< PreviousITP MEDIA GROUP PO Box 500024, Dubai, UAE Tel +971 4 444 3000 www.itp.com ADAM BAI DAWI EDITOR-IN- CHIEF AR T DIRE C T OR LORETTA DE GOEDE CONTENT DIRE C T OR ANDREW NAGY S TYLE DIRE C T OR - A T-LARGE JIM MOORE F A SHION EDIT OR KEANOUSH ZARGHAM S TYLE EDIT OR RUST Y BEUKES DIGIT AL EDIT OR MATTHEW HAMBLY SOCIAL MEDIA AND VIDE O MANA GER BILAL MUHAMMAD PRODUCER - A T-LARGE AMIRA ELRAGHY AR T EDIT OR RICHA KHONDE PIC TURE EDIT OR KATIE SILCOX JUNIOR PRODUCER MALAIKA NAIK EDIT ORIAL INTERNS ELHAM SAFIEDDINE, RAND AL HADETHI, ANISHA LACHHWANI CONTRIBUTING WRITERS DYLAN JONES, HIND SEDDIQI, JEREMY WHITE, LAYLA HAIDRANI, RUE KOTHARI, TAN FRANCE, TEO VAN DEN BROEKE CONTRIBUTING AR TIS T S AISTE STANCIKAITE, ERIC WHITE, DANNY LOWE, FRANCESCO SCOTTI, HAZEM HARB, MAGGIE SHANNON, MATTHEW BEEDLE, MICHAEL HOEWELER, NIQUITA BENTO, PROD ANTZOULIS, SILVIA DEE, STEPHANIE GALEA , SUN LEE, TIFFANI WILLIAMS AD VER TISING Group Commercial Director SANDRA YEGHIAZARIAN +971 50 933 4911 sandra.yeghiazarian@itp.com Group Commercial Manager AMMAR RIYAL +971 52 895 0866 ammar.riyal@itp.com Commercial Executive MOHAMED ELASHY +971 55 387 1960 mohamed.elashy@itp.com PHO T O GRAPHY Senior Photographers EFRAIM EVIDOR, RAJESH RAGHAV Staff Photographers AASIYA JAGADEESH, LESTER APUNTAR, GRACE GUINO, FRITZ ASURO, AJITH NARENDRA PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION Group Production and Distribution Director KYLE SMITH Production Manager DENNY KOLLANNOOR Production Coordinator KESAVAN RASU Image Editors EMMALYN ROBLES, ISMAIL ABOOBACKER, JEMIMA JOY MARKETING AND CIRCULATION Distribution & Warehouse Manager PRAVEEN NAIR Circulation Manager VANESSA D'SOUZA ITP GROUP CEO ALI AKAWI Managing Director ALEX REEVE Deputy Managing Director MARTIN CHAMBERS Head of Revenue ITP Consumer GAVIN DICKINSON CFO TOBY JAY SPENCER-DAVIES GQ Middle East is a registered trademark in all the countries of the GCC and is published under licence from Condé Nast by ITP Media Group. 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PUBLISHED BY CONDÉ NAST Chief Executive Officer ROGER LYNCH Chief Operating Officer & President, International WOLFGANG BLAU Global Chief Revenue Officer & President, U.S. Revenue PAMELA DRUCKER MANN U.S. Artistic Director and Global Content Advisor ANNA WINTOUR Chief Financial Officer MIKE GOSS Chief Marketing Officer DEIRDRE FINDLAY Chief People Officer STAN DUNCAN Chief of Staff SAMANTHA MORGAN Chief Data Officer KARTHIC BALA Chief Client Officer JAMIE JOUNING CONDÉ NAST ENTERTAINMENT President OREN KATZEFF Executive Vice President–Alternative Programming JOE LABRACIO Executive Vice President–CNÉ Studios AL EDGINGTON Executive Vice President–General Manager of Operations KATHRYN FRIEDRICH Chairman Of The Board JONATHAN NEWHOUSE WORLDWIDE EDITIONS France AD, AD Collector, Glamour, GQ, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Vogue Collections, Vogue Hommes Germany AD, Glamour, GQ, GQ Style, Vogue India AD, Condé Nast Traveller, GQ, Vogue Italy AD, Condé Nast Traveller, Experience Is, GQ, La Cucina Italiana, L’Uomo Vogue, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Wired Japan GQ, Rumor Me, Vogue, Vogue Girl, Vogue Wedding, Wired Mexico and Latin America AD Mexico, Glamour Mexico, GQ Mexico and Latin America, Vogue Mexico and Latin America Spain AD, Condé Nast College Spain, Condé Nast Traveler, Glamour, GQ, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Vogue Niños, Vogue Novias Taiwan GQ, Interculture, Vogue United Kingdom London: HQ, Condé Nast College of Fashion and Design, Vogue Business; Britain: Condé Nast Johansens, Condé Nast Traveller, Glamour, GQ, GQ Style, House & Garden, LOVE, Tatler, The World of Interiors, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Wired United States Allure, Architectural Digest, Ars Technica, basically, Bon Appétit, Clever, Condé Nast Traveler, epicurious, Glamour, GQ, GQ Style, healthyish, HIVE, La Cucina Italiana, Pitchfork, Self, Teen