GQ Usa - March 2019

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dior boutiques 800.929.dior (3467) dior.

com
TOMFORD.COM
SPRING 2019

AL AN WEARS OFF-WHITE AND NIKE


V I S I T N O R D S T R O M .C O M A N D O U R M E N’ S S TO R E AT 2 3 5 W E S T 5 7 T H S T R E E T, N YC
BALENCIAGA
CONTENTS

GQ March
The Fix Behind the Scenes
with the People Who
Make GQ
Fashion Drops ............................................ 43

The First Family of Streetwear . ... .. .. .. . .. . . . .. . . . . . 50 Contributor

Why Does Fame Keep Sticking to


C OL E SPROUSE? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

The Greatest Watch Ever?. . . . . . ... .. . .. . . ... . . . ... . . .. 66


MOBOL A JI DAWODU
Under-appreciated Style Icon BOB ROS S .......... 70 Fashion director
This month’s cover shoot marks Mobolaji
Dawodu’s first as GQ’s fashion director,
The Salon of the Future Is Gender-Neutral ........ 74 a role that requires him to “push people
to be themselves through style.” So what
exactly does style mean to the most stylish
man at GQ? “Self-expression. But also
The Provocations of Chef TUNDE WE Y .............. 78 appreciating other people’s style. It’s not
about wearing the most expensive clothes.”

Office Grails

Features ↓

Cover: LU CA S HE D GE S .................................. 84

Duke Basketball’s Killer Quartet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

New York City Fashion Portfolio ... . . . .. .. .. . . ... .. . . 102

The Secrets of the World’s Greatest Art Thief.... 118

NIPSEY HUS SL E and L AUREN LO ND ON . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126


RIGHT, FROM TOP: MAT T MARTIN; KRISTA SCHLUE TER (3)


Chris Young
Editorial business
assistant
“It took moving
from Mississippi
for me to realize
On the Cover that boots are
made for walking.”
Photograph by Ryan McGinley. Styled by
Mobolaji Dawodu. Coat, $9,200, shirt, $865,
and pants, $1,050, by Louis Vuitton. Belt,
$115, by Maximum Henry. Grooming by Melissa
DeZarate using La Prairie. Set design by
Robert Sumrell. Produced by Mary-Clancey
Pace for Hen’s Tooth Productions.

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 3 3
BLAZE NEW
TRAILS
INTRODUCING THE
FIRST-EVER LEXUS UX
We no longer travel great distances in the name of
exploration. Today, our frontier is all around us. For those
seeking this new frontier, the first-ever Lexus UX is a
new frontier for crossovers. Crafted purposefully for the
city. To nimbly handle corners with a best-in-class 17.1-ft
turning radius.1 To easily navigate cluttered roads with
Apple CarPlay ®2 while connected to your iPhone.®3
And to inspire a sense of freedom with a class-leading
estimated 33 MPG.1,4 Introducing the Lexus UX and
UX Hybrid AWD,5 both available as F SPORT models.
Crafted for those who believe there is always something
new to explore.

lexus.com/UX | #LexusUX

UX 200

Options shown. 1. 2019 UX vs. 2018/2019 competitors. Information from manufacturers’ websites as of 9/17/2018. 2. Apple CarPlay is a trademark of Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Always drive
safely and obey traffic laws. Apps, prices and services vary by phone carrier and are subject to change at any time without notice. Subject to smartphone connectivity and capability. Data charges may
apply. Apple CarPlay® functionality requires a compatible iPhone® tethered with an approved data cable into the USB media port. 3. iPhone is a registered trademark of Apple Inc. All rights reserved.
4. 2019 Lexus UX 200 EPA 29/city, 37/hwy, 33/comb MPG estimates. Actual mileage will vary. 5. UX AWD system operates at speeds up to 43 mph. ©2018 Lexus.
UX 250h F SPORT AWD5
CONTENTS

GQ March

For our cover story with actor Lucas Hedges, see page 84.
Sweater, $1,715, by The Elder Statesman. Pants, $820, by Etro. Necklace, $1,250, by Miansai.

3 6 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9 P H O T O G R A P H B Y R Y A N M C G I N L E Y
LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEF T: MAT TEO MOBILIO; WILLIAM AND SUSAN BRINSON; COURTESY OF SID MASHBURN; ERIC T. WHITE; COURTESY OF EVAN KINORI (2); COURTESY OF MASSIMO ALBA (2); JAKE JONES; JONATHAN SNYDER

SID MASHBURN
My custom suits
are by my hometown
hero, Atlanta’s Sid
Mashburn. Don’t
text me for suit
advice; the answer
is always Sid.


EVAN KINORI
A one-man band making
fanatically constructed clothes
out of S.F. I wear his four-pocket
pants with a matching jacket

Who’s in (as a new kind of suit—see me


at left) a couple of times a week.

Your Style
Entourage? ↑
WELCOME TO THE first proper fashion issue SSS WORLD CORP
of this new, more fashion-forward era Meet the enabler
of my rock ’n’ roll
of GQ. As you’ll see in these pages, we are
hell-raiser id:
smack in the middle of an anything-goes, SSS World Corp
no-holds-barred moment of style. For me, designer Justin
a world without dress codes is thrilling. O’Shea.
But still: I need guardrails. I need guidance.
I need the counsel of an entourage. ↓
When it comes to style, we all need a reliable MASSIMO ALBA
cadre of designers—a squad whose clothes The know-how of
an Italian garment
simply work for us, make us more ourselves.
wizard with the heart
The cash you spend funds the designer’s of a hippie. I’ve
vision. The designer’s vision helps define spent untold euros
your own. It’s reciprocal. Everybody wins. on his watercolor
So to encourage you to build your own crew, sweaters and
I thought I’d kick o≠ this issue by introducing wide-wale cords.
you to mine. Feel free to borrow a few. I’m
grateful for each in their own way. Without
them, I’d be lost—and probably naked.

Will Welch
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF


RTH
René Holguin’s shop
is more of a rabbit
hole than a store.
When I’m in L.A., I ↑
dive through the ONLINE CERAMICS
portal and return with I’ve been listening to the
jeans, poplin shirts, Grateful Dead and tie-dyeing
belts, knit caps, and since Alix and Elijah were
smell-goods. toddlers. But they do it better.

3 8 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
®

Editor-in-Chief Chief Business Officer


Will Welch Susan D. Plagemann
E X E C U T I V E D E S I G N D I R E CTO R Visuals HEAD OF MARKETING
Robert Vargas B O O K I N G S D I R E CTO R Kimberly Fasting-Berg
D I R E CTO R O F E D I TO R I A L O P E R AT I O N S Victoria Graham H E A D O F S A L E S , FA S H I O N – I N T E R N AT I O N A L
Sarah Schmidt V I S U A L S E D I TO R S David Stuckey
V I S U A L S D I R E CTO R Andie Diemer, Matt Martin H E A D O F S A L E S , FA S H I O N – A M E R I C A N
Roxanne Behr A S S O C I AT E V I S U A L S E D I TO R Amy Oelkers
FA S H I O N D I R E CTO R Jared Schwartz HE AD OF SALES, BE AUT Y
Mobolaji Dawodu S U P E RV I S I N G V I D E O P R O D U C E R Lucy Kriz
D I G I TA L D I R E CTO R James Pettigrew H E A D O F S A L E S , A U TO
Jonathan Wilde SENIOR VIDEO PRODUCER Tracey Baldwin
A RT I C L E S E D I TO R Noel Howard H E A D O F S A L E S , M E D I A / E N T E RTA I N M E N T
Geoffrey Gagnon B O O K I N G S A S S I S TA N T Bill Mulvihill
F E AT U R E S E D I TO R Stephanie Hurtado H E A D O F SA L ES , B I Z /F I /T EC H
Daniel Riley Doug Grinspan
E N T E RTA I N M E N T D I R E CTO R Art & Production HEAD OF SALES, VICE
Dana Mathews D E S I G N D I R E CTO R Laura Sequenzia
S P E C I A L P R OJ E CT S E D I TO R
Keir Novesky H E A D O F S A L E S , LU X U RY
Mark Anthony Green A RT D I R E CTO R Risa Aronson
S T Y L E E D I TO R
Justin Patrick Long HEAD OF SALES, CPG
Noah Johnson D E P U T Y A RT D I R E CTO R Jordana Pransky
S I T E E D I TO R
Simon Abranowicz HEAD OF SALES, HOME
Chris Gayomali P R O D U CT I O N D I R E CTO R Jeff Barish
S TA F F W R I T E R
Jim Gomez H E A D O F S A L E S , H E A LT H
Zach Baron P R O D U CT I O N A S S O C I AT E Carrie Moore
D E P U T Y S T Y L E E D I TO R
Timothy J. Meneely H E A D O F S A L E S , T R AV E L
Sam Schube D I G I TA L P R O D U CT I O N A S S O C I AT E Beth Lusko-Gunderman
D E P U T Y M A N A G I N G E D I TO R
Casey Jabbour HEAD OF SALES, GOLF
Codie Steensma Dan Robertson
S E N I O R A S S O C I AT E E D I TO R
Copy & Research H E A D O F O P E R AT I O N S
A S S O C I AT E M A N A G I N G E D I TO R
Benjy Hansen-Bundy Deborah Brett
Laura L. Vitale
N E W S & C U LT U R E S TA F F W R I T E R S V P , F I N A N C E & B U S I N E S S D E V E LO P M E N T
S E N I O R C O P Y E D I TO R
Clay Skipper, Jay Willis Sylvia W. Chan
Rebecca O’Connor
S T Y L E F E AT U R E S W R I T E R V P , FA S H I O N & B R A N D M A R K E T I N G
R E S E A R C H D I R E CTO R
Cam Wolf Rachael Klein
Jordan Reed
A S S O C I AT E E D I TO R , E N T E RTA I N M E N T E X E C U T I V E B U S I N E S S D I R E CTO R
RESEARCHER
Brennan Carley Jennifer Jackson
Mick Rouse
A S S I S TA N T S T Y L E E D I TO R
L E G A L A F FA I R S E D I TO R ,
Samuel Hine Published by Condé Nast
CONTENT INTEGRIT Y GROUP
A S S I S TA N T TO T H E E D I TO R - I N - C H I E F PRESIDENT & CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Lucas Zaleski Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr.
Colin Groundwater
E D I TO R I A L B U S I N E S S A S S I S TA N T CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Contributors David E. Geithner
Chris Young C R E AT I V E D I R E CTO R - AT - L A R G E
CHIEF REVENUE & MARKETING OFFICER
Jim Moore
Fashion Pamela Drucker Mann
CONTRIBUTING ST YLISTS
D E P U T Y FA S H I O N D I R E CTO R CHIEF PEOPLE OFFICER
Matthew Henson, Simon Rasmussen
Matt Sebra JoAnn Murray
CORRESP ONDENTS
FA S H I O N E D I TO R S C H I E F C O M M U N I C AT I O N S O F F I C E R
Robert Draper, Sean Flynn,
Kelly McCabe, Jon Tietz Alice Gregory, Chris Heath, Julia Ioffe, Joseph Libonati
Jeanne Marie Laskas, Drew Magary, C H I E F T E C H N O LO GY O F F I C E R
Digital Brett Martin, Michael Paterniti, Edward Cudahy
C O M M E R C E E D I TO R Nathaniel Penn, Wells Tower, EVP–CONSUMER MARKETING
Martin Mulkeen Amy Wallace, Jason Zengerle Monica Ray
D I R E CTO R , A U D I E N C E D E V E LO P M E N T EVP–RESEARCH, A N A LY T I C S & A U D I E N C E
Joel Pavelski Communications D E V E LO P M E N T
SENIOR MANAGER, SOCIAL MEDIA E X E C U T I V E C O M M U N I C AT I O N S D I R E CTO R Stephanie Fried
Luke Leifeste Carly Holden
H E A D C R E AT I V E D I R E CTO R
D ATA A N A LYS T C O M M U N I C AT I O N S M A N A G E R Raúl Martinez
Daniel Perko Ashlee Bobb
MANAGER, NEWSLET TER S T R AT E GY C O M M U N I C AT I O N S A S S O C I AT E Condé Nast Entertainment
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Oren Katzeff
E V P – M OT I O N P I CT U R E S
Artistic Director Jeremy Steckler
Anna Wintour E V P – A LT E R N AT I V E P R O G R A M M I N G
Joe LaBracio
EVP–CNÉ STUDIOS
Al Edgington

