GQ November 2019 : Pharrell Williams by Micaiah Carter

[MulletProof]

His music is grating and his image is worse to me and I think he's.. kind of a scam?.. he seems to have a lot of seemingly valid accusations on plagiarism. And I'm definitely not interested in his 'passion for fashion' take on fashion..

That being said, something you don't see everyday, is people of any gender/orientation, retracting themselves in public and even less common, openly acknowledging that their oh-so-sacred work with proven success and that "nobody can touch" is actually based on values that do not promote a stronger society. It really takes a lifetime, and a lot of guts and swallowing your dirty pride even for your average uncle to decide to learn more not to justify existing thoughts, but to debunk them.

From this issue:

Pharrell Williams has distanced himself from Blurred Lines, his 2013 collaboration with Robin Thicke, which provoked controversy for its depiction of sexual politics.

Countless universities banned the song from being played at student events owing to the lyric “I know you want it” – and a video in which the pair cavorted with topless models.

Williams told GQ that he didn’t understand the uproar at first, because women appeared to like the song. “So when there started to be an issue with it, lyrically, I was, like, ‘What are you talking about? There are women who really like the song and connect to the energy that just gets you up. And I know you want it – women sing those kinds of lyrics all the time. So it’s like, What’s rapey about that?’”

He said that he came to understand that the language used in the song is also used by men “when taking advantage of a woman, and it doesn’t matter that that’s not my behaviour. Or the way I think about things. It just matters how it affects women.”

Williams “realised that we live in a chauvinist culture in our country. Hadn’t realised that. Didn’t realise some of my songs catered to that. So that blew my mind.”

 

[Breathless]

I’m just happy Liya got a check for this(I think).

 

[dfl-001]

Nothing about this cover seems genuine to me.
Deliberately done to provoke a conversation.
Not sure it's the discussion they wanted though.
The previews on Instagram and video are dull as $h!t.

sophistipunk
Bedspreads are happening

hi_beamz
Honestly out of all the crazy guys in fashion and hip-hop I never thought he was fly, he always seemed like a follower to me and didn’t really exude genuine style his music was fun..but that was it for me

I don't know anyone talking about Pharrell recently, so, it just seems like a cheap PR stunt to show up on this cover. Pharrell isn't going to sell this to anyone, just because it's Pharrell.
I wonder how long before GQ goes out of print and turns all digital ala Glamour.

 

[axiomatic]

Got this in the mail today. 128 pages.

Content, all in the context of the "New Masculinity," includes:
articles on Clare Waight Keller, Collier Schorr, Kevin Love, Hannah Gadsby, John Waters, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Kate Dillon, Killer Mike and Shana Render

"Face Time"
P: Donna Trope
S: Mobolaji Dawodu
Billy Idol, Casil McArthur, Luka Sabbat, Gabriel Luna, Jackson Wang, Ian Isiah, Charlie Barnett,

 

[Benn98]

Evolver

Photographer: Micaiah Carter
Stylist: Mobolaji Dawodu
Grooming: Johnny Castellanos
Cast: Pharrell Williams



US GQ Digital Edition

 

[Benn98]

Face Time

Photographer: Donna Trope
Stylist: Mobolaji Dawodu
Hair: John Baine
Makeup: Allie Smith
Cast: Casil McArthur, Luka Sabbat, Billy Idol, Jackson Wang, Gabriel Luna, Ian Isaiah, Charlie Barnett



US GQ Digital Edition

 

[Deleted member 45369]

I would not buy this.

 

[MON]

Hahaha see. The cover represents the magazine equivalent of a CLICK BAIT.

Wears something feminine on the cover, while the editorial is in complete disconnect with the cover.

Unless New Masculinity is wearing animal prints/trench coat/ and red shoes.

 

[Benn98]

Seems they've either dipped Chloe Sevigny's 21yo boyfriend in bronzer or digitally alter his skin because he's definitely not that dark.

 

[FashionMuseDior]

I'm sorry but you cannot give me new masculinity with Pharrell and his same bored facial expression every shot. The second editorial is a bit better though.

 

[JPineapple]

BuT tHeY mAdE a StAtEmEnT *roll eyes*

 

[dfl-001]

This is complete rubbish.
Pharrell makes Jake Gyllenhaal look positively dynamic in print.

