GQ Style Spring 2020_DEL

SINCE 1957, GQ HAS BEEN THE HOME of exquisite handsomeness. There’s American Gigolo–era Richard Gere smoldering with a cigarette (March 1980). There’s Michael Jordan with a megawatt smile and a bossy double-breasted suit (March 1989). And there’s George Clooney making a casual wall-lean look like a sex move (October 1997). But what happens when, after all those years, handsome suddenly goes out of style? Right now “looking your best” simply doesn’t feel interesting, exciting, or cool. Sure, you can get the right haircut to frame your face, a nice tan, and clothes that flatter your body type—so that you always present the world with the most broadly appealing version of yourself. It will probably help you get a job. It will probably still get you laid. But what our Post…

STARRING THREE MODELS WE LOVE SONNY HALL WISDOM ONWUBIKO MONA MATSUOKA 01 Pleats and Plaids Sonny Hall Age: 21 Hometown: London Today fashion models are made out of TikTok stars. Sonny Hall is decidedly more analog: On the day of this shoot, he arrived with a dog-eared copy of Henry Miller’s Hamlet Letters in hand, a rumpled Savile Row suit on his back, looking like a Dickensian urchin gone intellectual. Which he kind of is: Last year he published his debut poetry collection, The Blues Comes With Good News. “Modeling has done a lot for me,” says the kid signed to Kate Moss’s agency. “But the more I do it, the more I think there’s way more to me than posing.” Pick up a copy of Blues to see for yourself…

ANDERSON & SHEPPARD The bespoke tailoring shop behind the most stylish dressers in history LITERARY STYLE ICON Fran Lebowitz once wrote: “Love of clothing is what I have instead of spirituality. It is personal, transcendent, and deeply fulfilling.” It’s no ordinary threads that led the famously unflappable author to sartorial nirvana: The bespoke Savile Row tailoring house Anderson & Sheppard, she said, “is my preferred denomination.” Lebowitz is not alone in her devotion to Anderson & Sheppard. If you were to go through the company’s measurement books, you would find that some of the most rakish dressers in history are members of that tailored-clothing cult: Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, Duke Ellington, Bryan Ferry, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Prince Charles. A few designers too, namely Bill Blass, Calvin Klein, Manolo Blahnik, and Tom…

Location Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Year established 2008 Specialty Hearts and skulls If you want a tattoo, there’s no shortage of street shops in New York City to choose from. If you want a fire-breathing, pitchfork-toting, skull-smashing all-caps TATTOO, you go to Smith Street Tattoo Parlour in Carroll Gardens, where industry legend Bert Krak helps lead a team of artists who are committed to keeping the art of hardscrabble New York ink alive. “At Smith Street, you’re gonna get a classic tattoo,” says Martin Mazorra, a Parsons and Pratt professor who discovered Krak’s work after asking a former student where he got his sick wolf-head tat. Mazorra now has three dozen Smith Street pieces that cover his entire body. “The designs are bold but very simple,” he says. “It’s going to…

Location Ikebukuro, Tokyo Years practicing 30+ Specialty Tebori tigers When you have closets full of fanatically curated Japanese fashion, like John Mayer does, you don’t get tattooed by just anyone. You wait until you meet the master. “Ever since I was old enough to get one, I was looking for the real-deal Japanese-style tattoo,” Mayer says. “It took years of asking around each time I went to Tokyo, until finally I was introduced to Horimitsu. I instantly had that feeling like I was at the heart of Japanese tattoo.” Mayer spent the next month in Horimitsu’s studio, getting a sleeve of glistening koi, vibrant peonies, and turbulent waves tapped out in the traditional Japanese tebori method on his left arm. The technique, in which the artist uses a needle-tipped rod…

Location Joshua Tree Years practicing 5+ Specialty Artful stick-and-poke Aidan Koch is best known as the author of three book-length comics and as an artist whose dreamlike illustrations have been shown in galleries from L.A. to Paris. But in the past few years, Koch’s stick-and-poke tattoo practice, which she does under the nom de needle House of Ruin, has developed a devoted cult following in the underground art and fashion communities. “If you know, you know,” says Brooklyn-based artist and writer Diamond Stingily, who has “about 10” of Koch’s delicate ink drawings. “Aidan’s work is so distinct to her,” Stingily says of Koch’s appeal. “She doesn’t do anything for clout. She respects her craft.” What is your signature style? I do stick-and-poke. I have a fairly loose style, but it’s…