Condé Nast International


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T

E
H

IS I
M A G A Z
N E W YO R K
ASPEN
SAN FRANCISCO
LO S A N G E L E S

A E T H E R A P PA R E L .C O M
Hermès
Secures
the Bag
Developed in the
early 20th century as
a carryall for horse-
riding gear, the Haut à
Courroies (think of it
as a Hulked-out Birkin)
has a whole new groove
for 2019. The tie-dye
effect comes from
hand-applying different
hues during the tanning
process, so each bag
is one of a kind. We
suggest putting your
name on the waiting
list, like, yesterday.
Bag, $28,400,
by Hermès.

E
IN
H
L
E
U
M
A
S
y
B

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y M A T T M A R T I N M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 4 3
Marni Hits the
The Hotel Lobby
F i x

Fashion
Francesco Risso.
Drops
Shoes, $490 a pair,
by Marni.

Boglioli Takes a Bath


Boglioli specializes in tailored
jackets that are as comfortable
and unstructured as your favorite
sweater. Now, after two soaks
in a tinted salt bath, they’re like
an expertly tailored take on the

PROP ST YLIST: STELL A REY AT MARK EDWARD INC.


tie-dyed-T-shirt wave.
Blazers, $1,195 each,
by Boglioli.

Goyard’s Go Bag
The ultimate status symbol
of low-key luxury, Goyard’s ultra-
lightweight Saint-Louis tote
was originally designed as a
reversible beach bag (and has
quickly caught on with well-heeled
resort-goers). This new XXL size
can hold a wet suit—and any other
weekend-trip gear—with ease.
Bags, $1,780 each, Loewe Looks Outside
by Goyard.
The brand’s new line of functional,
outdoorsy essentials (think
color-blocked parkas and techy
backpacks) goes by the name
Eye/Loewe/Nature, and off the bat,
creative director Jonathan Anderson
is exploring the wilderness of
dope graphic T-shirts.
T-shirt, $390, by Loewe.
4 4 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
Calvin Klein’s
Rubber Soul
How many boots featured
in a big-name fashion
show clock in at under
$150? Just these rubber
Cuban-heeled-western-
Chelsea-boot hybrids,
from Raf Simons’s final
collection for Calvin Klein
205W39NYC.
Boots, $139, by
Calvin Klein Jeans.
Sacai and Nike
See Double
The When you pick up the hottest
runway sneaker of the season, you
F i x get two Nikes for the price of one.
Each Chitose Abe–designed model
crashes together two iconic swoosh
designs: the LDV and the Daybreak,
Fashion and the Blazer and the Dunk.
Drops Sneakers, $140 (high-
tops) and $180 (low-tops),
by Nike x Sacai.

Louis Vuitton’s
Ceramic Drip
LV is best known for its
monogrammed bags, but
Virgil Abloh is making
the case that it can do
the freshest jewelry in
the game, too, with this
white ceramic chain.
Necklace, $1,700,
by Louis Vuitton.

Isabel Marant
Gets Crafty
The oracle of laid-back Parisian
cool is here with your faded
PROP ST YLIST: STELL A REY AT MARK EDWARD INC.

spring denim’s new best friend.


Missoni Remodels Belts, $97 each,
the Grandpa by Isabel Marant.
Sweater
The house of Missoni is
synonymous with next-level
knitwear, and 66 years on,
the family-run operation
continues to drop sweaters
(like these wavy chevron-
patterned vests) that
demand pride of place in
your closet.
Sweater-vests, $845
each, by Missoni.
WE DIDN’T
INVENT TEQUILA
Tequila has been around for centuries, but we took the time to get it right,
crafting a small-batch spirit that’s worth sipping slowly. It requires Mexico’s
finest 100% Weber Blue Agave, hand-selected and distilled in custom
copper stills for a smooth finish every time. We didn’t invent tequila,

WE JUST PERFECTED IT.


The perfect way to enjoy Patrón is responsibly. Handcrafted and imported exclusively from Mexico by The Patrón Spirits Company, Las Vegas, NV. 40% abv.

Great From left:
The Beth, Ishmael,
Personal Binga, Solomon,
F i x
St yle and Chris

The First Family


of
Streetwear CHRIS GIBBS and BETH BIRKETT —one of the coolest
couples on earth and the brains behind L.A.’s Union—
don’t just sell style. They live it. B y M A R K A N T H O N Y G R E E N

G R O O M I N G : S U S SY C A M P O S U S I N G B A X T E R O F C A L I F O R N I A . H A I R A N D M A K E U P : ST E P H A N I E N AVA R R O AT T H E R E X A G E N C Y.

5 0 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9 P H O T O G R A P H S B Y S H A U G H N A N D J O H N
O P E N I N G PA G E
ON BETH
Great
The Overshirt and jumpsuit by
Personal Kapital. Shirt by Uniqlo.
F i x
St yle O N I S H M A EL
Shirt by Bephie. Pants by
Union x U.S. Alteration.
Shoes by Crocs.
ON SOLOMON
Jacket by Marni. Shoes
by JW Anderson Converse.
ON CHRIS
Shirt, T-shirt, and
pants, vintage. Shoes
by Visvim.

ON BETH
Shirt by Bephie.
Skirt by Sacai.
Shoes by Nike x
CDG. Socks by
Prada. Jewelry,
her own.
ON CHRIS
Vest by Kapital.
Sweater by Raf
Simons. Pants by
Jil Sander.
Shoes by Public
School x Nike.

ESPITE THE STOIC exte- Ishmael, 12, was the most preoccupied,
2 rior of the Gibbs’ cement- engaged in a life-or-death NFL 2K game
D Lego house, things were
buzzing when I arrived.
with a friend. “Come on...,” Ishmael
uttered at the TV screen from under his
The family dog, Binga, blond curls. “Ish, please go get dressed,”
greeted me enthusiastically in the Beth implored.
yard, prompting Chris to wonder When Chris re-emerged, he was
1.
Work by the
about who’d left the back door open wearing a pair of patched-up vintage
Brooklyn- again. (The dog had clearly snuck out.) work pants that Beth had planned to
based artist Chris—who’s the owner of Union, L.A.’s wear. This sort of thing happens a lot in
Jayson streetwear-meets-high-fashion mecca the Gibbs house. “I may have a sweat-
Musson. known for specializing in what’s next— shirt that I wear that Beth will turn into
2. excused himself to take a quick call a dress. And then the kids will turn it
The much
coveted for his Jordan collaboration (a proj- into something else,” Chris said, laugh-
Union- ect that, even in an era when hyped ing. “It’s pretty communal property for
designed sneakers are a dime a dozen, felt like the most part.”
Jordan a major occasion in streetwear) while Ish has had it pretty good over the
sneakers. Beth described for me the wardrobe she past year, because he wears the same
3.
designed for Native Son, the forthcom- shoe size as Beth, who’s the only person
Shoes by A vintage
flea-market ing film adaptation of Richard Wright’s in the home—and possibly the coun-
Union x
Jordan. find (artist novel. Solomon, Chris and Beth’s try—with a sneaker collection compara-
unknown). 14-year-old, was mid–guitar lesson. But ble to Chris’s. But despite the Marni and

5 2 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
and his friends realized exactly what young boys definitely keeps me closer
Union was, he started to ask why he was to the trends and what’s going on,”
missing certain kicks. Beth’s response: Chris admitted. “I actually enjoy doing
Well, you can’t a≠ord them. (She smiled ComplexCon. Some of those things that
with the joy only parents can get when are a little bit annoying to my fellow old
they know they’re knee-deep in some dudes there, I can appreciate because
good parenting.) my kids are having a ball.”
One of the main reasons why Union
is so special is that it romanticizes mark anthony green is gq’s
clothes. No one can make a T-shirt special projects editor.
seem more important. And that’d have
to be because Chris himself is a roman-
tic. “We met on the G train,” Beth said,
starting a story familiar to the two of 3
them. “On the train platform is where
our eyes crossed for the first time,”
Coat by Chris said, picking up the narrative.
Raf Simons. After they both got on the same train,
got o≠ at the same stop, helped the
same old lady up the stairs and then
to her doorway, they finally spoke. He
Margiela galore, the kids are still, well, didn’t ask for her number at first, but
kids. They’re sensitive and goofy and they kept running into each other. “It
funny and normal. Which is impres- was meant to be,” Beth said.
sive, considering that to a teenage boy, Thirty years later (which in street-
being the owner of Union is as good as wear is basically 270 years), Union
playing in the NBA. “We don’t take all remains a place devoid of greedy com-
this too seriously,” Beth said. “We like to merce or pandering. And a place that’s
look good and cool, but we teach them forever changing with the times, for-
that style is what you make it.” When ever embracing the future—thanks in
Solomon finally got to the age when he large part to Ish and Solomon. “Having

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 5 3
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Shirt, $1,100, by
Dior Men. Tank top,
The $149, by Boss.
Pants, $1,790, by
F i x Dsquared. Watch,
$18,500, by
Breguet. Necklace,
$215, by David
Yurman. Bracelet,
Fashion $160, by A.P.C.

