British GQ Jan/Feb 2019

The torture and brutal murder of Saudi Arabia’s best-known journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, has become an increasingly totemic event in the fraught recent history of the US’s most influential Middle Eastern ally. Ever since the start of the two countries’ special relationship – in 1933, when full diplomatic relations were finally established – the tensions between them have been predictably attritional, with the US seemingly always prepared to overlook many of the Saudis’ archaic, controversial and fundamentally conservative aspects in exchange for the creation of an institutionalised oil supply system and the continued promise of political and military support in the world’s most complex, conflicted region. Over the past 20 years, this relationship has been tested many, many times, and while on the surface the progressively strained relationship appeared to be…

London Fashion Week Men’s We bring you the very latest trends, street style and insider diaries from LFWM and beyond. New year, new you? Start the new year as you mean to go on, with our handy personal-trainer guides and healthy food that actually tastes good. Yes, really. The best interiors Give your home the furnishings it deserves with our weekly lust list, compiled by Eleanor Davies, each Sunday at 3pm. Richard Madden behind the scenes Watch footage of our shoot with the Bodyguard star. Photographs BBC/World Productions/Sophie Mutevelian; Disney; Sky…

Matthew BROOKES Matthew Brookes shot this month’s cover star, Richard Madden, in an old warehouse, inspired by pictures from the Sixties of Sean Connery and Marlon Brando. “We wanted to make him look dangerous in a suit,” says Brookes. “He’d make a great James Bond, and is the kind of guy you’d want to have a pint with, though he’d probably drink you under the table…” Jessica PHILLIPS GQ Social Media Co-Ordinator Jessica Phillips will be sharing the best street-style photographs and essential show reports from London Fashion Week Men’s across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. “Men’s fashion is moving in an exciting and dynamic direction,” says Phillipps. “It’s great to see London at the forefront of the industry.” Tanya GOLD It’s been almost two years since Donald Trump’s inauguration as president of the United States,…

There’s a point in The Romanoffs, the new Amazon Prime Video series from Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men, when you will say to yourself, “What exactly is… the point… of this?” It won’t come straight away. After all, this is the great Matthew Weiner we’re talking about. You’ll watch and at first you’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. Why would you not? And so what if the setup is so simple as to be meaningless. Each episode is an independent story, with no connection to the rest, save the fact that in each setup there are people who believe they are descended from Russian royalty. But hold your horses if you think that is remotely important, because it isn’t: The Romanoffs is essentially a cluster of standalone films,…

Surf the headlines about Sorry To Bother You, the debut film from Chicago hip hop artist/activist Boots Riley, and you will likely see it called “this year’s Get Out”. Granted, both are mixes of the satirical and the fantastical, both from black first-time writer-directors and, yup, both say urgent things about race in America today, but while Get Out was written at the tail-end of the Obama administration (with an eye on Trumpism), Sorry To Bother You was written back in 2012 (with a more general eye on pessimism). “Unfortunately,” says Riley, “the world hasn’t changed enough to make the movie irrelevant.” A wild blend of Charlie Kaufman smarts and Spike Lee social conscience, it sees Lakeith Stanfield’s down-on-his-luck Cash find success at a call centre by perfecting a “white voice”…

They call Billy Schenck “the Warhol of the West”, and not just because the pair have subject matter in common: Warhol attended Schenck’s debut show in 1971 and, this year, both shared a retrospective. While Schenck’s pieces – an implosion of Navajo culture, modern cowgirls, apocalyptic imagery and Greek mythology – can be seen at major US institutions such as the Smithsonian, in the UK he is relatively unknown. Castle Fine Art aims to change that with its show The New West; after 48 years Schenck tells GQ that this thematic wellspring has still not run dry. “The work continues to unfold new ideas, more avenues. There literally is no end to the myth of the American West.” THE NEW WEST IS AT CASTLE FINE ART GALLERIES NATIONWIDE FROM 7 DECEMBER.…