wine - 'but never, never sniff the cork'. Jai Rodriguez, the youngest at 27, is the show's Culture Vulture, with the mission of persuading the straight men to drop their Whitesnake albums in favour of something a bit cooler. And finally, Carson Kressley, 35, is the undisputed star of the show, known as the Fashion Savant - 'It's such a denim world.' Such has been the popularity of the show in the U.S. that the five are now huge stars. Carson has appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine, and the five have performed makeovers on The Oprah Winfrey Show and now have celebrity fans who include Bill Clinton, Sarah Jessica Parker and Nicole Kidman. But why is the show so popular? Television has been overrun with makeover shows in recent years, but what separates Queer Eye from the rest is that a programme that could so easily have degenerated into yet another piece of bitchy reality TV has, instead, a surprisingly big heart at its core. In one show, for example, the straight man in question had worn a hairpiece for years and refused to let his friends or even his wife see him without it. But when the Queer Eye team persuaded him to get rid of it for good, imploring him to be himself and encouraging him wildly when he did finally take it off, it made for a genuinely moving scene.

In another episode, they helped a man transform his garden into an Arabian Nights-style fantasy, so he could propose to his girlfriend in a suitably romantic setting. The five watched nervously as the proposal was made, cheering when it was accepted. On another occasion, a mother sobbed with emotion at the sight of her smartened son - reducing the Queer Eye boys to tears, too. As David Collins says, 'We wanted our programme to be positive - not so much a makeover as a "make better" show. The idea wasn't to tear people apart and rebuild them, but to help them discover things they might not otherwise have done.' Which is not to say that the five aren't as cutting as a pair of hairdresser's scissors should the occasion demand it. Carson is the undoubted queen of the one-liner. 'The thing that separates us from heterosexuals,' he informs one target, 'is our innate ability to accessorise', while a man with dreadlocks is told, 'It's a little too out-of-work Lion King cast member for my liking.' 'We auditioned over 600 men for the show,' says Collins, 'and the minute Carson walked in, it was all over. It wasn't enough for the guys to be gay - they had to have experience and credentials, too, and Carson had it all.' Having worked for years as a stylist and then for Polo Ralph Lauren, Carson had the right background, and high standards - 'Even if you're working from home, you have to look good because, who knows, a striking Jehovah's Witness may ring your doorbell'. But it is his sharp - though never cruel - wit that makes him stand out.

He claims that, from a young age, he was 'mixing and matching the outfits of the other children in the playground in his head', and insists that the first time he offered fashion advice was when he was ten and his 18-year-old sister was choosing a dress for her graduation dance. 'All the other gowns were mint-green bridesmaids' dresses. She wore a white tunic and ended up queen of the ball.' He knew he was different from a young age, and admits it was 'quite rough at times and made me feel lonely'. In order to survive being different, he made people laugh. But for all his success, Carson still can't believe his luck. 'I was flown by private jet to a political dinner in Washington,' he recalls. 'Al Gore was due to give this important speech and I was sitting there, thinking, "I buy underwear for a living. How did I get here?"' Foodie Ted Allen may be quieter than Carson, but his more subtle humour provides a perfect counterpoint to Carson's ebullience. 'So, we're already getting fancy by putting this beer in a glass?' he asked one man. He also admits that growing up knowing he was gay wasn't easy. 'I had a small-town upbringing and there weren't really any gay role models. We wanted the show to have gay men who are out, so maybe a kid who's nervous about admitting he is gay will see us and realise it's okay.' Kyan Douglas (his real first name is Eddie) specialised in men's skincare before landing Queer Eye. Nicole Kidman, herself an icon among gay men, was recently introduced to him at a party in her own apartment, and was said to be starstruck - she was overheard gasping that the Queer Eye boys were 'huge'.

Thom Filicia, the show's interior design expert, has his own company and was named one of the Top 100 American designers by House Beautiful magazine. He admits that it took him some time to come out, 'having dated women through school and college, telling my parents was one of the most stressful days of my life. But my mum was great and my father was just amazing.' The baby of the group, Jai Rodriguez, is perhaps the most likely of the five to break out of the Queer Eye fold and have success on his own - he has already released a dance track. Before the show began, he was appearing as a drag queen in the musical Rent, but his parents, committed born-again Christians, had no idea of the part he was playing, or that he was gay. 'When they insisted on seeing the show, I had to tell them the truth,' he says. And yet, despite their individual struggles, they insist that when they are filming the programme they are not performing. 'We're not scripted. We're just being ourselves. Love us or hate us, at least we're real,' says Jai.

Certainly, the fact that the show is seen in 93 countries, with 22 making their own versions, shows how much they are loved. The spin-offs already include a book (Queer Eye For The Straight Guy: The Fab Five's Guide To Looking Better, Cooking Better, Dressing Better, Behaving Better And Living Better), an album (including a track from gay icon Kylie Minogue) and plans for a spin-off series, Queer Eye For The Straight Girl.

Says Collins, 'We're looking for five different guys to front the show, as the Fab Five already have their hands full with straight men. We're going out to help the women of LA!' And, judging by some of the facelifts and breast implants walking around, a few of them could do with some of that Queer Eye gold dust. 'None of us had any idea that the show was going to take off the way it did,' says Collins, 'nor that it was going to be such a pop-culture phenomenon. But we're extremely proud that it is.'