Carson Kressley (Style Savant).

Hometown: Allentown, Pa.
Pre-Queer Eye job experience: Fashion stylist for Polo Ralph Lauren, New York.
Single or attached? "Single, or as I like to call it, 'painfully alone.'"
What he packed to come to Texas: "'Hot' couture"
Southfork or Kennedy Museum? "Totally Southfork"
Project on the side: Fashion expert for Us Weekly magazine, with new book, Off the Cuff: The Essential Style Guide for Men and the Women Who Love Them (Dutton, $24.95), hitting stores this month. Sample wisdom: "In an ideal world, everybody's waist size is smaller than the length. When you get to be a 38/31, it's just a sad scenario, Humpty Dumpty." Plus, a definitive spelling: It's t-s-z-u-j, people.
Fave fame perk? "Free drinks at JR's!"
What his friends know: Carson is a nationally ranked equestrian who left Dallas last week to compete in the American Saddlebred Horse Association 2004 World's Championship Horse Show in Kentucky. Plus, he's a Phi Beta Kappa.
Couture du jour: A white tux jacket by Etro ("which makes me an Etro-sexual"); Dolce & Gabbana white tiger T-shirt ("I told everyone it was a sign of support for Siegfried and Roy, but I was only kidding."); Diesel jeans; croc belt strap customized with conchas purchased at ML Leddy's; Stubbs & Wooten black velvet slippers embroidered with red devils.

Thom Filicia (Design Doctor)

Hometown: Syracuse, N.Y.; and Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.
Pre-Queer Eye job experience: Founder of Thom Filicia Inc. interior design in New York; has been named one of America's top 100 designers by House Beautiful magazine.
Single or attached? Attached.
What he packed to come to Texas: "I did not pack! I showed up with like two pairs of jeans, these cords and my toothbrush in a zip-lock bag. I have to go shopping!"
Southfork or Kennedy Museum? "I'm gonna have to say both – then shopping."
Project on the side: Pier 1 spokesman, plus his ongoing design business.
Fave fame perk? "I think as a creative person, it gives you another vehicle, another outlet for developing your creativity and having fun with it. Like the Pier 1 thing. You can say 'Let's put up a 100-foot tree,' and people go, 'Yes, that's great! When do you want to do it?'"
What his friends know: Thom, who'll be making over the common room at a Denton fraternity house, was in a frat at Syracuse University.
Couture du jour: Sherbet-orange striped cotton shirt from Steven Alan, New York; T-shirt purchased at Forty Five Ten; Adidas trainers from Neiman Marcus; orange argyle socks.

Ted Allen (Food & Wine Connoisseur) Hometown: Columbus, Ohio; Carmel, Ind.; and Chicago. "It's all a matter of what you mean by hometown, I guess."
Pre-Queer Eye job experience: Contributing editor at Esquire magazine, coauthor of the "Things a Man Should Know" column and book series.
Single or attached? "Attached! To former journalism professor-nascent interior designer Barry Rice."
What he packed to come to Texas: "Everything. I shipped four big boxes. It's hard being away from home for more than three weeks."
Southfork or Kennedy Museum? "Well, I know what Carson's going to say, so maybe I'll go with Kennedy Museum."
Project on the side: "I'm about 80 percent done writing a cookbook for Clarkson Potter. ... Unfortunately, it's going to take a year to come out."
Fave fame perk? "May I have two? The easy one is that flight attendants love us. We get bumped up a lot, which is just delightful. The other one, which is not so selfish, is that everywhere we go some gay kid comes up to us and tells us he was able to come out in part because of the show. You could cancel this thing tomorrow, and we'd still have something to be really proud of."
What his friends know: In 1996, as a senior editor at Chicago magazine, he wrote an extensive feature on William Kennedy Smith, whom he accompanied to Mozambique, where Smith was working with Physicians Against Land Mines. Couture du jour: Etro jacket, shirt and pants ("I really like Etro and Paul Smith – all those crazy stripes."); John Varvatos sneakers.

Kyan Douglas (Grooming Guru)

Hometown: Born in Miami, raised in Tallahassee, Fla.
Pre-Queer Eye job experience: "My whole life experience has been that I really followed my heart, so I've got a broad base of experience in beauty and well-being. Immediately before the show, I was working as a colorist at Arrojo Studio in Soho. Before that, I helped Aveda open their school in New York ... and I was a massage therapist for a while."
Single or attached? Attached.
What he packed to come to Texas: "What didn't I pack? My yoga mat, my computer, a photograph of me and my boyfriend ..."
Southfork or Kennedy Museum? You're much more likely to catch him at a yoga or gyrotonics class.
Project on the side: Beautified, "a beauty and well-being book for women," due out Oct. 26 from Clarkson Potter.
Fave fame perk: "It's easier to get into restaurants these days, and I get a lot of product samples, which is great because I love product."
What his friends know: In the early 1990s, Kyan lived and worked (at a health club and "odd-jobbing it") in Dallas.
Couture du jour: Brown Gucci suit, pale blue Armani shirt, Jil Sander shoes, vintage Navajo silver and turquoise belt buckle.

Jai Rodriguez (Culture Vulture)

Hometown: Smithtown, Long Island, N.Y.
Single or attached? "Single, although I just met a very cute Dallas boy."
Pre-Queer Eye job experience: New York actor, with roles in Rent on Broadway (which he returned to this summer during the TV show's hiatus), as a young dad on All My Children and in the off-Broadway musical Zanna Don't!
What he packed to come to Texas: "My two Yorkies, my laptop, my iPod with speakers, and then I had to go to Smith & Hawken this weekend to spend like $400 on plants and stuff to make the hotel room feel more like home."
Southfork or Kennedy Museum? "Ooooh, Southfork. I'm supposed to say Kennedy as the culture guy, but for pure kitsch I have to go with Southfork."
Project on the side: Writing songs for an album.
Fave fame perk: "Yesterday I was in the Highland Park Village shopping center at this really cool new store, Jennifer Croll. I was shopping, and the woman completely gave me the pair of jeans and shirt. That never happens in New York – it was such a cool perk!"
What his friends know: Last weekend he "was Jennifer Lopez" (wedding planner) for his cousin's nuptials on Long Island. "She walked in and saw like 400 white roses and floating gardenias and said, 'Oh, my God, Queer Eye has been here!'"
Couture du jour: A Gucci suit and a Gucci shirt. "I wore Gucci and Gucci."

Where to spot 'em (business)
Octane, Neiman Marcus, Elliott's Hardware, The Arrangement, Rudolph's Market, Dallas Museum of Art, Central Market, The Spa at the Crescent, Voyager Trading Co.

Where to spot 'em (pleasure)
Sambuca, Dragonfly, Orange (where Jai and Kyan both got haircuts), JR's, The Roundup, Local, Forty Five Ten (where Thom bought an $80 Andrew Dibben T-shirt), Neiman Marcus, Nasher Sculpture Center, Legacy Trading Co. (where Carson bought a pillow embroidered "Insanity doesn't run in my family, it gallops")

Queer Eye Secrets
The Queer Eye budget includes a small amount for clothes, furniture and other goods used in the makeovers, but most of the merchandise is donated in exchange for the publicity the show brings.
Producers spent four months scouting locations here. The show will actually shoot for just three weeks.
Though it appears that the makeovers take place in one hectic day, each episode normally takes four days to shoot. In Dallas – because of a tight production schedule – at least one of the episodes will be shot in three days.
The show received approximately 2,500 applications for the three North Texas episodes (the most the show has ever gotten).