GQ's October 2011 cover featuring Leonardo DiCaprio |
|
| Editor-in-chief | Jim Nelson |
|---|---|
| Categories | Men's |
| Frequency | monthly |
| Total circulation (2011) |
939,067[1] |
| First issue | 1957 |
| Company | Conde Nast Publications |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Website | www.gq.com |
| ISSN | 0016-6979 |
GQ (originally Gentlemen's Quarterly) is a monthly men's magazine focusing on fashion, style, and culture for men, through articles on food, movies, fitness, sex, music, travel, sports, technology, and books. It is the male equivalent of Vogue.
Contents |
Gentlemen's Quarterly was launched in 1931 in the United States as Apparel Arts, 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 give advice to their customers. The popularity of the magazine amongst retail customers, who often took the magazine from the retailers, spurred the creation of Esquire magazine in 1933.
Apparel Arts continued until 1957 when it was transformed into a quarterly magazine for men which was published for many years by Esquire Inc.[2] Apparel was dropped from the logo in 1958 with the spring issue after nine issues, and the name Gentlemen's Quarterly was established.
In 1980 Condé Nast Publications bought the publication and editor Art Cooper changed the course of the magazine, introducing articles beyond fashion and establishing GQ as a general men's magazine in competition with Esquire. Subsequently, international editions were launched as regional adaptations of the U.S. editorial formula. Jim Nelson was named editor-in-chief of GQ in February 2003; during his tenure he worked as both a writer and an editor of several National Magazine Award-nominated pieces. During Nelson's tenure, GQ has become more oriented towards younger readers and those who prefer a more casual style.
Nonnie Moore was hired by GQ as fashion editor in 1984, having served in the same position at Mademoiselle and Harper'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" and noting that she changed the publication's more casual look, which "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."[3]
GQ has been closely associated with metrosexuality. The writer Mark Simpson coined the term in an article for British newspaper The Independent about his visit to a GQ exhibition in London: "The promotion of metrosexuality was left to the men's style press, magazines such as The Face, GQ, Esquire, Arena and FHM, 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 persuaded other young men to study them with a mixture of envy and desire."
In September 2009 GQ's US issue included a story by Scott Anderson about his interviews with Mikhail Trepashkin on his investigations of the 1999 Russian apartment bombings. David Folkenflik reported for NPR on September 4 that Conde Nast management ordered executives and editors that the US issue was not to be distributed in Russia, nor to be shown to "Russian government officials, journalists or advertisers". The story was not to be on GQ's website, not to be published in Conde Nast's foreign magazines, and not to be publicized. Anderson was asked not to syndicate the story "to any publications that appear in Russia".[4] The article is entitled "None Dare Call it Conspiracy" in the US magazine, although an earlier internal email from a Conde Nast lawyer referred to it as "Vladimir Putin's Dark Rise to Power". It was in the "backstory" section.[5] In 24 hours bloggers published the Russian translation and original English text on the Web.[6][7]
The magazine reported an average U.S. paid circulation of 824,334 issues per month, of which 609,238 were subscriptions.[8] 73% of the readership are men, and 63% are single.[8] 65% of readers had an annual income of $50,000 or greater; and 25% had an income greater than $75,000.[8]
British GQ had a circulation of 120,019 from January to June 2009.[9]
GQ is published in Australia, Brazil, South Africa, France, Spain, China, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Latin America, Russia, the United Kingdom, USA.