Fashion media blog.

Discussion topic: Masculinity and Fashion & Representations of Men in Magazine editorials. 

Lecturer: Wayne Gross (Creative Director of GQ Magazine Australia)

GQ is a men's lifestyle magazine that provides a provocative mix of the best writing, strong visuals and an unrivalled sense of intelligence. GQ is published in 19 countries including Australia, Brazil, UK, USA, China, Germany and Spain. Each publication works independently although all follow the GQ philosophy. GQ Australia is released 8 times a year, and carries a 73% dominated male readership. 

Creative Director Wayne Gross of GQ Magazine Australia begun his presentation by primarily illustrating a clear interdependence of print, digital and social media in creating a successful magazine. Technology has revolutionised the manner by which magazines market their brand through brand extensions, this means that magazines must engage readers by remaining current and topical. 

To illustrate this, Wayne provided the example of the current issue of GQ Australia that features Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover. The subheading reads 'Hollywood's biggest star on how Gatsby redefined the modern man'. The success of this issue can be understood through several layers. Firstly, the issue coincides with the release of the film The Great Gatsby, therefore all the hype and advertising power directed at this release is extended or redirected to the magazine. Brand extension is further noted in Brooks Brothers, that is, the fashion label responsible for all the suiting seen in the Film. The label has used the film as a vehicle for increase media media coverage, such coverage benefits the film and GQ Magazine. It is all about presence within the commercial environment.  Audiences are thirsty for everything Gatsby, therefore this clever alignment of cinema and fashion journalism illustrates importance of topicality and the interdependence of media sources. 

Wayne reinforced that GQ is a magazine and as a business its primary goal is profitability. Magazines achieve profitability through sales and advertising. Therefore the magazine must maintain a balance between satisfying the needs of advertisers while not jeopardising the integrity of the magazine brand. Sean Nixon (1993) further discuses this nexus between advertisers and consumers, explaining the process through the terms 'text-as-produced' and 'text-as-consumed'. 

GQ magazine is all about presenting alluring and desirable images. As noted by Frederico Boni (2002), magazines depict the 'imagined masculinity', imaginary denoting its unattainability. This can explained in fashion editorials as they feature high end labels such as Gucci and Prada, such brands are unaccessible to the average reader. Therefore the continual success of the magazine relies on this inability to achieve desirable images, showing the reader what they should want and what they should look like. 

Wayne discussed this notion of desire in terms of Taylor Lautner's 2011 editorial following the release of the film Twilight. In this editorial, Taylor was positioned as a sophisticated and mature metro sexual man.  When planning editorials, the needs of the advertiser, the actor, the audience and the magazine must all be met. Normally presented as a teen, it was very provocative and advantageous for GQ Australia to present Taylor as a well groomed quintessential adult man. Here GQ is targeting both heterosexual and homosexual audiences, the Female and Gay male reader gaze in desire and the straight male gazes narcotically.

Similar notions are explored by Cyndu Tebbel (2000) and in film Miss-representation (2011) in discussing the relationship between women and the media, and the consequences of such a relationship. The constructed gender essentialism of femininity means that women should be beautiful, alluring, passive, hysterical and helpless. Society's continual exposure to this gender essentialism through the  media has meant that this untrue, constructed image has become excepted as the truth and normality. Miss-representations (2011) offered various astounding statistics, they are; Women make up 16% of protagonists in films, US Women spend $11-15 00 annually on beauty products and women make up 16% of cinematographers, writers and publishers.