British GQ May 2018

GENTLEMEN’S QUARTERLY Irony is that most cherished of shrouds, a mask that can be slipped on and off as swiftly as a conscience and with the ease of a Tinder swipe. In the right context – and context is always binary – it has the illusion of sophistication, the power of cool. And when it’s wrong, well, when it’s wrong you get someone like Jacob Rees-Mogg. Certainly it highlights what a parlous state the Conservative Party is in when their apparent saviour is a Lord Snooty character who could have fallen, freshly bathed and smelling of pink gin, out of an Evelyn Waugh novel, a preposterous confection of a man who doesn’t appear to understand just how out of step he is, not just with first-and second-time voters, but also with those…

Dua Lipa plays ‘Would you rather?’ What are the five rules every man should stick to? Would she rather live without the internet or without alcohol? Dua Lipa answers all this and more at youtube.com/britishgq. If Maya Jama were a man… We meet TV presenter Maya Jama to ask what she would do if she was a man for a day (clue: it involves wearing tracksuits and disproving the myth that boys don’t cry). Behind the scenes with the Brit Awards Class Of 2018 From Ed Sheeran’s ice cream nose snort to Jack Whitehall’s blow-up sex doll… all is revealed backstage at the Brit Awards 2018. Sit down with Michael Wolff and Alastair Campbell Two of GQ’s finest minds battle it out over whether the former is correct that latter’s old boss (Tony Blair) is a liar.…

GENTLEMEN’S QUARTERLY Giles DULEY When photojournalist Giles Duley was recovering from the loss of three limbs while working in Afghanistan, he took a self-portrait. “I felt defiant. I took control of my story,” says Duley, who, for Jonathan Heaf’s feature “Hidden Trauma”, photographed men who have lost limbs and genitals in combat. “I wanted to do these portraits in the same way, to show their strength.” Alastair CAMPBELL When Michael Wolff published Fire And Fury, he became the world’s most famous journalist overnight. We sent fellow GQ Contributing Editor Alastair Campbell to meet him. “He turned on the charm,” says Campbell. “He had recently called Blair ‘a liar’, so perhaps he was worried that would get me fired up.” Gavin BOND At this year’s Brit Awards, photographer Gavin Bond shot the night’s talent exclusively for GQ:…

It’s time that men changed and that our definition of what it means to be a man changed with us. For centuries women have pushed for progress, challenged the prescriptions of their gender and made the world a fairer and better place in the process. For decades they have looked forward, towards what women might be and what being a woman could mean and, in doing so, have unlocked the parts of themselves previously kept from them by society. As Yuval Noah Harari points out in his book Sapiens: A Brief History Of Humankind, when discussing the difference between sex (a scientific category) and gender (a cultural one), a young girl today is biologically the same as her great-great-grandmother, but a totally different kind of woman. For her, possessing a…

James Marsden An actor so square-jawed he seems to have been assembled by a Hollywood hunk-o-matic, James Marsden is back in the saddle for Westworld series two. You’ll know him from X-Men and 30 Rock, among others, but he’s never been better cast than as Teddy, a cowboy/android (cowbot?) in Jonathan Nolan’s deep-dive sci-fi series. Just don’t ask him to explain what the hell’s going on. “It really is the hardest show to talk about,” he admits, at least without a doctorate and Nolan-level security clearance. For anyone who missed series one – er, bad luck. But the basic facts are these. Teddy and co are the “hosts” of a futuristic theme park where paying human “guests” get to play Wild West with impunity. That is, until the hosts start…

Looking at old paparazzi pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio from the late Nineties through to the nough-ties feels a little like a close friend telling you what you got up to after drinking seven Negronis the night before. You wince. Then bite your fist. Then scratch your palms nervously like someone trying to clean permanent marker off their soft, manicured hands. Leo is a great many things but one thing he has never been is a natural in the wardrobe department. He has about as much sartorial flare as, well, anyone called Jeremy. Clarkson. Corbyn. Kyle. Pick one – it doesn’t matter, they are all sartorially impotent. Of course, there’s no doubt he wouldn’t have it any other way, I’m sure. Macho-macho man (and mucho-mucho mumbler) Tom Hardy lives by a similar…