INTERVIEW
While it is normal for print media titles to regularly review their editorial offer, GQ proposes a radical change of formula in this month of February. It must be said that in five years, the French version of the men’s magazine has gone from 92,500 copies sold in 2016 to 48,350 in 2020. It is therefore a necessary overhaul that has operated Olivier Lalanne, editor-in-chief since last July, date at which he began to work on this new version. He was the guest of Media Culture, Tuesday morning, to present the final result.
“Flexibility and flexibility”
“When I was appointed to this post, I met a lot of journalists, men in this case, of different ages, different cultures, different situations, different families. Often, over the course of the conversations, it was about masculinity and the impact it could have on them. I was like, ‘I can’t do without that when I go to rethink GQ. There is a real issue in the field of men. I think that men have never been so challenged in their way of being and of representing themselves. How can the magazine both ask these questions and try to answer them and become a kind of forum without being devoted only to that? “
For Olivier Lalanne, “it goes without saying that GQ is a cultural entertainment magazine with news, fashion … But I nevertheless wanted to anchor it in social and cultural reality. “Concretely, the magazine and its editors” will try to stand out as much as possible codes of masculinity as represented until now “. In fine, it is about “allowing men to have a form of flexibility and suppleness in their way of being and of representing themselves”.
At the start of 2021, GQ is changing its skin. To mark the occasion, find a special issue with three covers.@Jacquemus, our second cover-boy, is the new strong man in fashion. Discover his portrait in our new issue on newsstands on Tuesday, February 2. pic.twitter.com/OcZGUOV9QY
— GQ France (@GQ_France) January 30, 2021
Jacquemus, Zem et Ichon
On the occasion of this new formula, thirteen years after the arrival of the French version on newsstands, three different covers are offered to readers, as so many reflections of this new editorial line: the actor Roschdy Zem, the stylist Jacquemus and rapper Ichon, three figures of reinvented masculinity.
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