 

[Benn98]

GQ just discovered men wear makeup

And I oop.

by Editors

NEW YORK– GQ, the men’s style authority providing advice to men for more than 62-years has finally discovered that men wear makeup.

In the outlet’s November “The New Masculinity Issue,” dedicated to men across the masculinity spectrum, GQ attempts to highlight what they believe to be 21st-century trends surrounding masculinity (Editor’s note: David Yi, Very Good Light’s editor-in-chief, was interviewed for GQ’s November issue but his interview was omitted).

“We’re not attempting to be comprehensive on the subject of masculinity or offering a strict how-to for being a better man,” admits GQ‘s editor-in-chief Will Welch. “Instead, this issue is an exploration of the ways that traditional notions of masculinity are being challenged, shifted, and overturned.”

At face value, this is powerful. For GQ, a publication that has been a major voice of hypermasculinity, promoting overt machismo, sexism, and chauvinism, throughout its history, it’s as if in this singular issue, they’re looking to right some of the cultural wrongs they’ve had a hand in creating via toxic masculinity.

According to Allied Market Research, men’s makeup is now purported to be a multi-billion dollar industry, expected to hit $166 billion in 2022. We’re also seeing the next generation of consumers becoming more interested in gender-neutral beauty products to serve their own blurring sexuality and gender identities. To stay afloat and become relevant, GQ seems to have found itself in a quandary. Do they pivot into what culture has become, while perhaps alienating their current readers, or do they remain the same and become forgotten?

“To millions of men, skincare and cosmetics is an everyday part of their life. It isn’t drag, it isn’t for women, it isn’t an act of bravery.”

Insiders tell Very Good Light that in the months before publishing its current issue, GQ’s very own editor-in-chief was getting cold feet. The issue was supposed to hit newsstands for September, but according to sources, Will “wasn’t into this masculinity stuff.” The source says that the issue was being “dragged along” and that there was no enthusiasm within the top editors. It’s no surprise, as most who hold the keys to power at GQ are cisgender, straight men, viewing this movement of “new masculinity” through a very narrow lens.

For instance, the headline of one article, “The Glorious Now of Men in Makeup,” is uncomfortably dated. The subhead doesn’t help, either: “One day we’ll look back on the era when makeup was only for women and think: Huh?”

Not only is GQ’s insistence on gendering makeup reductive and sexist, it fails to acknowledge the millions of men who already use makeup from the subtle – CC cream and shaded brows – to the full face beat, and everyone in between. For millions of men, skincare and cosmetics are already an everyday part of their lives.

It isn’t just drag, it isn’t solely for women, it isn’t an act of “bravery.” Many people aren’t even using it to stand out; they’re using it to blend in.

Like we’ve seen with the ways race and sexism have been treated recently, this “new” look at masculinity feels like a way for people in power to get credit for inclusivity without investing anything in the actual conversation.

Also, makeup never has been “only for women.” For centuries, men have beautified to amplify their power. Neanderthals ground up pyrite and seashells to make a kind of glitter back in 50,000 B.C. Vikings, some of the original beauty boys, carried grooming kits with them wherever they traveled. In 1250 B.C., Egyptian pharaohs used kohl eyeliner in golds, blacks and emeralds to exert their power. Alexander the Great wore blush and nail polish before battle. A Korean assassin clan, known as the Hwarang from the sixth-century Silla dynasty, were chosen for their beauty and used colored cosmetics as a spiritual practice. The list goes on and on and on. So, to casually relegate makeup to a gendered frivolity is not only misleading, it’s just plain wrong.

Mainstream media outlets like GQ seem to be capitalizing on a trend and proclaiming it new just because they’ve only now gotten the courage to cover it. Like we’ve seen with the ways race and sexism have been treated recently, this “new” look at masculinity feels like a way for people in power to get credit for inclusivity without investing anything in the actual conversation. And it’s nothing new in the beauty and fashion worlds: taking steps to woo a new demographic of consumers (or at least signal to them that they are aware they exist) without offering a seat at the table to the people they are hoping will pay up.

It’s Columbusing at its finest: “discovering” us beauty boys without inviting any of us to participate in the conversation.

It’s clear that in publishing this issue, and this “male makeup” piece specifically, GQ was hoping to make the least possible effort in order to reap the greatest possible return: cultural credibility. They want this story to go viral, to add it to their catalogue of ways that this era of GQ is “new,” but they don’t actually seem to care about the realities of boy beauty. They’ve taken no risks.