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Why Does F

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T H E S E PAG E S , ST Y L I ST: M O B O L A J I DAWO D U. G RO O M I N G : CA R I S S A F E R R E R I F O R T H E WA L L G RO U P.

After a stint as a
Disney child star,
Cole Sprouse
almost became an
archaeologist.
Now he’s back on
TV, playing
Jughead on the
white-hot
Riverdale—and
using his second
tour in the biz to
have the weirdest,
meme-iest, most
self-reflexive
career he can.
B y M O L LY L A M B E R T

5 6 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9 P H O T O G R A P H S B Y K E L I A A N N E
Talliaorange.com 1.800.336.9363
Turtleneck,
$1,030, by Prada.
The Sunglasses,
$300, by Moscot.
F i x

Fashion

OLE SPROUSE IS waiting and Sprouse is a breakout. But he’s As they grew older, they became con-
for me at a Culver City accustomed to the weird aura of fame: scious that they were working actors
C bar. It’s a low-key artists’
hang in an industrial
He’s had enough time in the spotlight
to figure out which parts suit him and
supporting a family and felt obligated
to continue. “Many of the jobs we were
zone—not where you’d which don’t. taking were the things that were keep-
look for a TV star like Sprouse, 26, but Sprouse and his twin brother, Dylan, ing my small family afloat, so there
where he fits nonetheless. Sprouse and started acting at 8 months old. Cole was this constant pressure to secure
I head to the quiet back patio, and he appeared on Friends (as Ross’s son, jobs, which in turn were money,”
lights a cigarette. His dirty-blond hair Ben), and both brothers shared a role Sprouse recalls. But eventually he
is dyed jet-black for his role as Jughead in Big Daddy (alongside Adam Sandler wanted a break. So at 19, he did about
on Riverdale, the CW’s Twin Peaks–y and Scuba Steve). Their Disney Channel the most radical thing a young star can
series set in the Archie Comics uni- tween comedy, The Suite Life of Zack & do. He went to college.
verse. The show is in its third season, Cody, made them teenage celebrities. (text continued on page 62)

5 8 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
Results-driven skin care made with clean ingredients.
Because good guys deserve great skin care.
The
F i x

Fashion

Jacket, $3,200, and


pants, $990, by
Dior Men. Sweater,
$1,235, by The
Elder Statesman.
Boots, $3,490, by
Tom Ford. Necklace,
$2,700, by David
Yurman. Bracelet,
$160, by A.P.C.

6 0 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
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Sweater, $850, else: with intention and a half dose of
by Marni. irony. Sprouse says his personal style
Watch, $9,300,
was inspired first by his father, “very
by Glashütte.
Bracelet, $160, much influenced by a kind of work-
by A.P.C. ing-class, little bit more archaic defini-
tion of masculinity.”
It’s fitting that a guy who adores and
unpacks ’50s style would end up on a
show full of ’50s tropes turned inside
out. But it’s more than the clothes that
make him right for the role. Sprouse,
after all, is a guy with ideas about the
“archaic definitions of masculinity” and
one with sympathy for Jughead. “Here’s
this kid writing about all the people
he’s close to,” Sprouse says of his and
showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s
approach to the character. “I want him
to feel sort of like a hipster and a little
bit pretentious and self-serving. He’s
got some social anxiety.”
Speaking of: While Sprouse’s
first bout with stardom came before
Instagram, his second is, by necessity,
fueled by it. And in that way, Sprouse is
gamely playing the part of the famous
actor, shooting selfies to his 22 mil-
lion followers. But he’s also keeping
things weird, tweeting that he’s “just
a daddy long legs looking for mommy
wide thighs” and running a second
Instagram account dedicated to snap-
ping fans in the act of trying to sneak
photos of him. The kid who gave up a
career to study ancient stone tools is
still an eager student, but now his field
is something closer to what it’s like to be
young and famous a second time. He’ll
have plenty of material: He’s back on
the big screen this spring, in the young-
adult romance Five Feet Apart.
Despite his eagerness to both share
and subvert his fame, Sprouse doesn’t
want to put it all out there. “I think
social media and the Internet reward
extremes,” he explains, even though he
feels he learns about himself in the areas
Higher education, Sprouse says, is started booking gigs shooting fashion in between. “I’m a firm believer that a
“frowned upon within the industry” photos, and his brother now brews lot of that experimentation should be
because it “halts momentum.” But that mead in Brooklyn. But despite his best done in private. Ultimate privacy.” But
was exactly what he was looking for. “I efforts, his previous, more famous life ultimate privacy is hard to come by
went to school and sort of reconciled intervened. His manager asked him to when you’re a rising star, and doubly
who I was and tried to find my own give acting one more shot: Riverdale, a so when you’re dating your co-star, as
little path through the world outside project Sprouse liked enough to audi- appears to be the case with Sprouse
of acting,” he explains. He enrolled at tion for. And so Cole Sprouse became and Lili Reinhart, who plays Betty on
N.Y.U., where he studied archaeology, famous again—this time on his terms. Riverdale. So Sprouse is elliptical about
focusing on what he describes as “ear- There’s the character, to start. the relationship: They’ll post photos of
ly-stone-tool tech.” Over beers, he dis- Riverdale’s update of Jughead Jones each other on Instagram, but he doesn’t
cusses the subject breathlessly, though from a burger-loving asexual beatnik really like talking about it. “It’s not some-
he notes that his undergrad exposure to a brooding writer in love with Betty thing that we hide, or it’s not something
was hardly glamorous. “You’re kind of Cooper is a big reason the hit works as that we show off. It’s just something
just an unpaid intern who’s washing well as it does. Sprouse is the perfect that exists,” Sprouse says. Spoken like
sediment and emptying the latrine.” dreamboat for his moment—analytical, someone who, the second time in the
Sprouse took up photography in those self-aware, and willing to play his own spotlight, understands the power of
New York years, too, and he was plenty hotness for camp. When we meet, he’s withholding information. And spoken,
happy—working in a Brooklyn lab after dressed casually, in a jean jacket with not incidentally, like a true Jughead.
graduation, preparing to go to grad a shearling collar over a white T-shirt,
school. It’s easy to imagine Sprouse’s but he sports his classic uniform molly lambert is a writer living in
life had he followed that path: He’d the way he does almost everything Los Angeles.

6 2 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
The
F i x

Fashion

Robe, $3,345, and


shirt, $1,245, by
Dolce & Gabbana.
Watch, $35,500,
by Patek Philippe.
Bracelet,$6,500,
by David Yurman.
Ring, stylist’s own.

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 6 5
OUR NEW
MONTHLY
WATCH
COLUMN

You’re looking at one of only several hundred yellow-gold Patek Philippe Perpetual
Calendar chronograph 5970s. It’s not the rarity that makes this watch obsession-
worthy, says L.A. artist Wes Lang—it’s the fact that it just might be perfect.

THE METAL THE DIAL THE SIZE THE MOVEMENT


Patek Philippe—an Even with eight hands, the If you get the chance The 5970 is powered by
extremely private dial is perfectly composed. to try one on, do it. At the legendary Lemania-
company—won’t publicly There’s nothing to add 40 mm in diameter based chronograph
confirm how many or subtract—everything and 13.5 mm thick, the 5970 movement (heavily
yellow-gold 5970s were is in its proper place. is ideally proportioned. modified, of course), along
made, but it’s rumored with Patek’s perpetual-
to be around 300. calendar movement.

THE COMPLICATIONS THE CASE


“Perpetual calendar” means The shape, from the square
the date adjusts to leap years pushers (a throwback
and basically never has to to the 1941 original) to the
be reset. With its moon phase swooping lugs, is pure
and chronograph, the 5970 class, the perfect balance
has every timekeeping function between Patek heritage
you could ask for. and modern watchmaking.

ATEK PHILIPPE HAS a long and storied history of mak- year. It boggles the mind that so many complications fit in such a
ing Perpetual Calendar chronograph watches. Since the clean design. (That’s the true beauty of Pateks. They fly under the
P early 1940s, the Swiss house has produced six versions, radar.) And despite the functionality packed into the dial, you can
PROP ST YLIST: K AITLYN DARBY

and I think this one, the reference 5970 in yellow gold, is look at it quickly and actually tell the time, which is the most impor-
the best in Patek’s vault of “grand complications.” tant feature of all. There’s no point in owning a six-figure watch if it’s
Of the approximately 2,800 5970s said to be out there, the yellow- so over-designed you check the time on your iPhone.
gold ones are the rarest—some speculate just 300 were made in 2008, It’s too early to tell what the legacy of the yellow-gold 5970 will be
the only year Patek is said to have produced them. But that’s not why (it’s not even “vintage” yet). But this could be one of the most signifi-
it’s the best iteration of this series. To me, there’s just something about cant Pateks ever created. (Collectors seem to agree—a yellow-gold
the yellow-gold case and creamy white dial that sets it apart. 5970 fetched around $100,000 at Christie’s in 2017.) Really, it’s a fan-
Patek’s tight production isn’t about creating artificial scarcity. It’s tasy watch. But if you manage to get one, the 5970 will end your
simply impossible to hand-make more than a limited number per horological addiction. Because it’s the last watch you’ll ever need.

