 | |
 October 2017 cover featuringHarrison Ford and highlighting the magazine's 60th year | |
| Editor-in-chief | Will Welch |
|---|---|
| Categories | Men's |
| Frequency | 10 issues per year |
| Publisher | Condé Nast Inc. |
| Total circulation | 934,000 (2019)[1] |
| First issue | 1931 (as Apparel Arts) 1957 (as Gentleman's Quarterly) 1967 (as GQ) |
| Company | Advance Publications |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | New York City |
| Language | Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish |
| Website | |
| ISSN | 0016-6979 |
GQ (short forGentlemen's Quarterly and previously known asApparel Arts) is an international monthly men's fashion magazine based inNew York City and founded in 1931. The publication focuses on fashion, style, and culture for men, though articles on food, movies, fitness, sex, music, travel, celebrities' sports, technology, and books are also featured.
The magazineApparel Arts was launched in 1931 in the United States[2] as a men's fashion magazine for the clothing trade, aimed primarily at wholesale buyers and retail sellers. Initially, it had a very limited print run and was aimed solely at industry insiders to enable them to advise their customers. The popularity of the magazine among retail customers, who often took the magazine from the retailers, spurred the creation ofEsquire magazine in 1933.[3][4]
Apparel Arts continued until 1957, when it was transformed into a quarterly magazine for men, which was published for many years by Esquire Inc.[5] Apparel was dropped from the logo in 1958 with the spring issue after nine issues, and the nameGentlemen's Quarterly was established.[6]
Gentlemen's Quarterly was re-branded asGQ in 1967.[2] The rate of publication was increased from quarterly to monthly in 1970.[2] In 1979,Condé Nast bought the publication, and editorArt Cooper changed the course of the magazine, introducing articles beyond fashion and establishingGQ as a general men's magazine in competition withEsquire.[7]
Nonnie Moore was hired byGQ as fashion editor in 1984, having served in the same position atMademoiselle andHarper's Bazaar. Jim Moore, the magazine's fashion director at the time of her death in 2009, described the choice as unusual, observing that "She was not from men's wear, so people said she was an odd choice, but she was actually the perfect choice". Jim Moore also noted that she changed the publication's more casual look: "She helped dress up the pages, as well as dress up the men, while making the mix more exciting and varied and approachable for men."[8]
GQ has been closely associated withmetrosexuality. The writerMark Simpson coined the term in an article for British newspaperThe Independent about his visit to aGQ exhibition in London: "The promotion of metrosexuality was left to the men's style press, magazines such asThe Face,GQ,Esquire,Arena andFHM, the new media which took off in the Eighties and is still growing ... They filled their magazines with images of narcissistic young men sporting fashionable clothes and accessories. And they induced other young men to study them with a mixture of envy and desire."[9][10] The magazine has expanded its coverage beyond lifestyle issues.[11]GQ has been called the "holy text ofwoke capital" byThe Spectator.[12]
In 2016,GQ launched the spinoff quarterlyGQ Style, headed by then-style editorWill Welch, who was later promoted to creative director of the magazine.[13]
In 2018, writing forGQ,Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah won thePulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her article aboutDylann Roof, who hadshot nine African-Americans in a church in Charleston.[14] In September 2018, Will Welch was named the new editor-in-chief of GQ, succeeding Jim Nelson.[15]
In 2020, GQ launched its webstore and first merch drop. The GQ Shop lineup was designed by the editors and art directors behind the GQ website.[16]
GQ (U.S.) first named their Men of the Year in 1996 and featured the award recipients in a special issue of the magazine.[17] BritishGQ launched its annual Men of the Year awards in 2009[18] andGQ India launched its version the following year.[19] Spanish and BrazilianGQ launched their Men of the Year awards in 2011[20][21] andGQ Australia launched its version in 2007.[22]
GQ's September 2009 U.S. magazine published, in its "backstory" section, an article byScott Anderson, "None Dare Call It Conspiracy". BeforeGQ published the article, an internal email from a Condé Nast lawyer referred to it as "Vladimir Putin's Dark Rise to Power".[23] The article reported Anderson's investigation of the 1999Russian apartment bombings, and included interviews withMikhail Trepashkin who investigated the bombings while he was acolonel in Russia'sFederal Security Service.
The story, including Trepashkin's own findings, contradicted the Russian Government's official explanation of the bombings and criticizedVladimir Putin, thePresident of Russia.[24]
Condé Nast's management tried to keep the story out of Russia. It ordered executives and editors not to distribute that issue in Russia or show it to "Russian government officials, journalists or advertisers".[24] Management decided not to publish the story onGQ's website or in Condé Nast's foreign magazines, not to publicize the story, and asked Anderson not to syndicate the story "to any publications that appear in Russia".[24]
The day after the magazine's publication in the United States, bloggers published the original English text and a translation intoRussian on the internet.[25][26]
In 2010,GQ magazine had three adult members of the television showGlee (Dianna Agron,Lea Michele andCory Monteith) partake in a photoshoot.[27] The sexualization of the actresses in the photos caused controversy among parents of teens who watch the showGlee. TheParents Television Council was the first to react to the photo spread when it was leaked prior toGQ's planned publishing date. Their president Tim Winter, stated, "By authorizing this kind of near-pornographic display, the creators of the program have established their intentions on the show's directions. And it isn't good for families".[28] The photoshoot was published as planned and Dianna Agron went on to state that the photos did push the envelope, that they did not represent who she is, any more than other magazine photo shoots, but that she was a 24-year-old adult in the photo shoot, and wondered why the concerned parents allowed their eight year old daughters to read any racy issue of the adult magazineGQ.[27]
On April 19, 2018, the editors ofGQ published an article titled "21 Books You Don't Have to Read" in which the editors compiled a list of works they think are overrated and should be passed over, including theBible as well asThe Catcher in the Rye,The Alchemist,Blood Meridian,A Farewell to Arms,The Old Man and the Sea,The Lord of the Rings, andCatch-22.[29][30][31] The article generated a backlash among Internet commentators.[30]
On April 6, 2023, the Colombian singerKarol G took to social media to share that the photo used on the cover of an issue of GQ Mexico was "disrespectful" and a misleading depiction of the way her body and face naturally looks. She wrote: "I don't know how to start this message. Today my GQ magazine cover was made public, a cover with an image that does not represent me. My face doesn't look like that, my body doesn't look like that and I feel very happy and comfortable with how I look naturally." "It's disrespectful to me. It's to the women that every day we wake up looking to feel comfortable with ourselves despite society's stereotypes."[32][33]
The magazine reported an average worldwide paid circulation of 934,000 in the first half of 2019,[1] down 1.1% from 944,549 in 2016 and 2.6% from 958,926 in 2015.[34]
According to theAudit Bureau of Circulations (UK),British GQ had an average circulation of 103,087 during the first half of 2019,[35] down 6.3% from 110,063 during the second half of 2018,[36] and down 10.3% from 114,867 during the second half of 2013.[37]
U.S. publishers
U.S. editors
U.K. editors