Rock icon Billy Idol has been wearing makeup since the 1970s. Nothing new there. Luka Sabbat, one of the token GQ “cool guys” of the moment, had a Milk Makeup contract last year. Jackson Wang is possibly the least makeup-forward of all the K-Pop stars, and, even so, makeup for men is quite common in Korea. Also his proclamation that “a neutral colored tinted balm is really comfortable to wear” is far from revolutionary or revelatory.

The point of this story seems to be more about the talent that GQ was able to convince to wear makeup, than the makeup itself. Where are the real beauty boys, the ones who wear makeup every day? Where are the revolutionary male beauty YouTubers, some of whom have been forging their way for almost a decade or more? Where are the nonbinary and transgender folks who use makeup to help them move through the world and form their identity? Where are the real men who study makeup tutorials at home, just to learn how to cover up their acne? Or the guys who wear makeup as armor or a means of empowerment?

While it’s clear GQ is evolving, this story (and the issue as a whole) doesn’t cut it because it isn’t authentic. It still reads as masculinity through the eyes of straight, cisgender white men who view makeup as feminine, beauty products as women-exclusive, and cosmetics appropriate only for over-the-top editorial campaigns.

It’s Columbusing at its finest: “discovering” us beauty boys without inviting any of us to participate in the conversation – going so far as to erase us completely.

But we don’t need GQ and its narrow-minded editors to give us permission to partake in beauty. We didn’t ask for them to write up a “Masculinity Issue” to make themselves feel relevant. We didn’t need another lazy beauty spread of garish, made-up men.

Because for millions of people out there, this as been their reality for years. What we need is a place to share our real stories, where we can feel heard and supported. Where our habits, our interests, and our passions aren’t appropriated. This is not it.

GQ, do better.

-Editors of Very Good Light

Very Good Light

 

[Benn98]

GQ is a holy text of woke capital

As with clothes, ‘woke’ fashions offer endless content as different social phenomena are humorlessly deconstructed

Ben Sixsmith
October 16, 2019
2:50 PM

In general, there is no point in reading articles you know are bound to make you mad. Life is too short. Read a good book. Enjoy a walk with your loved ones. Learn how to fashion something out of wood. Sometimes, though, an article crosses our path and we are gripped with the despair and anger one might feel watching a drunk driver veer across a crowded street.

One such article is GQ editor-in-chief Will Welch’s introduction to the magazine’s ‘New Masculinity’ issue. ‘When I found out that I would be the editor-in-chief of GQ,’ Welch writes:

‘…most people said stuff like “Amazing!” and “Congrats!” But one particularly perceptive friend reacted in a way that I’ll never forget. “Yikes,” she said. “Hell of a time to be in charge of a men’s magazine.”

‘It was a hard-core thing to say — which is exactly what real friends are for.’

Yikes. Men? Big oof! Not a good look, and that’s the tea sis. (Do people really talk like this in real life?)

GQ embracing all things ‘woke’ was predictable. Since 1932, this storied institution has published articles and photographs related to men’s fashion and culture. Once a port and cigars kind of publication, in the 1990s it became associated with the ‘metrosexual’ trend. GQ, Mark Simpson wrote, was:

‘…filled…with images of narcissistic young men sporting fashionable clothes and accessories. And they persuaded other young men to study them with a mixture of envy and desire.’

Being narcissistically obsessed with fashion and status naturally led the owners and staff of GQ to adopt a fashionable, high-status ideology. Like Rolex watches, ‘woke’ opinions are positional goods, too arcane, counter-intuitive and amorphous for anyone except an ideological elite. As with clothes, ‘woke’ fashions offer endless content as different social phenomena are humorlessly deconstructed. It is, in other words, a perfect fit.

Or nearly. ‘How do you make a so-called men’s magazine,’ Welch asks himself, ‘in the thick of what has justifiably become the Shut Up and Listen moment?’ This is something like if I, with feigned detachment, referred to ‘what has justifiably become the Ben Sixsmith moment.’ It is only the ‘Shut Up and Listen’ moment inasmuch as journalists like Mr Welch keep telling us it is. To be sure, the #MeToo movement had some value in exposing the pervasive nature of sexual violence but progressives have been using it as a bandwagon for a broad assault on male-gendered phenomena and traditional conceptions of masculinity. Mr Welch does not even mean ‘shut up and listen to women’ but ‘shut up and listen to people who share my politics.’