6 6 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9 P H O T O G R A P H B Y J O Y C E L E E
Atip Wananuruks
Fashion Director, Maker of Beauty

Follow the conversation On Beauty at santonishoes.com #makersofbeauty


762 Madison Avenue, New York — Bal Harbour Shops, Bal Harbour
The
F i x
Aviator Frames and a
Hall of
Happy Little Gold Chain
In our ongoing exploration of under-appreciated style icons,
Fam e this month we turn to The Joy of Painting host Bob Ross—with thoughts
from RTH designer RENÉ HOLGUIN.

H E W A S S O F T - S P O K E N . There get really comfortable with,


was a therapeutic quality to the ourselves—it’s that defining
show. It was hypnotic. He was moment. That’s where our
very methodical, and thoughtful, genuine and intuitive us comes
and organized. There was a through. His style, in painting
gentleness to him. I liked the fact and in dress and in the way he
that everything was organized looked, it was very personal.
and tidy. But he also made me If he would’ve been just a
realize that some mistakes are dude with some straight short
okay—and how to solve one. haircut, you would have been
And that there’s perfection in like, “Eh, okay.” But this guy,
imperfection, which later this crazy dude, was telling you,
I learned as wabi-sabi. But he “Hey, this is what you can do.”
just said, “It’s okay. Be free. — A S TO L D TO S A M S C H U B E
Have fun and give things a try.”
Bob Ross’s style is, I think,
very intuitive. I go back to that
moment where we discover, and

COURTESY OF BOB ROSS INC.

7 0 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
FILLED WITH
ALMOND BUTTER SO
SMOOTH
IT JUST PROPOSED
TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND.

AND SHE SAID YES.

© 2019 MARS OR AFFILIATES


The
Grooming
F i x

THESE PAGES, HAIR: MASAMI HOSONO. MAKEUP: LINH NGUYEN USING ORIBE HAIRCARE.

The Salon of the Future


Is Gender-Neutral
(and Taking Appointments)
In the post-fade era, where does a guy go for a haircut worth
spending real money on? SAMUEL HINE found the answer at
Vacancy Project, where everyone is welcome and the cuts
are as singularly cool as the people who get them.

7 4 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9 P H O T O G R A P H S B Y B O B B Y D O H E R T Y
The GQ Best Stuff Box is a quarterly subscription box
featuring our favorite gadgets, grooming products,
style accessories, and beyond—all rigorously tested and
endorsed by the magazine’s editors.

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H E N I W A S G R O W I N G U P , my hair- future, these masculine temples of artisanal pomade
The cuts were never just simple touch- and aftershave feel a bit out of step. Hair is hair,
F i x W ups. Because I am a twin, they served
the crucial purpose of making sure I
right? That’s the simple argument made by Vacancy
Project creative director Masami Hosono, who is
wouldn’t hear “Hey, Nick!” 20 times helping usher in a bold, genderless era of hairstyl-
a day. Occasionally, my e≠orts to di≠erentiate were ing. The first sign something about Vacancy Project is
a little too successful. (Dear college classmates: di≠erent: When you sit down, Hosono is more likely
Grooming I hereby disavow my man bun.) But I’ve gotten used to o≠er you a photo book or an art zine than a glass
to the fluttering stomach one gets when sinking into of whiskey. East Village kids in thrift-store fashion
a barbershop chair and working up the courage to ask hang out in the narrow tile-floored space. And after
for something brand-new. So I did a triple take when, Hosono sends you o≠ with a quick zhuzh of natural
walking down East 10th Street last summer, I encoun- oil, the price is always the same, no matter how long
tered a fresh, two-part haircut paradigm spelled out your hair is or who you are.
on a sidewalk board. One side said gender neu- When Hosono opened Vacancy Project in 2016, four
tral hair salon. The other side said #mullet. years after arriving in New York, she didn’t expect it to
The sign belonged to Vacancy Project. I went in. become a haven for everyone turned o≠ by the rigid
As someone who is willing to spend too much on barbershop-versus-salon dichotomy. Initially, men paid
a haircut, I’ve been to every third-wave hipster less for her cuts, just like at every other salon. At the
barber–slash–co≠ee shop in New York. But at a time time, you had to choose a “male” or “female” haircut
when fashion is edging closer toward an androgynous when you scheduled an appointment. But that binary

7 6 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
didn’t make sense for Hosono’s clientele. “I have a lot and see “bad haircuts.” Which is why the salon’s ←
of transgender clients,” she said. “And everybody asked regulars have that gender-blending, post-normcore Clockwise from
top left: writer and
questions when booking.” Hosono’s Instagram post style that every designer is looking to in 2019. model Dane Bell,
announcing the end of gendered pricing blew up, and Vacancy counts highly advanced fashion legends Vacancy Project
Hosono became one of the toughest bookings in town. Sandy Liang and Tavi Gevinson as clients—as well stylists Genevieve
Of course, earning the sort of cult following that as the people pictured here. Cook and Ann
Vacancy Project enjoys requires more than throw- A recent trip to Vacancy Project began with a Causey, playwright
ing out the old booking protocols. Hosono and deep breath. About to spend several weeks with my Hanna Novak,
aspiring biologist
her colleagues, Ann Causey and Genevieve Cook, brother, I asked Hosono to give me something di≠er- Grace Parish, and
have developed a distinct gender-neutral palette ent. Fifteen minutes later (Hosono works fast), my VP creative
of haircuts, too. To them, it’s more important that shaggy locks were transformed into what she calls a director Masami
a client’s hair reflect their personal style than “mullet-ish”: cheekbone-length in the front and collar- Hosono
resemble a cut you could point to on a poster. length in the back, with minimal layering and just the
“Hair is not sculpture,” Hosono says. “People want right amount of texture. It’s not the most drastic cut ↓
to feel like themselves.” The salon’s most popular I’ve ever gotten, but it’s the most peculiar, the most Clockwise from
styles fall into a few categories: mid-length bobs, personal, the most successful at giving me that elegant- left: model
Hunter Chung,
dorky short cuts, and mullets of all kinds. Vacancy’s strand-of-hair-casually-draped-across-my-brow thing.
photographer
aesthetic goes against the grain of the ubiquitous Consider me team mullet-ish for life. Carter Schneider,
fades and pixie cuts, but that’s the whole point. and the author,
Hosono admits some people might look at her work samuel hine is gq’s assistant style editor. Samuel Hine

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 7 7
The
Food
F i x

The
Provocations

of
Chef Tunde Wey
The NOLA-based Nigerian chef likes to serve up a side of
political performance art with his food, like charging black
and white customers different prices to mirror wealth
disparity in America. BRETT MARTIN joins Wey on the road, where
he’s pushing his food-related instigations even further.

7 8 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9 P H O T O G R A P H S B Y E D M U N D D . F O U N T A I N
bonappetit.com/city-guides

eat like a local. even if you’re not.

A BON APPÉTIT BRAND


The
Food
F i x

NOBODY IS QUITE SURE what’s going on in the event room of San Francisco and a dozen other cities,
the Westwood Baptist Church, University Center. Not the he’s hosted dinners where the food and
drink is the pretense for facilitating the
older black ladies from the surrounding North Nashville kinds of conversations that Americans
neighborhood, who arrive exactly on time, summoned by do their best to avoid ever having.
In the meantime, Wey, an autodi-
a mysterious postcard sent to 300 homes, like the first dact with no formal training in either
chapter of an Agatha Christie novel: cooking or political theory, has all but
run an abattoir for food-world sacred
cows. In a semi-regular column for
Dear Neighbor, is laughter around the table. “I know,” the San Francisco Chronicle, he exco-
You are cordially invited to attend a he says, smiling. “But the problem is riated LocoL, chefs Roy Choi and
community dinner where we will dis- outrageous. I thought I’d come up with Daniel Patterson’s experiment in pro-
cuss how to end gentrification in North an equally outrageous plan to fix it.” gressive fast food. (Unless ownership
Nashville.… Dinner is FREE and will be You couldn’t hope for a more suc- of LocoL was transferred to the poor
delicious! Don’t miss the twist! cinct credo to sum up the work that neighborhoods it was purporting to
Tunde Wey has been engaged in over help, he demanded, it should “leave
Not the young white people from the past several years—a hybrid of Watts, Oakland and its other proposed
farther afield, with their vacuum-sealed political action, performance art, revo- communities, or shed its narrative of
water bottles and social-justice 5K lutionary rhetoric, impish provocation, change.”) In another column, he took
T-shirts, who heard about this meet- and other assorted acts of public intel- on Anthony Bourdain’s televised adven-
ing on NPR or in the local alt-weekly. lectualism, all built around a critique of tures in Africa. (“His usual brand of
Not even the pastor, who pops his head the way we eat in America today. charm, which plays well in an American
into the room, where the long, folding Perhaps you’re looking for a story context, only read as imperial. His tired
tables are normally used for repasts and about how Food Brings Us Together. and standard o≠er of a countercultural
Bible-study groups, with a look of puz- About how even in These Dark Times, perspective was cloying, and it dis-
zlement. The fluorescent bulbs hum, we can always gather around The Table solved—like sugar in garri—to reveal
the sneakers of each arrivee squeak on to experience the healing Power of Food. the expansive firmament of White
the linoleum floor, and those already If so, I’m sorry. Americanness he represents.”) In the
seated squirm and murmur to each Those are the kinds of platitudes Oxford American, he declared that
other awkwardly. that Wey, who is a prolific texter, might white southern chefs should stop cook-
At the head of the main table sits their respond to with one of his favorite ing dishes derived from the African
host: slim, bearded, 35 years old, dressed emojis: the little face laughing so hard slave trade and he upbraided author
in a dark dress shirt and slacks, and in that tears gush out of both eyes. In fact, and Southern Foodways Alliance
no hurry to interrupt whatever ripples of he does not consider such comforting head John T. Edge: “John T., you have
uncertainty are traveling up and down narratives any kind of laughing matter. endorsed and celebrated the appropri-
the table. A helper moves in and out of He believes they are dangerous, and it’s ation of black Southern food without
an adjacent kitchen, quietly delivering his goal, as he travels across the coun- consequence, and the consequences
Dixie Ultra paper plates of food. On try, to expose and erase them. have compounded with interest,” he
them sits a southern meat-and-three by In New Orleans, where he now lives, wrote. “You have to strip yourself of the
way of Africa: a version of efo riro, made he opened a lunch stall at which white marginal benefits of this appropriation
with cooked-down collard greens; a pot- people were asked to pay two and a willingly, with grace, or unwillingly by
tage of mashed plantains; and finally, half times more for a plate of food than force and with shame.” This, mind you,
a Nigerian take on Nashville’s most people of color, the rough equivalent of was in Edge’s own column, which he
famous culinary export—hot chicken. the income disparity between the two had invited Wey to share. And the men
The name of this event is Hot Chicken groups. In Ann Arbor, white customers are friends. You might argue with any of
Shit. The aforementioned “twist” is lined up to experience the highs and Wey’s conclusions, but there is no ques-
that while dinner is free for the black lows of random wealth distribution at tion that he is intent on punching up.
residents of the neighborhood, the Wey’s food truck, which utilized an elab- That Wey’s absolutism and his choice
prices for white visitors are listed on a orate algorithm to choose which diners of targets have endeared him to the food
pledge form at their seats: $100 for one would receive lunch for their money establishment, rather than alienated
piece of chicken; $1,000 for four pieces. and which would get stuck with empty him from it—coverage of his events
For a whole bird, with sides, you must boxes. In New York and Durham and has all but universally glowed, and he’s
donate the deed to a property in North
Nashville.
Eventually the man at the head of
the table speaks: “My name is Tunde
Wey. I am Nigerian. I am a cook. I am “My name is Tunde Wey. I am Nigerian.
here trying to sell chicken for enormous
amounts of money.” The plan, he goes
I am here trying to sell chicken
on, is to thus end gentrification. There for enormous amounts of money.”
8 0 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
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VO G U E .C O M
The
Food
F i x

