British GQ December 2021 / January 2022

All I care about are experiences. I want a brand that makes me feel something! Anything!” I was having a glass of something white, cold and crisp with a good friend at the Chiltern Firehouse last week (yes, the spot has picked up a little heat again; keep up) and we were talking about our usual: clothes, art, cars, our children, magazines and whether or not anyone stays up later than 1am any more. (You do? Huh.) We’re roughly the same age – he’s Swedish, lives in New York, loves a cashmere-blend overcoat, runs a fashion label, while I’m English, hate avocados, grew up on the graphics of the ZX Spectrum and embarking on a career pivot – and whenever we get together we play what I like to pretentiously describe as…

In association with Riz Ahmed Coat by Paul Smith, £1,200. paulsmith.com. Vest by Boss, £25. hugoboss.com. Trousers by ZN Ali, £140. znali.co Photographed by Tung Walsh Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Coat, £1,960. Belt, £540. Both by Alexander McQueen. alexandermcqueen.com. Rollneck by Boss, £149. hugoboss.com. Trousers by Séfr, £175. At matchesfashion.com. Boots by Dsquared2, £830. dsquared2.com. Hat by RM Williams, £159. rmwilliams.com Photographed by Andrew Woffinden Jamie Dornan Coat, £2,350. Jacket, £1,150. Sweater, £830. All by Celine. celine.com. Trousers by Canali, £260. canali.com Photographed by Andrew Woffinden Griff Jacket and dress. Both by Laura Barnes. instagram.com/arualae. Slip by Lindex, £23. lindex.com. Chain by Gucci, £5,260. gucci.com. Rings by Alan Crocetti, from £340. alancrocetti.com. Rings by Missoma, from £155. missoma.com. Rings by Giovanni Raspini, from £140. shop.giovanniraspini.com Photographed by Ash Kingston Tom Daley Shirt, £450. Trousers, £590. Belt, £550. All by Alexander McQueen. alexandermcqueen.com Photographed by Rosaline Shahnavaz Image…

Charlie Burton The US government has said that UFOs are real. In this issue, GQ Senior Commissioning Editor Charlie Burton interviews Luis Elizondo, the former intelligence officer who investigated them for the Pentagon. “This is my last issue of GQ,” says Burton. “If you had told me when I joined in 2011 that a decade later I’d be bowing out with a story on UFOs, I would have worried about my career trajectory. But today the topic is a serious political talking point. As I leave the magazine after 112 issues, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the team and our readers. What a ride.” Ciaran Thapar Writer and youth worker Ciaran Thapar finally met Riz Ahmed face to face, after a series of phone and video calls during lockdown,…

Life, as the pandemic proved, is short. It’s a truism, in our book at least, that means the whole shebang is over far too quickly to spend it wearing bad, sad shoes. It’s a point on which the world’s most prominent men’s footwear designers seem to agree, if the latest glut of velvet-coated party slippers that shuffled their way down the runways for the AW21 season are anything to go by. Imbued with a foppish elegance all their own – not to mention a satisfying dose of utter impracticality – the best can be found at Dolce & Gabbana, where ribbons and embroidery are the order of the evening, and at Christian Louboutin, where it’s all about the added silver embellishments. Natch.…

No4 Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Nick Foulkes looks back on the revolutionary design of the first true steel sports watch and explains its enduring influence today Advertising is the science of amplification for commercial effect and so it is rare to find an advertisement that tells it exactly as it is. And yet in 1994, that is precisely what Audemars Piguet did when it ran an ad with the slogan, “One of the great designs of this century. And probably the next.” The watch it was suggesting you buy was the Royal Oak and the advertisement said no more and no less than was true. Read it again and you will notice the words “timepiece”, “watch” or “wristwatch” do not appear. It is quite simply one of the great designs of anything ever,…

How do luxury brands – whether cars, trainers or, yes, far-flung luxury desert islands – come up with their names? It is, of course, all about conjuring aspiration and projection. If one were to road test a Ford Mustang, for example, even if you knew nothing of the iconic muscle car one would be correct in assuming that the vehicle might be somewhat feral, fast and compact, rather than a slowmoving, hippo-sized SUV. It’s plain, immediate word association. And so to The Nautilus, the name of this dreamy spit of an idyll found some way into the cyan-washed Maldives surf, on the island of Thiladhoo (Baa Atoll), to be exact. Without cheating, what images and mood does that word “Nautilus” prompt? Space flight? Sail-powered adventuring into far-flung locations? Or can you,…