So, how do you make a men’s magazine? You don’t. As Mr Welch explains, GQ is not ‘exclusively for or about men at all.’ Instead:

‘…one of the key principles at GQ is that if we tell stories that excite our own smart, voracious, politically and socially engaged team, we will connect with a smart, engaged, diverse, and gender-nonspecific audience.’

Voracious? How can you trust an editor who flings adjectives around in search of eloquence like a half-brained banker flings dollar bills around in search of class? What becomes clear in Welch’s shrill prose is that GQ is not for men as much as it is about men, and, more specifically, about making men more emotional, sensitive, socially conscious and stylistically flamboyant.

Sometimes the messaging is relatively subtle. ‘Is there a positive side to masculinity?’ Welch asks one interviewee, which, while it might have been well-intentioned, is as loaded a question as its opposite. John Waters, asked to describe a ‘real man’, says , ‘A real man is not scared of strong, smart women.’ True, but like saying a real chef can cook spaghetti. Is that an adequate definition?

Sometimes the messaging is more obvious. Pharrell Williams appears to say ‘the dominant force on this planet right now is the older straight white male,’ and ask, ‘Man, what would the world be like if women held all of the highest positions worldwide?’ I too am disgusted by old straight white males putting down protesters in Hong Kong and imprisoning Uighurs, but am also curious what the world would be like if it was ruled by Marion Le Pen and Kolinda Grabar-Kitarowic.

On and on the issue goes. Hannah Gadsby arrives to give a typically mirthless lecture. ‘Helloo, the men,’ she begins:

‘My advice on modern masculinity would be to look at all those traits you believe are feminine and interrogate why you are so obsessed with being the opposite.’

Hello, Hannah. My advice would be to stop beating your wife.

‘How about you try pretending that you’re the least powerful person in any room, and that no matter how hard you work you’ll never be the most powerful.’

Yes, I’m sure that men working in factories, warehouses and convenience stores really have to stretch their imaginations to conceive of being the least powerful person in a room. You tell ’em, multi-millionaire comedienne.

Look, I have a history of eating disorders so I know, thanks, how complex male self-image can be. I know, moreover, that men can adopt repugnant and pathetic attitudes towards women, each other and themselves in the name of masculinity. But the spectacle of a bunch of pouting narcissists in ugly €1,000 jackets talking down to men who struggle to improve themselves and build and sustain their families is disgusting. Frankly, they can roll their issue up and perch atop it.

Spectator USA

 

[Benn98]

Everybody's coming for them, which probably mean this issue will out-trend the Brad Pitt one:

Not Your Father’s Masculinity

Meet the “new man”: whatever others say he is.

By Matt Labash
Oct. 23, 2019

John Wayne, that repository of testosterone — now considered an illicit substance in many states — once played a character who said, “You have to be a man first, before you’re a gentleman.” Who knows what, exactly, he meant by it? It sounded like a fine thing to say, back when men were unabashed “men.” Now, we have #MeToo, and toxic males, and even such a once man-friendly rag as Gentlemen’s Quarterly (i.e., GQ), which has historically celebrated men, seems to be just sick about them, eager to atone for their Y chromosome.

As a subscriber for decades — and as a biological male — I eagerly delved into GQ’s “New Masculinity” issue. I’ve historically read the magazine that “meets millions of modern men where they live” for high-grade long-form journalism, or to settle existential quandaries such as, “What the hell is face serum and do I need to use it?” Still, one generally doesn’t turn to men’s magazine editors with soft hands who fret about conquering “your complex pant-shoe relationship” for instruction on the meaning of manhood. Not to pick on GQ, which, after all, helps us perform vital functions, such as how to “salute the celebrity mustache.”

But after years of #MeToo scandals, which have revealed weirdos and perverts and sex criminals (and that’s just R. Kelly), “toxic masculinity” is now regarded as tautology in some quarters. In more than a few tellings today, just to be a man is to be toxic.

So GQ’s newish editor in chief, Will Welch, is taking a crack at overhauling our benighted gender, presenting an issue in which, as he puts it, “traditional notions of masculinity are being challenged” and “overturned.” In doing so, he holds, we can be more generous, empathetic humans, even to ourselves, since “toxicity simply cannot thrive in the golden presence of genuine self-love.” Tell that to Harvey Weinstein, who allegedly “self-loved” into a potted plant in front of one of his trapped victims.