become a regular invitee at conferences Of these, Wey’s projects are the least W E Y M A K E S A N unusual firebrand. He
and festivals—is a testament to the con- forgiving and most direct. Food at his listens more than he talks, though
vergence of two trends: One is the ever dinners is not metaphor; it is Trojan when he gets rolling it is in full, com-
expanding role of the chef as thinker, horse. There are times when it appears posed sentences. He speaks with the
talker, activist, and nearly anything that food does not even particularly deliberate e≠ort and occasional hitch
else that doesn’t involve standing at a interest him. His hands—expressive, of a lifelong stutterer. He dislikes con-
stove. The other is a moment of intense slender, and soft—are not chef’s hands. frontation—though obviously not so
self-scrutiny in the food world, one that The act of cooking has become about as much as to avoid it when he feels con-
began even before the chef and restau- central to his work as throwing a foot- frontation is necessary. In a crowd, he
rant #MeToo scandals of the past year ball is to Colin Kaepernick’s. Indeed, if can even seem insecure, but a signifi-
and a half—an interrogation that has there’s a model for Wey’s short, incen- cant part of his charisma comes from
come to include food’s role in everything diary career, it is Kaepernick, whose the rare ability to sit comfortably with
from gender and the environment to most radical transgression has been to being uncomfortable.
mental health and, yes, of course, race. blast away the notion that sports can be I first met Wey in 2015, during the
There has arisen a boomlet of racially simply a realm of mindless escape. Wey brief, five-month period of his life when
focused dining experiences. They range wants to do the same for food. he was acting most like a traditional
from the subtly pedantic (Seattle’s To be sure, there’s also an element of chef. Ironically, it was at the white-hot
JuneBaby o≠ers an online encyclopedia self-flagellation, if not outright Radical center of a gentrification debate in New
of African-American culinary history) Chic, in the spectacle of white liberal Orleans. I live down the street from a
and civic-minded (the Los Angeles City foodies lining up to be dressed down onetime public market called the St.
Council recently sponsored 100 free at what some reviews have proudly Roch Market that had been moribund
dinners around the city to facilitate labeled “discomfort dinners.” It is a since Hurricane Katrina. By the time it
racial dialogue) to the high-concept dynamic that Wey both counts on and reopened, with the help of several mil-
(the tasting menu at Indigo, in Houston, is ambivalent about. lion dollars of federal disaster-relief
promises a “revised reflection of what “White folks will consume me. money, the surrounding neighborhoods,
it is like eating through the ‘isms’ of They will consume my work and which had once been predominantly
America as a copper-colored person” feel gratification for being abused or working-class African-American, had
and features dishes with names like however they perceive it,” he says. come to uneasily include a significant
Descendants of Igbo and Eradication “But the implication that I’m here group of white professionals, artists,
of Appropriation) and the bordering- to do a service, which is to make you and other transplants. I don’t think I
on-parody (chef Jenny Dorsey’s “Asian uncomfortable… That’s such an ego- need to tell you to which population the
in America” dinners posit sweetbreads centric response. It’s not about you! resurrected St. Roch Market, a spi≠y,
as “the model minority of the o≠al What I want is racial equity. The dis- bright food hall featuring a cocktail bar,
world” and incorporate spoken-word comfort is just something that hap- organic grain bowls, and a nominal gro-
poetry and virtual reality). pens along the way.” cery area o≠ering urban-farm-grown

Photographs
and books in
Wey’s home in
New Orleans.
Opposite: a
pop-up serving
up both Wey’s
Nigerian
cuisine and
hard questions
about racial
wealth
disparity in
America.

8 2 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
He grew up steeped in black American sitting in the back, zoning out and lis-
culture: He listened to hip-hop and tening to music. He barely noticed that
dressed in streetwear unsuited for the the bus had rolled to a stop. When he
Nigerian climate. He played American looked up, a border-patrol o∞cer was
video games. (Twenty years later, when making his way down the aisle. Every
engaged in a particularly heated game few rows, he would stop and ask a pas-
of Ping-Pong, he will mutter under his senger if they were a U.S. citizen.
breath the immortal line from Mortal “Should I lie?” Wey asked himself as
Kombat: “Finish him!”) Wey was a pre- the cop got closer. He probably could.
cocious high school student, graduating The cop was taking some of the answers
at 15. Soon after, the decision was made he was getting at face value, only occa-
to send him and his brothers to live with sionally asking for passengers’ papers.
an aunt who had settled in Detroit. He He certainly wasn’t out at this south-
kicked around community college for a western checkpoint looking for itiner-
few years, trying to reconcile his parents’ ant Nigerian chefs.
hopes for his medical career with the “In my head, I decided to lie,” Wey
fact that he had neither the interest nor says. “I was going to lie.”
the aptitude. Finally, Wey and a partner The cop reached his row. “Are you a
opened a space in Hamtramck to host a U.S. citizen?” he asked.
rotating roster of pop-ups. They called it Wey’s brain said, Lie, lie, lie.
Revolver. At some point, his visa expired, He told the truth.
and Wey quietly slipped into the ranks of “I don’t know why,” he says, puzzling
10.7 million undocumented immigrants over it even now. “I just didn’t have
living and working in every state and the balls. I couldn’t do it.” Instead, he
city across the nation. started explaining that he had been a
By January 2015, his Lagos pop-ups student but his visa had expired. The
had grown popular enough to attract cop sighed and asked him to step o≠ the
herbs, was designed to appeal. Wey was some national buzz. He had moved to bus. He went o≠ to check Wey’s name
invited to open a Nigerian food stall New Orleans to be with his girlfriend in his computer. Standing there in the
there. He called it Lagos, which was also and soon-to-be wife, a community orga- desert, Wey was suddenly overcome by
the name of a traveling series of pop-ups nizer named Claire Nelson, and signed chills. “I was freezing. Started shaking
he had been staging for the past year. on to the St. Roch Market. He had violently. I was thinking, ‘It’s not cold
Lagos is where Wey is from. He enticed The New York Times to send a enough out here to cause this. What the
was born there, Akintunde Asuquo video crew to an upcoming installment fuck is happening?’ ”
Osaigbuovo Ojo Wey, in 1983. He of Lagos in Los Angeles. The cop returned. “I think we’re just
going to let the bus go,” he said. “Get
your stu≠.”
“It was the worst thing that had
“I’m doing all these projects asking ever happened in my life,” Wey says.
“I didn’t know what was on the other
white people to give something up. side of this. Am I going to Nigeria? Am
And I’m realizing…White people will I going to prison?”
Wey’s unpreparedness for the even-
never give anything up.” tuality of being detained was, in part,
his own brand of optimistic flakiness,
but it was also a necessary accommo-
dation faced by millions every day: It’s
grew up in a comfortably middle-class “I thought it was going to change my precisely because you can be picked up
Yoruba family; his grandfather had life,” Wey says. at any time, ending life as you know it in
been second-in-command during the It did. Because of his legal status, an instant, that it’s impossible to keep
military junta that ruled the country Wey was doing most of his traveling by that fact constantly in mind without
from 1966 to 1979. It was a close fam- Greyhound bus, thus avoiding airports. going mad.
THIS PAGE: ANJALI PRASERTONG

ily—Wey remembers his mother chew- This was not a well-thought-out strategy. “What preparation could I do?” Wey
ing particularly tough pieces of meat While his Nigerian passport allowed says. “It was just permanent reality. It
before passing them to her children— him to proceed through TSA check- was like living with a chronic illness:
but also pressure-filled. Wey’s parents points largely without incident, the bus constant unease.”
had a plan: One of their sons would route from New Orleans to L.A. took him On Wey’s first night in detention, his
become an engineer. Another, an archi- directly through the heart of America’s biggest fear was physical violence. “He’s
tect. Their daughter would become a immigration-enforcement belt. going to get fucked in prison,” some-
lawyer, and Tunde would round out the Almost 20 hours into the trip, not far one whispered to Wey about a fellow
set by becoming a doctor. from Las Cruces, New Mexico, Wey was detainee. (continued on page 140)

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 8 3
Lucas Hedges, who in recent years has played every iteration of a young
man in turmoil—from Manchester by the Sea, Lady Bird, and Three
Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to his stuffed slate this winter of
Boy Erased, Ben Is Back, and Mid90s—hasn’t missed yet.

THE L

NG
ADOLESCENCE

F
LUCAS HEDGES
By Alice Gregory Photographs by Ryan McGinley Styled by Mobolaji Dawodu

8 4 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 8 5
THE than knowing that the Guggenheim was
closed on Thursdays was not knowing that
earnest alpiner and stared out across Fifth
Avenue. Wondering what we would do with
the Guggenheim was closed on Thursdays. the afternoon if not wander around a Frank
Museums are for tourists, not for people Lloyd Wright–designed concrete spiral, I
who have lived their whole lives here and asked him, blank-mindedly, the world’s worst
thus have better things to do with their time, question: “So how are you?”
NLY such as watch TV and order crappy Chinese
takeout and buy their co≠ee from authentic,
We had only met once before, the week
prior, for less than two hours, but Hedges

THING M Giuliani-era establishments like Starbucks.