Vogue, them., The New Yorker, The Scene, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Wired PUBLISHED UNDER JOINT VENTURE Brazil Casa Vogue, Glamour, GQ, Vogue Russia AD, Glamour, Glamour Style Book, GQ, GQ Style, Tatler, Vogue PUBLISHED UNDER LICENSE OR COPYRIGHT COOPERATION Australia GQ, Vogue, Vogue Living Bulgaria Glamour China AD, Condé Nast Center of Fashion & Design, Condé Nast Traveler, GQ, GQ Lab, GQ Style, Vogue, Vogue Business in China, Vogue Film, Vogue Me Czech Republic and Slovakia La Cucina Italiana, Vogue Germany GQ Bar Berlin Greece Vogue Hong Kong Vogue Hungary Glamour Iceland Glamour Korea Allure, GQ, Vogue, Wired Malaysia Vogue Lounge Kuala Lumpur Middle East AD, Condé Nast Traveller, GQ, Vogue, Vogue Café Riyadh, Wired Poland Glamour, Vogue Portugal GQ, Vogue, Vogue Café Porto Romania Glamour Russia Tatler Club, Vogue Café Moscow Serbia La Cucina Italiana South Africa Glamour, GQ, GQ Style, House & Garden, Thailand GQ, Vogue The Netherlands Glamour, Vogue, Vogue Living, Vogue Man, Vogue The Book Turkey GQ, Vogue, Vogue Restaurant Istanbul Ukraine Vogue, Vogue Café Kiev Condé Nast is a global media company producing premium content with a footprint of more than 1 billion consumers in 31 markets. condenast.com GQME_017_10_Masthead _11275418.indd 1030/04/2020 14:38:34Untitled-4 113/04/2020 12:58:28Untitled-3 113/04/2020 12:53:18Untitled-3 113/04/2020 12:53:18Untitled-1 130/04/2020 16:41:32PHO TOGRAPHY : PROD ANTZ OULIS FOR MANY OF US , these are months that will be remembered as being in our most vulnerable form, existing in a uniform of fear and sweatpants, living days that bleed into each other, and weeks that stretch long and short, all at once. Underscoring all this, for me at least, has been a constant drone of worry about the future, the kind that occasionally quiets, but never completely leaves your ears. While that’s been hap- pening, there’s been a chorus of voices screaming out: Hustle! Be grateful! Find a way to be productive! Now’s finally your chance to get that body/take on that project you’ve always dreamed of! One day last month, in a great ocean of video calls – some with extravagant, wildly meta Zoom backgrounds – I got on to a work call with someone from New York. How are you? I asked him. He said that it had been a difficult time. He said that, yeah, he had lost a few friends. Friends, in the plural. My heart plunged a million miles into the earth. difficult to score. I struggled this past month to reconcile that, for the first time in ages, I had no goal. And then, af- ter much self-loathing, many afternoons spent in guilt and confusion, it came to me: the goal of OK. There is no right. There is no wrong. There is only OK. The greatest ambition of all, right now, is the ambition of OK. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe a great swathe of society will emerge from their quarantine caves self-actual- ised, shredded like Brad Pitt circa Fight Club, with like, fully-funded self-isolation startups. Maybe the rest of us will be condemned to being second- rate citizens forever. Or maybe we just need to do what we can as individuals to, you know, survive. Aside from one or two stories that were finished earlier this year, this issue of GQ was created entirely by a team working from home. I know that media has become so, so commodified – in the time you’ve spent reading this, some- thing like 1000 hours of video have been uploaded onto YouTube. But, I want to emphasise that the magazine you’re holding in your hands – or reading on your device – was crafted painstakingly by a group of people that I’m lucky to call my peers. With their backs against the wall, they’ve made something that we’re so proud to share with you. Our cover feature was shot and conducted entirely over Zoom, and takes you on a very personal journey, from Riyadh to Dubai, Ramallah to New York, chronicling how a diverse group of men and women have navigated this time. As you’ll