The bulk of GQ’s conversation starter is a package in which “18 powerful voices” have their say on the new masculinity. You’d think this would make for an interesting cross-section of representative men, but there, you’d largely be wrong, since traditional men seem afterthoughts in their own discussion. As the writer Rod Dreher has noted in his own analysis of the GQ spread, scratching out some back-of-the-envelope calculations, of these 18 purportedly definitive figures, there are perhaps four who are heterosexual cis men, about 20 percent (even though 95 percent of all males identify as hetero).

Aside from the views of men like the filmmaker John Waters (“men are the ones who have penis envy”), or Magic Johnson’s son, who has chosen a life “embracing traditionally feminine clothing and cosmetics,” GQ seems primarily interested in soliciting women’s opinions of what being a man means. Imagine Ms. or Jezebel doing the mirror version of this, with men mansplaining what women should be. Then run for your life.

You do get transgender men, like the boxer Thomas Page McBee, celebrating his “newly weaponized body,” which might sound like a threat to women if he hadn’t been originally gender-assigned to womanhood. There’s the rapper Killer Mike, who, along with his wife, Shana Render, is interviewed in one of Atlanta’s iconic strip clubs. But don’t strip clubs demean women? No bother. Killer Mike is otherwise woke enough to pass muster (he is, after all, a Bernie Sanders supporter), and Ms. Render informs that they do dispense investment tips to strippers. “Catering, massage companies, real estate,” Killer Mike adds.

Otherwise, there are a lot of women, all kinds of women. There’s the comedian Hannah Gadsby, who suggests men scale back their confidence, refrain from sharing their opinions, while looking “to traditional feminine traits” and then “incorporating them into your masculinity.” And there’s Al Freeman, whose soft-sculpture work is an effort to examine hypermasculine spaces, “a mirror of the things that I wish would be softer, or more benign, or less threatening somehow.” Think pillow versions of male genitalia or frat-house Jagermeister bottles. “I guess it’s castrating humor, to some degree,” Ms. Freeman says.

In an interview with Gayle King on “CBS This Morning,” Mr. Welch reported that in GQ’s survey of attitudes on masculinity, 97 percent said they felt masculinity was changing, and “30 percent of men said that they were confused by the changes.”

Wonder how that could’ve happened.

As for me, I might be tempted to answer Vox’s Liz Plank, one of GQ’s 18 voices, who recently published a book, “For the Love of Men.” While writing it, she went to Washington Square in Manhattan, thoughtfully asking men, “What’s hard about being a man?”

“Having to listen to people who aren’t men, or who are ashamed of manhood, constantly telling me how to be one,” would be my short answer, after I stopped, dropped and rolled for cover.

But for actual guidance — more sage than anything I read in GQ’s masculinity symposium — I’d turn to Edward Abbey, the ornery liberal who enjoyed baiting those on his own team. By most lights, he was a more reliable environmentalist than he was a feminist. (“The feminists have a legitimate grievance,” he said. “But so does everyone else.”) But Mr. Abbey, a former park ranger, did spend a lot of time observing nature up close, and not just the flora and fauna. Of man/woman relations, he wrote, “It is the difference between men and women, not the sameness, that creates the tension and the delight.”

Why keep fuzzing distinctions that for millenniums have resisted fuzzing? Punish the sex criminals and pelvic pinball wizards. Good riddance to them all. But otherwise, let men and women be men and women, however that appropriately breaks, without laboring so hard to fuse them. Maybe our opposites attracting, which the furtherance of our species has depended on, isn’t a design flaw, but its very essence. And maybe the wokerati ought to take their own most oft-repeated cliché to heart: Our diversity is our strength.

New York Times

 

[JPineapple]

I saw this coming since the release of the cover.

 

[KoV]

The styling in Pharrell's editorial is not at all to my personal taste, each look is less appealing than the last. Though I will say, despite not featuring more dresses or skirts, there are certainly plenty of pieces that wouldn't be classified as traditionally masculine, either. Brightly colored shiny loafers, a nearly floor length pink coat, a pale yellow cardigan with fur. Most "masculine" men wouldn't be caught dead. I don't really care for the other editorial either, but I like the idea behind it and Charlie Barnett in smokey eye makes me feel some kind of way.

