British GQ September 2022

SIRIN KALE Writer and journalist For this issue, Kale profiled accountant-turned-political campaigner Richard Ratcliffe, who fought for six years to free his wife Nazanin from an Iranian prison. “I expected to be impressed by Richard, and I was, more than I realised,” Kale says. “What shone through is his dedication to his campaigning and the reluctance he feels at walking away from it, given that so many dual nationals continue to languish in Iranian jails. And of course, his love for Nazanin.” Office Grails AARON TOUMAZOU Commerce editor, British GQ “Reader, the Brunello sample sale did not know what had hit it.” DAPHNE BUGLER Commerce writer, British GQ “Bold trousers have been my go-to this year, just as good for the office as they are a night out.” KAZUNARI DAIO Creative producer, GQ Japan “I try to choose my items with good…

We loved pulling together this cool and talented collection of people from all over the planet. Sitting at dinner each night was a humbling experience: on one table, you spot Pierpaolo Piccioli and SS Daley – one designer at the top of his game, another in true ascendance – meeting for the first time. Right over there, our global editorial director Will Welch is waxing lyrical on the art of collaboration with Samuel Ross, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Benji B. Nearby, Micheal Ward is chopping it up with the musician Berwyn. Right by them, Daisy Edgar-Jones (star of the darkest dating film, Fresh) is huddled up in a conversation with Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins (the creators of The Tinder Swindler, the darkest dating documentary). And in one pocket of…

Who Is Fai Khadra? “THE QUESTION I dread most is when someone asks, ‘What do you do?’” says Fai Khadra. Put simply, the 30-year-old is an influencer. But Khadra is a rare breed of modern polymath who seems to be everywhere, doing everything, all the time. He’s leveraged his colossal levels of social media clout – and a Hollywood A-list Rolodex and a degree in architecture – to guest curate an art show for Sotheby’s, design collaborations with glasses brand Oliver Peoples, devise a forthcoming fashion label he says will “democratise good design,” model for Ralph Lauren, plan concert sets for some of your favourite artists, and become a friend to zeitgeisty fashion royalty like Demna and Kim Jones. In the process, he’s elevated the role of the influencer into a…

Morfydd Clark and I are on a quest. We are answering clues – sent to my mobile – that will guide us around Kensington Palace Gardens and beyond, if we make it that far. Text Quest isn’t quite The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the Amazon show in which Clark will soon star as Galadriel. But the other, Tolkien-vibing activities we suggested, Clark sensibly declined. “I couldn’t do axe-throwing because I just think I would kill someone,” she says. Slaying is, however, on the Morfydd Clark agenda. After supporting roles in The Personal History of David Copperfield and the BBC adaptation of His Dark Materials, she broke out in singular fashion as the lead in the highly-acclaimed British horror film Saint Maud in 2019. Her depiction of a…

I WAS NOT the only one who turned to golf for solace during the pandemic. Maybe you were bitten by the bug long ago, or rediscovered the game during the doldrums of a WFH summer. Perhaps you fell into it for the very first time. What’s clear is that the sport wasn’t just a lockdown respite. You’re not just imagining that demand at your local course is still up: the great 2020 golf boom reportedly resulted in a net increase of 60 million–plus rounds of golf – the biggest one-year increase since 1997, when a young man named Tiger Woods won his first major. And last year alone, more than 3 million people hit a golf course in the US for the first time, according to the National Golf Foundation. Why…

RAINBOW SETTING – that is, adorning a timepiece with a bevy of colourful gems – has emerged as one of the most collectible tropes in quality watchmaking. Rolex has a rainbow-tinted history that traces back to the ’80s when it embellished the elegant Cellini models, though it was the bezel of the 2012 Cosmograph Daytona – comprising 36 trapezium-cut sapphires of different colours – that really ignited the multi-coloured passion of collectors. Since then, rainbow hues have decorated a range of Rolexes, right up to this year’s Yacht-Master, set with cool blue and violet stones, and the new rainbow-set Daytona, a trophy of 2020s watch collecting. “For any serious modern Daytona collector, a rainbow is a must-have,” says Christie’s watch specialist Remy Julia. “The ideal is to have the trilogy of…