GQ India

About GQ India

GQ India is the Indian edition of GQ, the American men's magazine, published from Mumbai by Condé Nast India. Launched with the October 2008 issue, which was unveiled on September 29, 2008, it was the fifteenth international edition of GQ and the second magazine in India, after Vogue India, to be wholly foreign owned. Published at gqindia.com, the magazine covers men's fashion and grooming, celebrity, sports, travel, motoring, culture, and the good life, guided by its defining creed for the Indian reader: Look Sharp, Live Smart. Under its editor Che Kurrien, GQ India has grown beyond print into one of India's most prominent lifestyle media brands, anchored by flagship properties including the GQ Men of the Year awards, the Most Influential Young Indians list, and the Best Dressed franchise.

Launch in 2008

Condé Nast India announced its plans to launch GQ in India in the first half of 2008, following the rapid success of Vogue India, which had launched the previous autumn. Nicholas Coleridge, the vice-president of Condé Nast International, said that Indian Vogue had rapidly dominated the women's magazine market, far surpassing expectations in both circulation and advertising, and that this had given the company the confidence to start a second title, with GQ the logical choice. Alex Kuruvilla, the managing director of Condé Nast India, pointed to a huge vacuum in the men's luxury magazine space, saying the company had been inundated with requests from advertisers and readers to launch GQ in India. The October 2008 issue was unveiled on September 29, 2008, and 35,000 copies of the first issue were distributed across forty Indian towns and cities through 5,500 outlets.

A Wholly Foreign-Owned Title

GQ India is published by Condé Nast India Pvt. Ltd., a one hundred percent owned subsidiary of Condé Nast International. Condé Nast gained full ownership after regulatory changes in 2005 permitted one hundred percent foreign direct investment in non-news and current affairs publications in India. GQ was the second magazine released in India, after Vogue India, to be entirely foreign owned. Condé Nast India is based in Mumbai and also maintains an office in New Delhi. The direct-ownership structure gave the company full control over the title's editorial direction and commercial strategy, allowing it to build the Indian edition to global GQ standards from the outset.

The Founding Team

The launch editor of GQ India was Sanjiv Bhattacharya, who had previously completed a book for Simon and Schuster and presented an investigative documentary for Channel Four in the United Kingdom. Che Kurrien, who would go on to lead the title as its editor, served as senior editor at launch. Brendan Allthorpe was appointed art director, and Iain Ball, formerly chief copy editor of Vogue India and consulting editor to TimeOut Delhi, was appointed features editor. The founding team combined international magazine experience with deep knowledge of Indian culture and media, a mix that shaped the title's ambition to be stylish, opinionated, and celebratory of the finest journalism India had to offer.

The First Issue

The launch issue of GQ India was unveiled with considerable fanfare. The cover, shot by Pascal Chevallier, featured Saif Ali Khan and Katarina Ivanovska on the regular cover, with Yuvraj Singh, Lisa Haydon, Arjun Rampal, and Ujjwala Raut on the gatefold cover, bringing together Bollywood, cricket, and fashion in a single statement of intent. Inside, the October edition featured the fashion icon Arjun Rampal and an exclusive interview with the steel tycoon Aditya Mittal, signaling the magazine's dual commitment to style and substance. With a combination of Indian and international content, the magazine set out to help the discerning Indian man discover and develop his sense of style and individuality.

Editorial Focus

GQ India curates the best in style, cars, gadgets, culture, celebrities, and the good life, offering its readers an ideal of modern luxury living through in-depth stories and striking photography. Like its international counterparts, the Indian edition covers fashion and grooming, celebrity profiles, sports, travel, and motoring, and it is known for its standards in feature writing and photography. The magazine's editorial voice is confident and cosmopolitan, addressing the affluent Indian man with authority on everything from tailoring and watches to fitness, food, technology, and books. Its tagline for the Indian reader, Look Sharp, Live Smart, captures its philosophy of style as a way of life rather than a mere aesthetic.

Editorial Leadership

Che Kurrien has led GQ India as its editor, guiding the title through more than a decade and a half of growth. Under his leadership, the magazine has pursued a deliberate strategy of building a multi-platform brand rather than succeeding as a print magazine alone. Kurrien has articulated a playbook centered on fewer but better events, stronger print journalism, and deeper engagement with the title's community, arguing that events are a growth engine but only one part of a larger ecosystem spanning print, digital, and experiential properties. When the title launched in 2008, awareness of the GQ brand in India was largely limited to a small, affluent audience familiar with international men's lifestyle publications; under Kurrien's editorship, it has become a mainstream cultural brand.

Events and Brand Properties

GQ India quickly moved beyond print into events and intellectual-property-led franchises, recognizing early that the magazine could not succeed on print alone. The first edition of the GQ Men of the Year awards was held in 2009 and went on to become one of India's most prominent lifestyle events, bringing together celebrities, business leaders, designers, and cultural figures. Over the years, the publication expanded its portfolio with properties such as the Most Influential Young Indians list, the Best Dressed franchise, and the Creative Personality of the Year honor. More recently, it launched GQ Heroes, a two-day retreat near Bengaluru that brought together entrepreneurs, creators, and leaders for conversations on leadership, creativity, and modern success, designed around meaningful dialogue rather than spectacle. The publication deliberately hosts only four events a year, on the principle that if everything is positioned as a marquee moment, then nothing is.

Digital Presence

GQ India launched its online portal, gqindia.com, in 2010, aiming to provide everything of interest to the affluent Indian man, from style trends and new cars to gadgets, sports, fitness, and city living, alongside blogs, humor, and video content. Notably, the magazine launched a dedicated application for BlackBerry users, available through BlackBerry App World and at App.GQIndia.com, even before the website went live, reflecting the device's dominance among Indian executives at the time. The brand established an early presence on Twitter and Facebook, and luxury advertisers such as Burberry were among the first to advertise on the site. The digital operation has since grown into a full-fledged lifestyle platform complementing the print magazine.

The Global GQ Brand

GQ was first published in the United States in 1957, growing out of a trade publication founded in New York in 1931 as Apparel Arts, which became Gentlemen's Quarterly from 1958 to 1983 before adopting the GQ name. The American magazine established the template for the modern men's lifestyle publication, covering fashion, style, and culture for men alongside food, film, fitness, music, travel, sports, technology, and books. The Indian edition, launched as the fifteenth worldwide, brought that tradition to one of the world's most dynamic consumer markets, adapting the global GQ voice to Indian tastes, celebrities, and cultural preoccupations.

Position in Indian Media

In the years since its 2008 launch, GQ India has become the defining men's lifestyle magazine in the country, setting the agenda for how Indian men engage with fashion, grooming, and luxury. Its Men of the Year awards and its editorial franchises have made it a fixture of India's cultural calendar, and its multi-platform strategy, spanning a monthly print magazine, a digital platform, and a curated portfolio of events, has become a model for lifestyle publishing in the digital age. From its Mumbai newsroom, GQ India continues to chronicle the evolving style and aspirations of the modern Indian man.