Concerning some of the criticisms: If the EIC and the senior editors didn't like the idea, as Very Good Light says, why would they have pursued it and created the issue? Their claim that GQ leadership wasn't on board with the theme of the issue just doesn't make sense to me. And it seems unsubstantiated. Very Good Light was perfectly happy to be a part of the issue, but upon finding out GQ didn't print their interview, they changed their minds and tried the take-down approach. So many points touched on in those articles, one can hardly address them all. A major issue I take with the Very Good Light article is the hugely misleading statement (that's being generous, more like a straight up lie to try and make GQ seem out of touch) about Men's Makeup becoming a 166 billion dollar industry. Men's makeup is NOT anywhere close to that. Men's Personal Care, is going to become a 166 billion dollar industry. That includes deodorant, razor blades, shaving cream, body wash, etc. and makeup is a very small percentage of that, to be sure. Makeup products and campaigns are overwhelmingly targeted towards women, not men. The vast, vast majority of men do not wear makeup and those who do are widely mocked, ridiculed, and their manhood and sexuality is called into question. This may not be the case in progressive circles in progressive areas, but for most men on earth, makeup is a controversial choice.

GQ is mainstream as hell and, though in some areas of the internet and in the world of luxury fashion men in makeup and skirts may be passé, in mainstream American culture, it is not the norm. Very Good Light has a few thousand followers and their readership may already be on board, but I really think for many of the millions of GQ readers/followers, this is an introduction to men in makeup. And for many, an unwelcome one. I took a quick glance at the comments on instagram below some of the "Face Time" photos and see things like "makeup is for women and queers" and "we have lost our masculinity if this continues". I looked at some of the comments reacting to this Pharrell cover on social media and they were similarly nasty and disrespectful. Men in dresses and men in makeup has been a thing for thousands of years, but it clearly had fallen out of fashion and been associated with femininity and queer culture. Even in the gay community men in "fem" makeup or clothing is often looked upon as undesirable. I've been mocked by other gay man for wearing nail polish. For a mainstream magazine in Trump's America, that has long helped to enforce restrictive notions of masculinity, to do an issue like this is somewhat risky. To put a successful and influential straight man in a dress on the cover and include an editorial highlighting men in makeup is a huge step forward, in my opinion. Would it be nice if it happened sooner? Yes. Do I hope they continue the trend and it doesn't turn out to be a gimmicky 1-issue thing? Yes. But I'm happy GQ is making an effort to change.

 

[Benn98]

The styling in Pharrell's editorial is not at all to my personal taste, each look is less appealing than the last. Though I will say, despite not featuring more dresses or skirts, there are certainly plenty of pieces that wouldn't be classified as traditionally masculine, either. Brightly colored shiny loafers, a nearly floor length pink coat, a pale yellow cardigan with fur. Most "masculine" men wouldn't be caught dead. I don't really care for the other editorial either, but I like the idea behind it and Charlie Barnett in smokey eye makes me feel some kind of way.

Concerning some of the criticisms: If the EIC and the senior editors didn't like the idea, as Very Good Light says, why would they have pursued it and created the issue? Their claim that GQ leadership wasn't on board with the theme of the issue just doesn't make sense to me. And it seems unsubstantiated. Very Good Light was perfectly happy to be a part of the issue, but upon finding out GQ didn't print their interview, they changed their minds and tried the take-down approach. So many points touched on in those articles, one can hardly address them all. A major issue I take with the Very Good Light article is the hugely misleading statement (that's being generous, more like a straight up lie to try and make GQ seem out of touch) about Men's Makeup becoming a 166 billion dollar industry. Men's makeup is NOT anywhere close to that. Men's Personal Care, is going to become a 166 billion dollar industry. That includes deodorant, razor blades, shaving cream, body wash, etc. and makeup is a very small percentage of that, to be sure. Makeup products and campaigns are overwhelmingly targeted towards women, not men. The vast, vast majority of men do not wear makeup and those who do are widely mocked, ridiculed, and their manhood and sexuality is called into question. This may not be the case in progressive circles in progressive areas, but for most men on earth, makeup is a controversial choice.