That’s what we told ourselves, at least,
seemed to have amplified the initial encoun-
ter into something like a deep past, answer-
Lucas Hedges and I, after realizing the ing with the easy, assumptive intimacy of an
doors were locked. The discovery elicited a old friend.
desperate moment of panic on my part and “I’m gooooood,” he replied. He
an Edvard Munch–like fake scream on his. cocked his head, parrot-style. “I’ma
RE Hedges, who studied acting at an art school
in North Carolina for a year but has other-
gooooooooooooooooooood.”
We both laughed. It was just the sort of

“NEW YORK” wise spent his entire 22 years in New York,


grabbed the straps of his backpack like an
time-embroidering, untranscribable non-
joke that Hedges performs constantly,
demonstrating, unconsciously, a talent for
spotting comic potential in tiny moments
that to other people feel like the unremark-
able material of mere existence. Like most
everything else Hedges would do while we
were together, it was very lovable.
Culturally ambitious plans foiled, we
headed to Central Park for a walk. It was
December but unseasonably warm—“creepy
out,” as he put it—and in lieu of a jacket,
Hedges wore a crewneck sweatshirt onto
which his girlfriend had stitched a bunch
of inside jokes in rainbow thread. “I’m
so scared of ruining it,” he said. “People
keep coming up to me asking, ‘What’s your
drip?’ ” Showing both common courtesy and
admirable theory of mind, Hedges turned
to me and said, “Do you know what that
means?” I told him I did not. “Your drip is
your swag,” he explained. “Are you supposed
to provide the brand name of the item?”
I asked. “Honestly I don’t really know,” he
answered. “People have just said it to me.
And I know enough to know that it means,
basically, ‘What’s this thing you’re wearing
that I think is cool?’ ”
Some of you may not even remember
the last movie you saw that didn’t have
Lucas Hedges in it. He was in Manchester
by the Sea, playing a seething, r-dropping,
ice-hockey-playing teen, and in Three
Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, as
a son mourning his murdered sister. He
played a gay high school student in Lady Bird

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M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 8 7
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and more these days, it’s often with an air of


reluctance. “I actually get a lot of ‘You look
like this guy, I forget his name. Lucas some-
thing?’ ” he told me. “Then I say, ‘Oh, cool.’
And I sort of just…wait. Sometimes they’re
like, ‘Is it you?’ And, depending on how I feel,
I often say no.”
For what it’s worth, that’s not what I
witnessed. Over a few hours I spent with
Hedges in downtown Manhattan, about a
dozen people recognized him. Roughly half
of them gave a quick nod and complimented,
in passing, a particular performance. Once, a
guy about Hedges’s own age stopped dead in
his tracks as his friends continued walking.
“Oh my gosh, we were just talking about
Lady Bird because there’s that scene filmed
right there. And I was like, ‘Oh shit, is that
Lucas Hedges?’ ”
Hedges grinned. “Cool!” he said.
“What’s good, man? Nice to meet you.”
Hedges smiled again. “Yeah, nice to meet
you, too.”
“Right on.”
“Well, have a good one.”
“Yeah, you too.”
Hedges turned to me and laughed. “So
weird. People just talk to you like they
know you,” he said. A few minutes later, a
middle-aged woman passed us. She didn’t
say anything but was walking unnaturally
slowly. “God, that woman looked at me like
I wasn’t even a human being,” Hedges said.
and a gay college student in Boy Erased. everywhere, and seen as an adult. It’s fun to “I don’t mean like she was in awe of me,
A drug addict in Ben Is Back. A thuggish, watch someone grow up and become famous, more like I was something to be stared at.
self-loathing burnout in Mid90s. If you simultaneously, in front of the world. It’s fun And I’m not saying this to suggest it’s what
happen to live in or frequently visit New York in the way watching a ski jumper take o≠ is my life is. I’m not like, ‘Like, see?! People
City, you maybe also saw him on Broadway fun. The inevitability is thrilling. You know don’t even see me as real!’ That’s not what
this winter in The Waverly Gallery, Kenneth something spectacular is about to happen, no I’m trying to say, I swear.”
Lonergan’s very funny but also extremely bru- matter how they land it. But you kind of need Hedges, who has titian-blond hair and
tal play about a Greenwich Village–dwelling to hold your breath. attenuated limbs, retains that perverse
grandmother with Alzheimer’s. Hedges, for charm of adolescent boys—that heartrend-
now at least, is always playing somebody’s BEING A MOVIE STAR is a totally bizarre job ing quality that makes you want to kiss them
son—not a kid anymore but still not quite when you think about it, one that fame itself and take care of them at the same time.
an adult, stronger and taller than whoever would seem to undermine. Tricking strang- Hedges is conversationally reactive. He lis-
is cast as his mom but still inclined to cry ers into thinking you’re someone else? But tens attentively. He apologizes when he has
on her shoulder. then also…doing a bunch of stu≠—going on to be on his phone for more than five sec-
To many, Hedges is already a celebrity. talk shows, appearing on magazine covers— onds. He’s what people mean when they call
Soon enough, he’ll be one in the cultural that makes you, the real you, recognizable someone a “good egg.” When we met for the
imagination of everyone else, too. For the to the world? It’s like the job’s chief occu- first time, a few hours before he would have
past few years, he’s been the secret, under- pational hazard is also its premise. Hedges to go onstage, he told me he didn’t mind
age heart of everything he’s appeared in, but likes to mess with this. When people come that I had a cold. “My mom has one, too,” he
in a year or so, maybe two or three, he’ll be up to him on the street, which they do more o≠ered. He then proceeded to ask me more

9 0 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
jacket $1,650
pants $630
Burberry
sandals $445
Boss
socks $30
Anonymous Ism
ring $16,000
Tiffany & Co.
M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 9 3
questions about myself than any employer Hedges speaks in ideas-dense sentences
ever has, than any date ever has, than my “THERE’S ACTUALLY built around well-chosen verbs. He worries
parents do after too much time away.
What was my high school like? Do I want
JUST N that his general aversion to texting is “a reflec-
tion of some naturally selfish tendencies” and
kids? Do I consider myself to be maternal? that his a≠ection for movies he knows are dull
Do I like the experience of being mentored? and not actually any good might indicate “a
Is the joy I take in New York City mostly one WAY lack of trust in, or maybe even disdain for, other
of nostalgia for a past I never experienced?
What does language mean to me? Do I ever
I C A N B E T R U LY people.” Hedges thinks film sets are di∞cult
environments in which to experience the plea-
read my articles aloud to my mom and dad? G R E AT AT T H I S sures of tutelage because they’re so “product-
How did I meet my husband? What’s his oriented” and that there’s something “very
name? Would I ever want to write fiction? UNTIL I’VE PUT IN 20 dreamlike, almost eerie about being on a
If we went to a basketball game together, theater stage, because even the audience’s
would it actually be useful or would it be too
M laughter becomes this alien, dehumanized
hard for me to hear anything he said? Am I sound.” He speaks French and Spanish, each
good at giving presents? I wasn’t paying for pretty well; references, non-annoyingly, both
lunch, right? It was on the magazine? RE YEARS.” Terrence Malick and the fact that he prefers
the company of much older people to that of
his peers. Once, while we were eating lunch in
SoHo, he got distracted mid-conversation by
a man walking by in pajama-like outerwear
and fashionable eyeglasses. “Sorry, I was just
checking to see if that was Julian Schnabel,”
Hedges said, referring to the eccentrically
dressed American painter. He looked closer,
and it became clearer that the man was pos-
sibly homeless. “It’s not. It’s a poor man’s
Julian Schnabel. A, er, very poor man’s Julian
Schnabel.” Hedges would be impressive—
curious, canny, cosmopolitan—for a second-
semester Ivy League senior with a New Yorker
internship secured for the summer. That he’s
a movie star is insane.

TO SPEND ANY time at all around Hedges


is to be convinced that acting is an intellec-
tual pursuit, and that good acting is a cere-
bral skill. “Most writing is so bad that when
something feels real it’s actually shocking,”
he said. “It’s the same with acting—you
can tell when an actor is speaking but not
also looking at themselves, you know what
I mean? Some of the best acting isn’t even
being witnessed. I’ve seen friends from col-
lege do scenes, and it’s honestly better than
any acting I’ve ever seen, and I’ve worked
with the ‘best’ actors in the world.”
Hedges didn’t enact the air quotes around
“best” until he was halfway through the word,
realizing a split micro-second too late that
without them he might seem like a dick. But
then a split micro-second after that, he recal-
culated, allowing (continued on page 134)

jacket, $1,650
Burberry

sweater-vest $850
Gucci
bracelet $120
A.P.C.
ring $2,300
Tiffany & Co.

9 4 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
EVEN IN THE ONE-AND-DONE ERA
OF COLLEGE HOOPS, LEAVE IT TO
DUKE TO OVERACHIEVE. WITH A KILLER
QUARTET OF FRESHMEN—RJ BARRETT,
TRE JONES, CAM REDDISH, AND THE
STAGGERING ZION WILLIAMSON—THE
BLUE DEVILS AREN’T JUST BARRELING
TOWARD THE TOURNAMENT WITH
THE GREATEST CLASS IN YEARS,
THEY’RE CHANGING THE GAME.

Duke’s four fabulous freshmen,


clockwise from top left: Cam
Reddish (No. 2), RJ Barrett
(No. 5), Tre Jones (No. 3), and
Zion Williamson (No. 1).

