Photo: Antoni Porowski/Instagram
Queer Eye’s Antoni Porowski may bean inspiration to LGBTQ youth, but he was channeling one of his own queer idols when he selected his outfit forTaylor Swift‘s Internet-breaking “You Need to Calm Down”music video.
“It was a very special day,” the Canadian-born chef, 35, told PEOPLE about the video shoot, chatting over espresso and Balthazar pastries at an event for Saeco, with whom he is a partner, in New York City on Thursday. “We met with the stylist and we started going through wardrobe and I was shocked at how much freedom they gave us,” he says. “I quickly realized this was not a jeans and t-shirt moment.”
The food and wine expert, who knows his way around a set from his experience as an actor and model, soon decided he was going to go all out with his costume. He started piecing together a bright andbold outfitafter falling in love with a pair of pink faux-leather pants.
He says he felt confident his look fit the music video’s vibe once Swift came out with her rainbow ombré hair.
“I’d met Taylor before, but to see her in her element, she’s just so excited to be there,” he says. “You meet a lot of people in the public eye, especially icons like that, and some of them aren’t so nice. So to see someone who’s truly themselves and so grateful to be there—I mean, whether she knows it or not her mood affects every single person on set. And she carries herself like a real frickin’ queen.”
Because Swift’s next album,Lover, hadn’t been announced at the time of filming, Porowski says everything aboutthe video was under tight wraps. He had to keep his lips sealed for about a month.
“Everyone was so protective,” he says. “We had to walk out of our trailers with an umbrella because the helicopters were watching, trying to see who was on set. And we weren’t allowed to talk about it. I didn’t tell anybody until the video came out.”
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Even though it was hard to keep the secret—especially from his best friend Anya, “a die-hard Swifty”—Porowski says he is more than thrilled to have been a part of Swift’s project, especially with the way itspoke to LGBTQ representation.
“Ugh, I really love her,” he says of Swift. “She goes all out. She’s made itbecause of the person she is.”
source: people.com
