GQ

• 1. Introduction

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  GQ began not as the glossy men's bible it would become, but as a trade publication called Apparel Arts, launched in 1931 in New York City for the clothing industry. Its first readers were wholesale buyers and retail sellers, people whose job was to advise customers on what to wear. What happened next was unexpected. Retail customers started taking the magazine home from the stores. They wanted it for themselves. That quiet act of appropriation set in motion almost a century of reinvention. How does a garment industry insider newsletter become one of the most recognized men's magazines on earth? And what happens when a publication that defines masculinity finds itself at the center of culture wars, political suppression, and debates about what men are actually supposed to look like?

• 2. From Trade Sheet to Newsstands

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  The popularity of Apparel Arts among retail customers had one immediate consequence: it inspired the creation of Esquire magazine in 1933. The trade publication had accidentally proven there was a mass appetite for men's fashion coverage. Apparel Arts itself continued publishing until 1957, when it shifted from a trade periodical into a quarterly consumer magazine, published by Esquire Inc. and distributed as a supplement to Esquire subscribers. After nine issues under the new format, the word "Apparel" was dropped from the logo with the spring 1958 issue, and the name Gentlemen's Quarterly took hold. By 1967, the magazine had shortened its identity again, becoming simply GQ. Three years later, in 1970, it moved from quarterly to monthly publication, doubling down on its ambition. The decisive turning point came in 1979, when Condé Nast acquired the title. Under editor Art Cooper, the magazine began running articles that had nothing to do with shirts and trousers, positioning GQ as a general interest men's magazine capable of going head to head with Esquire.

• 3. Nonnie Moore and the Pages

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  Nonnie Moore arrived at GQ as fashion editor in 1984, hired after holding the same role at both Mademoiselle and Harper's Bazaar. Hiring her raised eyebrows. Fashion director Jim Moore, who was at the magazine at the time of her death in 2009, recalled that critics thought she was an odd fit. In his words: "She was not from men's wear, so people said she was an odd choice, but she was actually the perfect choice." What she brought was a sensibility shaped outside the menswear world. Jim Moore described the effect directly: "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." Her tenure reshaped not just the visual tone but the magazine's relationship with its readers, pulling them toward a more polished, aspirational version of themselves.

• 4. Metrosexuality and the Mirror

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  Writer Mark Simpson coined the term metrosexuality in an article for the British newspaper The Independent, and the occasion was a visit to a GQ exhibition in London. His description of the men's style press was pointed. He wrote that magazines including GQ, The Face, Esquire, Arena, and FHM "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." Simpson argued that the promotion of metrosexuality had been left to this new wave of men's media, which took off in the 1980s and kept growing. GQ stood as a central exhibit in that argument. The magazine was later labeled the "holy text of woke capital" by The Spectator, a charge that reflects how far the publication had traveled from its origins advising retail sellers on what to stock.

• 5. The Putin Article

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  GQ's September 2009 U.S. issue carried an article by Scott Anderson in its backstory section titled "None Dare Call It Conspiracy." Before publication, an internal email from a Condé Nast lawyer had described the piece under a working title referencing Vladimir Putin's rise to power. Anderson had investigated the 1999 Russian apartment bombings and interviewed Mikhail Trepashkin, a colonel who had looked into the attacks while serving in Russia's Federal Security Service. The reporting contradicted the Russian government's official account and criticized President Putin. Condé Nast's management responded by ordering executives and editors not to distribute that issue in Russia and not to show it to Russian government officials, journalists, or advertisers. The story was kept off GQ's website and out of Condé Nast's foreign magazines. Anderson was asked not to syndicate the piece to any publications appearing in Russia. The day after the U.S. issue went on sale, bloggers had posted both the original English text and a Russian translation online.

• 6. Controversies on the Page

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  On the 19th of April 2018, GQ's editors published an article listing 21 books they considered overrated, including the Bible, The Catcher in the Rye, Blood Meridian, A Farewell to Arms, The Lord of the Rings, and Catch-22, among others. The backlash from internet commentators was immediate. Earlier, in 2010, a photoshoot featuring adult cast members of the television show Glee, specifically Dianna Agron, Lea Michele, and Cory Monteith, drew protests from parents of younger viewers. The Parents Television Council reacted before the shoot had even been officially published, with president Tim Winter stating that the images established troubling intentions. Agron later addressed the controversy directly, noting that she was a 24-year-old adult in the photographs, and questioning why parents would allow young children to read any issue of the adult magazine. In 2023, Colombian singer Karol G publicly objected to her cover image in GQ Mexico, writing on social media that the retouched photo was "disrespectful" and did not represent how her face or body actually looks. She framed the issue as one affecting all women who are trying to feel comfortable with themselves against society's expectations.

• 7. Awards and Global Reach

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  Since 1996, GQ has run annual Men of the Year awards, an event that has grown into a franchise spanning more than 20 international editions. The awards recognize figures in culture, entertainment, sports, and style, with honorees chosen by the magazine's editorial boards based on cultural impact and professional achievement during the year. GQ Australia launched its version in 2007, British GQ followed in 2009, and GQ India joined in 2010. Editions in Spain, Brazil, and South Korea, among others, have since added their own ceremonies. The franchise typically produces a gala event and a commemorative issue. In 2018, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for an article she wrote for GQ about Dylann Roof, who had shot nine African-Americans in a church in Charleston. That same year, Will Welch, who had launched the spinoff quarterly GQ Style in 2016, was named editor-in-chief of the U.S. edition in September, succeeding Jim Nelson.

• 8. Circulation and What Comes Next

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  By the first half of 2019, GQ's worldwide paid circulation averaged 934,000 copies, a decline of roughly 1.1% from 944,549 in 2016 and down 2.6% from 958,926 in 2015. British GQ reported an average circulation of 103,087 in the same period, a drop of 6.3% from 110,063 in the second half of 2018 and down 10.3% from 114,867 in the second half of 2013. GQ responded to the shifting media landscape by moving into e-commerce; in 2020, it launched the GQ Shop, a webstore whose product lineup was designed by the magazine's own editors and art directors. That step marked a new phase in a publication that had already been a garment industry newsletter, a quarterly consumer title, a general men's magazine, and a political flashpoint. The U.S. edition has been led by Will Welch since 2019, while Adam Baidawi took over as U.K. editor in 2021, the year Dylan Jones ended a run at the helm that had lasted since 1999.