GQ

LAST OCTOBER, THE songwriter Jason Isbell booked five days at Electric Lady Studios in New York City with a counterintuitive plan: He’d hunker down in the house that Hendrix built…and record a solo acoustic album. Jason and I have been friends for 21 years, and he generally invites me to hang out when he’s recording. I don’t have anything to contribute musically, so I guess I’m there for moral support. (As you can see here, I also brought a camera.) And so, over a long weekend in late October, while juggling a batch of mostly-but-maybe-not-totally-finished songs and a finicky 84-year-old mahogany acoustic Martin, Isbell made an 11-song album called Foxes in the Snow, which comes out March 7. It might seem that five days spent working noon to six wouldn’t be…

Fly Ties Time to dust off the ol’ fourin-hand. Now that neckties are no longer a requirement in most corporate workplaces, they’ve been freed up to thrive as a mode of unexpected and uninhibited expression just about everywhere else. Whether you’re knotting a crisp rep-stripe number with a rumply oxford and 501s or an edgier foulard with a razor-sharp suit, the very act of wearing a tie in 2025 is guaranteed to get you noticed for all the right reasons. Punchy Timepieces Used to be, your dress watch was meant to blend into the background—a tasteful afterthought that ceded the limelight to the rest of your ensemble. These days, though, a new breed of spiffed-up tickers is delivering unignorable wallops of funk: sometimes subtly, as in the case of Parmigiani Fleurier’s…

THE ACTOR XOLO Maridueña moved to New York City for the Tsame reason so many of us do: to figure himself out. Maridueña has been employed since he was a tween. But suddenly, surprisingly—thankfully?—the 23-year-old Los Angeles native found himself with some time to spare ahead of his next gig and thought, Why not try out the opposite coast? “I’m here because for the first time in 10 years I have six months off,” he says. Now he’s pondering the abiding question: “All right, well, who am I outside of work?” To find out, Maridueña has been collecting quintessential New York experiences. He shares his Brooklyn apartment with a couple: the fellow actors Jacob Bertrand and Peyton List, with whom he stars on the wildly popular Netflix series Cobra Kai, set…

ZENITH’S UNDERSTATED Chronomaster Sport is the type of watch I typically find at industry events, worn by insiders who want to signal superior taste. For them, other iconic chronographs, like the Omega Speedmaster or TAG Heuer Carrera, feel too mainstream. The Chronomaster, on the other hand, which features Zenith’s historic El Primero movement (the first-ever automatic integrated chronograph), is perfect watch-guy bait as it reveals its wearer as a true enthusiast. But with a single new watch set with a rainbow of sapphires, Zenith is making good on its strategy to become higher-end, more exclusive, and generally much shinier. Its Chronomaster Sport Rainbow indicates not just a new direction for the watchmaker but also the changing winds of an industry less interested in technical ingenuity than highest-order glamour. Over the past…

ON A MUGGY NEW YORK day in late July, Kiko Kostadinov is poking around an upscale vintage store in Williamsburg. Kostadinov, 35, is one of the most talented fashion designers of his generation, a tattooed brainiac from Bulgaria whose namesake London-based brand is on a serious hot streak. Kostadinov’s left-field runway collections are flying out of stock rooms, and a steady stream of collaborations with the likes of Asics and Levi’s is generating ever-more hype for his independent operation. Still, nothing appears to make Kostadinov happier than digging through piles of dusty garments. He’s not here to shop, not exactly. The normally shy Kostadinov is on a research mission, searching for unusual clothes that might inspire his own unusual designs. “I already have a rack of, like, 20 things there,” he…

MICHAEL B. JORDAN had grand plans for the setting of this interview, at least at first. Fishing. Go-karting, maybe. (His team even suggested archery, an idea he seems hilariously bemused by when I reference it later.) But those were the inclinations of a Mike who thought he’d have more free time. The Mike before me this weekend is in go mode, so much so that on each of the three days we cross paths, he’s in the same economical uniform: black hoodie, black sweats or jeans. He’s in the busy beginning stages of making a movie—his second directorial effort; more on that later—and go-karts will have to wait. Today he’s opted instead for a late brunch at Granville, a restaurant not far from his home. Is he a regular then,…