9 6 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
BY DEVIN GORDON
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
TOM KEELAN
STYLED BY
KELLY MCCABE
Williamson has been thing.” Zion is like a basketball
compared to LeBron James, centaur—LeBron from the
and it’s a little crazy that waist up, Charles Barkley from
this is not a crazy comparison. the waist down. It’s not that
But it’s imprecise. For one there’s something wrong with
thing, Zion is bigger than his build, I start to say, it just—
LeBron. He’s 285 pounds right Barrett cut me o≠. “It makes no
now (LeBron is 250) and nearly sense, right?” Yes. It makes no
half James’s age. What has NBA sense. Exactly. “I tell him that all
people so excited about him, the time. Sometimes we’re just
though, is his LeBronian feel for chilling in our room. I’m like,
the game. He can dominate ‘Bro, you make absolutely no
without scoring. He’s not just a sense.’ He’s like, ‘What?’ I’m
dunker. He’s a passer, he’s a like, ‘Look at you! How are you
shot-blocker, he’s a pickpocket. as fast as me, but you weigh like
Williamson has almost 70 pounds more than I do?’ ”
certainly dislodged Barrett as He shook his head.
the top pick in this summer’s “It just makes no sense. But
NBA draft, and he’s turned his I’m happy he’s on our side.”
other two lottery-caliber
classmates, six-foot-eight wing THE BEST RECRUITING class
W I L L I A M S O N W A S S I T T I N G in the Knicks locker room after a Cam Reddish (the No. 3–rated in NCAA men’s basketball
game at Madison Square Garden in late December, surrounded freshman in the country by history began, like so many
by a deep lake of reporters peppering him with a dozen varia- ESPN) and point guard Tre post-millennial origin stories
tions on the same question: How would you feel about sitting in Jones (No. 17), into the hoop do, with a group text. Tre Jones
this exact same spot a year from now? Duke had won tonight’s equivalent of a rhythm section. was the first commit. It was
game against 12th-ranked Texas Tech, and even though Zion Against Texas Tech in the an easy call—Tre’s elder brother
had fouled out late in the second half, and even though, if we’re Garden, Tre saved Duke’s ass Tyus, now a key reserve for
being honest, the game was kind of a drag—a sludgy, rim-clang-y time and again with his floor the Minnesota Timberwolves,
grind—the vibe afterward was boisterous. The Garden! National game—five assists, six steals, won a title at Duke in 2015.
TV! The Knicks locker room was so lush and spacious, it was just one turnover. Cam hit the Tre worships Tyus. He plays
almost as nice as the one they have back at Duke. Zion is a mortal game-icing three-pointer. But like Tyus, looks like Tyus,
lock to be the top pick in this summer’s NBA draft, and there’s Zion was still the story, because frequently gets called “Tyus.”
a solid chance that that pick will belong to the Knicks. So how of how much he didn’t play. It’d He committed in August 2017,
about it, Zion? How does playing 41 games a year here sound? only be natural for that to cause giving the 2018 class a blue
some friction. This group, chip with blue bloodlines.
though, and Zion and RJ in The moment that a high
Zion is only 18, but he is more Once upon a time, five or six particular, appear to like one school star signs up with an
media-savvy than the media. years ago, this topic was a another far too much for that. elite college program, he
He had over a million Instagram third rail in college basketball. “Those two guys are like becomes his freshman class’s
followers before he got to Duke. If a reporter dared to ask a brothers,” Krzyzewski said. “If lead recruiter. Excessive thirst
He’s a natural at this. So he college freshman about the NBA, you’re around Zion, you’re from a would-be coach can
answered their question with that freshman was required happy. He’s upbeat all the time. easily drive away a recruit.
a question. to get annoyed or robotically I’m telling you, he’s very unique.” So after Tre signed with Duke,
“RJ!” he called out over the demur. The player was required, “He’s just—he’s the funniest Coach K told him the three
scrum to teammate RJ Barrett, in other words, to lie. “It’s more guy ever,” Barrett said. “He’s targets he wanted help with:
Duke’s other NBA-ready transparent now,” coach Mike a people person. He can talk RJ Barrett, Zion Williamson,
freshman stud. “You wanna Krzyzewski told me a few weeks to anyone. He has so many Cam Reddish. The top-rated
play for the Knicks?” later back on campus in Durham. friends around campus— high school players in the
Twenty heads turned. Barrett, K’s o∞ce, a cube-shaped crow’s everybody loves him. When country—one, two, and three.
a lithe six-foot-seven slasher nest perched atop a stone tower you see him, you wouldn’t Go get ’em, Tre.
from near Toronto, has been overlooking Cameron Indoor think that he’s the softest and So Tre started a group text.
Duke’s leading scorer all season; Stadium, on a floor accessible only nicest guy o≠ the court.” The four kids were scattered
at this second, he is averaging by fingerprint keypad, is both Even RJ has to rub his eyes across the country—Tre outside
nearly 24 points a game, a ludicrous and homey. Sunlight sometimes when he watches Minneapolis, Cam outside
school record for a freshman. pours in through 25-foot floor- Zion. They’re roommates now, Philly, RJ from frigging Canada
But so far on this night, only to-ceiling glass windows, filling best friends now, pretty much (international rates may apply),
one lonely reporter had broken the air with rich, life-a∞rming inseparable now. And this is a and Zion in tiny Spartanburg,
from the pack to talk to him. It vitamin D. “I’m okay with it. big part of their bond: mutual South Carolina. The text thread
was a tiny kindness by Zion, It’s okay to talk about it. You amazement. When I told Barrett was filled with the same stu≠
who’d watched all of us make a are that good, you do have those that I had to force myself not to everyone’s group texts are filled
beeline past RJ to get to him. goals—we understand. Now, stare at Zion, like he’s a physics with. Jokes, GIFs, recruiting
Barrett looked up and smiled. while you’re here, fulfill all equation I’m too dumb to grasp, updates, videos of Zion’s most
“If they draft me, hell yeah!” the requirements. This is not Barrett laughed. “It’s okay, we’ve recent windmill-backflip-triple-
he called back. an extended-stay motel.” all done it. It’s an everyday Salchow dunk, videos of RJ

9 8 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
The six-
foot-seven,
285-pound
Williamson
was offered
a football
scholarship
to L.S.U.—
even though
he never
played
football in
high school.
getting buckets buckets buckets All season long, Williamson, want his own stage. What if the AS YOU MAY KNOW, most
from all over the floor, family Jones, Reddish, and other stars turned out to be better people hate Duke. It’s time
stu≠, teenager stu≠, unprintable Barrett have been ratcheting than him? What if he lost playing for me to confess that I went
up interest in this
stu≠. Normal stu≠. “Just being summer’s NBA draft.
time? What if his draft status there, too, a long time ago,
kids,” Barrett says now. tumbled? What if he had to stay before anyone in the class of
They all take turns telling in college for a sophomore year?? 2018 was born. People hate us
me their versions of the story— always on the attack, a little That’s not how Zion thinks. for myriad reasons, but chiefly
how they all got here, as in Dwyane Wade, a little James “People try to apply the human it’s because we win so much
literally right here, in Section 2 Harden. His father, Rowan, nature that they might have into more frequently than all of you,
of Cameron, looking out over was a starter at St. John’s. His that situation,” Coach K said, and because of our insu≠erable
Coach K Court from the worst godfather is Steve Nash. In “and that’s why they’re not in tendency to point this out.
seats they’ve ever had in this a class full of gifted question that situation.” Zion, though, has done the
building. They all know it’s a marks, he was an exclamation The guys in the group chat impossible: He’s made people
little silly to immortalize a stupid point engraved in stone. Every claim they had no idea what like Duke. Or at least he’s made
group text—it’s still going, in fact, school in the country was after Williamson was going to say people temporarily root for
because that’s how phones him, but when he was 14, he got when he finally announced his Duke so they can keep watching
work—but now that they’re all to watch Duke’s 2015 title team choice on January 20, 2018, Zion play. We’ll take it. His
here, it’s become like the minutes practice at Cameron. “Sat over during a press conference in his classmates have helped by being
to their Constitutional there,” he said, pointing to a spot high school gym. They had so likable in their own right,
Convention. They were a team in the student risers. “This has warned him earlier that his especially RJ, who has warded
before they were teammates. always been my dream school.” failure to choose Duke would o≠ every attempt to cast him as
Anyway: Reddish was next Three down, one to go. result in immediate ejection the ball-hogging foil by being
to sign on. He already had one Early last year, Zion from the thread. His silence in too damn good and too
foot in the door, and also one Williamson was one of the the days leading up to his big obviously delighted by his
name: Cam is short for, yes, country’s last remaining reveal was disconcerting. Is he bunkmate. Someday Duke will
Cameron. He’d been praying on undecided blue-chip recruits. He dumping us before we can dump retire both their numbers, and
it for three weeks—Cam is reportedly had six schools on him? Nope. The cameras rolled, hopefully their dorm room.
soft-spoken, sensitive, a bit his list, and no one thought Duke and Williamson put on a Duke Fortunately, you can still hate
melancholy; he’s also a blowtorch was a prime contender. Some cap. Durham rejoiced. A nation our coach, whose pinched face
shooter—and God answered theorized that the presence of mourned. Zion was in. bears an eerie resemblance to
“Duke” every time. Cam was in. Barrett and Reddish and Jones And just like that, Duke had the Blue Devils mascot, all the
Next came RJ Barrett, might actually hurt Duke’s landed the nation’s top-ranked more so when he snarls at
Gatorade National Player of the chances. Zion’s a showboat, this recruits. One, two, and three. referees. It’s so uncanny that it’s
Year—creative, merciless, and dumb idea went, so he’s gonna (And 17.) hard to believe his resting,