read, from a mother and doctor in the UAE to a creative director in Palestine to an actor in Egypt, every- body has their backs against the wall in a different way. There is no right or wrong – there’s only everyone’s perfectly imperfect version of surviving. So, I’m doing OK. How are you? Editor’s Letter The Ambition of Just OK How did he, how could he, continue the call? How could he muscle up the drive to shower and get dressed, to show up, to choose to continue a mun- dane work conversation, to deep-dive into the topic, to promise to follow-up with an email, and then actually send that email? How do you find that strength and will? I was in awe. All over the world, I’ve seen people I love chal- lenged in their own ways. A friend gave birth in Tokyo, and spent five days in self-isolation with her new-born, separated from her husband. In Australia, a friend lost her job, and was forced to adapt to a life with no clear goals, and no financial relief in sight. In Dubai, other friends struggled with loneliness and anxiety, spending long nights and longer weekends with their thoughts. And so, I want to say: we don’t need to be anything more or less than we are right now. Whether you’re a frontline medical professional, a working parent home-schooling, a banker, a security guard – whatever – in this age of un- certainty, one thing that I’m certain of is that there is no right or wrong way to feel. Toxic positivity is a real thing. If an- yone – a parent, a friend, an Instagram page – is saying that you should be more positive, or more productive, or more fit, or more grateful, or more anything, you’ve got permission to say no. More importantly, you have every right to reject those ideas from yourself. Somewhere in one of my old notebooks, I scrawled down a piece of advice I read: Without having a goal, it’s @GQMIDDLEEA S T SUMMER 2020 15 Adam Baidawi EDIT OR -IN- CHIEF GQME_017_15_EDs Letter_11282519.indd 1530/04/2020 18:33:40YOUR PREMIER DIGITAL DESTINATION FOR INTERIORS, STYLE AND DESIGN ADMiddleEast . com @ADMIDDLEEASTNow S T YLE CU LTU RE N E WN ES S Right now, we’re living our lives on all-day video calls. And since nobody can see what you’re wearing for trousers, your shoulders-up style has never been more important Top Form S TYLING & W ORDS RUS TY BEUKES PHO T OGRAPHY NIQUIT A BENT O Major Shade There’s a limit to how much you can express yourself within the space of a video call square. But rocking an eyewear chain with your sunglasses is a guaranteed sartorial hit. Go big or… well you’re home already. Hat, sunglasses, eyewear chain, shirt, jacket, prices on request, Gucci GQME_017_17_21_NOW_Service 5pp_11280286.indd 1730/04/2020 15:01:28 Get Cold Looking for a change of scenery? Crank up the AC and layer-on an understated beanie, turtleneck, and some sunnies. Call it one way to experience all sartorial seasons from your living room. Hat, sunglasses, prices on request, Gucci. Turtleneck, stylist’s own GQME_017_17_21_NOW_Service 5pp_11280286.indd 1830/04/2020 15:01:48FRAME THESE If sunglasses aren’t your thing, a pair of killer frames that will hype your style game just as hard. Eyewear, $250, Gucci at Matches Fashion Eyewear, $280, Prada at My Theresa Eyewear, $340, Celine at Mytheresa Eyewear, $190, Gentle Monster Go Tonal Feel like flying under the radar? Keep it subtle but cool with easy shades that complement each other. Right now, earthy tones are all over our moodboards. Hat, $40, Tommy Jeans at Namshi. Sunglasses, $530, shirt, price on request, Fendi ZOOM-READY Style Wild Ways Dial up the vibe with special details on your sunglasses – plus a no-shame cowboy hat that’s ready to hide your 4PM bedhead. If nothing else, it’ll be a virtual conversation starter for sure. Hat, shirt, prices on request, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Sunglasses, price on request, Alexander McQueen @GQMIDDLEEA S T SUMMER 2020 19 GQME_017_17_21_NOW_Service 5pp_11280286.indd 1930/04/2020 15:02:10Next >