GQ is mainstream as hell and, though in some areas of the internet and in the world of luxury fashion men in makeup and skirts may be passé, in mainstream American culture, it is not the norm. Very Good Light has a few thousand followers and their readership may already be on board, but I really think for many of the millions of GQ readers/followers, this is an introduction to men in makeup. And for many, an unwelcome one. I took a quick glance at the comments on instagram below some of the "Face Time" photos and see things like "makeup is for women and queers" and "we have lost our masculinity if this continues". I looked at some of the comments reacting to this Pharrell cover on social media and they were similarly nasty and disrespectful. Men in dresses and men in makeup has been a thing for thousands of years, but it clearly had fallen out of fashion and been associated with femininity and queer culture. Even in the gay community men in "fem" makeup or clothing is often looked upon as undesirable. I've been mocked by other gay man for wearing nail polish. For a mainstream magazine in Trump's America, that has long helped to enforce restrictive notions of masculinity, to do an issue like this is somewhat risky. To put a successful and influential straight man in a dress on the cover and include an editorial highlighting men in makeup is a huge step forward, in my opinion. Would it be nice if it happened sooner? Yes. Do I hope they continue the trend and it doesn't turn out to be a gimmicky 1-issue thing? Yes. But I'm happy GQ is making an effort to change.

While I can't vouch whether Very Good Light's reason for publishing the piece was sour grapes or not, I do believe their claim because it's such a senseless trivia which probably would not have carried much weight if nearly all the other outlets didn't start reporting hit pieces on GQ. Now if they said Anna wanted to bin Rihanna's cover, that's different because of the parties involved and what such a story would represent in terms of publicity. Will Welch is not a star editor (though he'd like to be, I'm sure.)
Regarding their inaccuracy of the men's makeup market share, maybe you've taken that number to refer only to American men? Because if you click through to the link on their article (original source: CNBC), it actually reflects the global men's market. And I do believe that figure to be accurate. I know for a fact in the streets of Hong Kong and Shanghai I feel like a caveman with my measly little moisturiser/sunscreen next to everyday men going about their business with caked-on BB/CC cream and in certain parts, full-on makeup. The Asian market probably holds the biggest slice of the men's grooming market. I do agree with you that for the majority of American, and probably British, men makeup isn't the norm.

My issue with GQ isnt so much the cover and beauty edit, and here Very Good Light would likely disagree with me, but more the fact that with their reader demographic in mind, decided to put out such a divisive issue. That, and the overall preachy, condescending tone with which they've dealt with the subject matter. It's insensitive! If I were a straight guy I'd feel likely slighted, as the NY Times writer feels. When you want to effect change you don't force your case by using the polar opposite as an ideal. You meet your base halfway and gradually win them over with whatever new concepts you're trying to flog. I am now convinced that this issue wasn't actually created for men, but only to score brownie points with everyone else. 'Look how woke we are'. Earlier this year American Esquire tried to meet their readers halfway by trying to help them navigate through this new social backdrop. But before that one issue could evolve into a series of features covering various points of view (as planned), it was met with backlash and shaming on here and elsewhere and likely canned as a result. A product actually created FOR men. It seems as long as everyone can preach to men on how they should behave instead of engaging in conversation and asking why they behave a certain way, that's perfectly fine.
Fleabag actually dealt with the issue quite effective with Hugh Dennis' character, however comical it was.

As for Will Welch, his credibility as an editor went out the window when he boldly declared the death of the suit with his inaugural February issue, and in September had the audacity to actually feature a suit as boldy on the cover (along with a feature inside on how the suit got its groove back). Again, a perfect example of a fashion editor handling a platform that he knows nothing about. He clearly doesn't know the cardinal rule #1 of the traditional men's market: the easiest way to lose your cred is to flip flop on issues because it is considered unreliable. Maybe he still thinks he's dealing with the GQ Style reader?

 

[KoV]

I clicked through the link and the article specifically states the "men's personal care market is expected to hit $166 billion in 2022" and the article mentions razors, body wash, and deodorant. I'm not denying makeup for men is on the rise globally, but with only 3.7-ish billion males on earth total, many of them children, elderly, and/or living in extreme poverty, I knew there was no way men's makeup alone is anywhere close to $166 billion alone. I did a bit of research and men's makeup, globally, is only valued at about $1.14 billion for 2019, that's compared to $71 billion is total makeup sales. A far, far cry from what Very Good Light was claiming. Source