1 0 0 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
return every summer to help at the Garden against Texas
run Coach K’s fantasy camp Tech. If it happens even once in
and to scrimmage against the the tournament, that could do
new kids. It’s the sort of hokey the trick. Hakeem Olajuwon and
self-mythologizing barf that Clyde Drexler lost, twice. Boogie
adds to America’s collective Cousins and John Wall lost. The
hatred for Duke, but, hoo boy, Fab Five lost (to Duke, and then
does that shit work. again the next season to North
“I think our fans now are Carolina, though nothing
o≠-court personality just isn’t underestimate the combustion following the pro careers of our especially memorable happened
that guy. Krzyzewski is funny risk of teenage boys who join guys more, because they didn’t in that one.)
and genial, particularly by hard- a program for ten months and get enough of them here,” And no matter what happens
ass-coach standards, and he’s then vanish. In recent years, Krzyzewski said. “Like with during the tournament in March,
way more culturally fluent than K has recalibrated his sales Kyrie.” Irving, a Duke freshman all four of these freshmen are
you’d expect—somewhere on pitch for this new era of pre- in 2010 and now a charter gone. It’s a bummer, I guess? It’s
the scale between Fortnite, yes, packaged, pre-branded high member of the Brotherhood, starting to feel like a series of
and drip, no—for a man who’s school star. His closing spent most of his brief stay in blips, and every season, it gets
had so many of his joints argument is no longer about Durham out of the lineup with a harder to cherish a blip. On the
replaced with titanium that his Duke as the destination—come foot injury. “We’re 8 and 0, and other hand, Coach K is counting
lower body at this point is here because we’re the best and then he gets hurt. We were on on it. He needs to reload on the
basically a network of golf clubs. you’ll love it. Too many riches our way to having a really fly, yet again, and he’s already got
Coach K is half a century await. Duke isn’t a four-year unbelievable, like, special year.” a pair of McDonald’s All-
older than these kids, and yet he sanctuary from the adult world This team will probably get Americans signed up, including
keeps reeling in Fab Five–level anymore. That Duke is gone. It’s upset in the tournament, too. No. 3 overall prospect Vernon
recruiting classes. That doesn’t a center of gravity now—the I’ve never seen a Duke class Carey Jr., a rim-rocking six-foot-
GROOMING: DANIELLE MITCHELL

happen if you’re a tone-deaf home that everyone comes back like this one, and we’ve had ten center from South Florida.
asshole, no matter how many of to. You know, like Zion (the one some doozies, but you should But he needs the Class of 2018 to
your former players blossom from the Bible). still bet the field. It’s too easy to cycle out and start tearing up the
into NBA All-Stars. And it’s not Now all anyone associated lose once. Our outside shooting NBA. He’s counting on them to
like K’s batting average is with the Duke program talks is, to be polite, dubious. K has help him to close the deal.
perfect. He’s won five titles, but about is the Brotherhood—the warned Zion, often, that his
lots of people think he should vast latticework of NBA implausible frame is bound to devin gordon, a former
have more with the talent he’s superstars who passed through ba±e refs and land him in foul executive editor at gq, is a
had, probably because they Cameron, however briefly, and trouble. It happened that night freelance writer in New York.

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 1 0 1
ON SIMON
RASMUSSEN
jacket $2,125
sweater $550
pants $550
Versace
sunglasses $240
Retrosuperfuture

ST YLED
BY
MOBOLA JI
DAWO D U

BY
SA M U E L
HINE

1 0 2 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
PHOTOGRAPHS
BY
MEINKE
KLEIN

HAND-LET TERING
BY
ALICIA
TATO N E
PREVIOUS PAGE

Venus X with SIMON RASMUSSEN, MARZ LOVEJOY,


AND THEIR DAUGHTER, NOMI
Tommy Hayes, FASHION FAMILY
DJ Total Freedom, Simon Rasmussen and Marz Lovejoy’s first encounter
and Richie Shazam was on the Hood By Air runway in 2015. Marz opened
Culture Creators the show; Simon, stylist and editor of Office magazine,
was sitting front row. Simon was so taken, Marz says
Venus X reshaped N.Y.C. nightlife
with her underground GHE20G0TH1K with a laugh, “he screenshotted my look on his
parties, and now the DJ is phone!” Now the Rasmussen-Lovejoys are
energizing street fashion proving just how fly parenthood can
with her boutique-slash-
label, Planet X. When be: When they’re not on diaper
asked to describe the duty, Marz is getting back out on
vibe she and her crew
were serving up here, the Fashion Week runway and
she didn’t miss writing a baby book, and
a beat: “Tim Burton Simon is styling some of
sex-tape cover.”
this magazine’s biggest
(and wildest)
fashion stories.

PREVIOUS
PAGE,
CLOCKWISE
FROM LEF T
ON TOMMY
HAYES
overalls and belt
Salvatore
Ferragamo
shoes
Pierre Hardy

ON VENUS X
coat
Sies Marjan
dress
No Sesso
jewelry, her own

ON RICHIE SHAZ AM
dress and tights
Versace
shoes
Jimmy Choo

ON DJ TOTAL
FREEDOM
coat $22,900
Hermès
pants, his own
M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 1 0 5
jacket $3,250
turtleneck $890
pants $990
boots $990
Celine by
Hedi Slimane

1 0 6 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
ALTON MASON
MODEL (AND MORE)
Alton Mason, 22, has
been modeling for only
three years, but he’s
already made waves in
the industry—late last
year, he became the
first black male model
to walk in a Chanel
show. “It was unreal,”
he says. “I got to make
history.” Mason is
on his way to bona fide
superstardom for
other reasons, too.
There are his Michael
Jackson–caliber
dance moves, which
he unleashed on
the runway for,
appropriately, Virgil
Abloh’s MJ-themed
Louis Vuitton fall-
winter 2019 show.
There’s his status as
a budding style icon,
thanks to his mastery
of silhouette and
penchant for daring
androgynous high
fashion. And there’s
the music project
he’s quietly gassing
up. Soon you won’t
need a front-row
invite to see Mason
toe-stand live.

jacket $1,617
pants $495
Ralph Lauren
shirt $345
Ermenegildo Zegna
rings, his own
jacket and dress
Dries Van Noten
turtleneck
and sandals
Simon Miller
socks
London Sock Co.
ring, her own

DAPHNE
GROENEVELD
MODEL
Daphne Groeneveld landed
her first Vogue Paris cover
way back in 2010. Ever
since, the 24-year-old
Tom Ford and Carine
Roitfeld collaborator has
been setting the bar for
supermodel-dom in the
Instagram era. “I’ve seen
the industry change,”
she says. “I do think that
[the rise of] social media
is an amazing thing, but
I’m so glad I experienced
old-school modeling.”
She adds, “I really don’t
care about followers.”
What Groeneveld does
care about: honing
her photography hobby
on the streets of the
West Village, helping
other models navigate
the pitfalls of the
industry, and working
with “new young
designers, new
hair and makeup
people, and new
photographers,”
she says. “I love to
meet fresh creative
minds. That’s
what keeps the
industry fun.”

1 0 8 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
Brian Procell
and Jessica
Gonsalves
Vintage Masters
If you’re wondering why everyone
from Frank Ocean to that stylish
skater you follow on Instagram is
really into disintegrating punk tees,
rare pieces of ’90s-fashion history,
and artifacts from the early days
of hip-hop, look no further than the
expertly curated vintage mecca
Procell on Delancey Street, which
Brian runs with his fiancée, Jessica.
With Alexander Wang and Awake
NY collabs already in its archive,
this spring it’s paying tribute
to downtown N.Y.C. with
the very first Procell-
designed products:
collaborative Nike
Air Force 1s
and Blazers,
inspired by
artists who
called the
Lower
East
Side
home
(like
Jasper
Johns
and
Keith
Haring).

coat $2,095
Dunhill
vintage shirt,
his own

ON HER
coat Boss
jewelry,
her own
FROM LEF T
ON BELL A LUCIO
dress
Ann
Demeulemeester

ON DAVID
CASAVANT
vintage suit
Dior Homme
(autumn-winter
2012)
vintage t-shirt
Helmut Lang

ON JADA-RENEE B
vintage suit
Raf Simons
vintage boots
Calvin Klein
(autumn-winter
2014)
sunglasses $175
Sun Buddies

ON IMA AN SAYED
dress
Gucci by Tom
Ford (spring-
summer 1996)
vintage boots
Maison Margiela
all clothing from
David Casavant
Archive
OPPOSITE PAGE

DAVID CASAVANT John McPheters


FASHION ARCHIVIST
and Miss Info
Just before Helmut Lang left fashion
in 2005, David Casavant—then barely Sneaker Moguls
a teenager in small-town Tennessee— When Farfetch bought secondary sneaker
marketplace Stadium Goods for $250 million
started tracking down and collecting in December, it proved right everyone who
the designer’s cast-off pieces on eBay. bet on the growing role of sneakerhead
The vintage-fashion market may culture in fashion—especially Stadium
Goods co-founder John McPheters
be red-hot now, but back then and legendary hip-hop personality
“it was not like that at all,” Minya Oh (a.k.a. Miss Info), who,
as partners in work and in
says Casavant (pictured life, have turned the store
here with his employees on Howard Street into
and muses, Bella Lucio, a clubhouse for an
entire generation of
Jada-Renee Bland, fashion consumers.
and Imaan Sayed), The Farfetch deal,
who has dressed Oh says, “is kind of
a game changer.
the likes of Kanye Skaters and hip-
West, Rihanna, and hop kids, kids
who scrounged
Paul McCartney in together looks
garments from his high and low,
trove of Helmut Lang who didn’t
want to put
and Raf Simons. a suit on
Now Casavant for their
is capitalizing on entire
lives—we
everyone’s throwback did that.”
obsession with a gift
shop for his archive
that includes clothes
and a book—windows into
his world for non-triple-
A-list customers. What’s
Casavant got his eye on
next? “Phoebe [Philo]–
era Celine,” he says.

sweatshirt $285
Stone Island
pants $495
Ralph Lauren
sneakers $150
New Balance
his own watch
Audemars
Piguet

ON HER
her own top
Comme des
Garçons
her own skirt
Issey Miyake
her own
sneakers
Comme des
Garçons x Nike
jewelry, her
own
1 1 2 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
A$AP EVA
(A.K.A. EVA SAM)
JEWELER
Ever since Wu-Tang’s
Cappadonna became a
Popular Jewelry customer
in 1996, eight years after its
opening, Eva Sam’s humble
Canal Street storefront has
been a required stop on the
road to rap stardom. Around the
glass cases full of iced-out rings
and chains hang photos of Sam and
her clientele, from Soundcloud-
rapper wannabes to Playboi Carti
and A$AP Rocky, who shot his
“Fukk Sleep” video in the store.
Sam’s secret? Being there 365
days a year, to greet whoever
THESE PAGES
may come through the door.
coat It’s earned her an endearing
Joseph nickname: “My husband
t-shirt says, ‘You see [A$AP Rocky]
Uniqlo more than you see me—
pants, your name is A$AP Eva!’ ”
her own
boots
Roger Vivier
glasses,
her own
jewelry
Popular
Jewelry

1 1 4 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
FROM LEF T
ON ALEX
WINCHELL
clothing
Drake’s
sneakers
$160
Nike React
Element ’87
glasses
Nackymade

ON
MAT THEW
WOODRUFF
clothing
Drake’s
boots
Lucchese
watch
1967 Rolex
Datejust
(with made-
to-order
bracelet by
Codis Maya)
cuff
Codis Maya

ON CHASE
WINFREY
clothing
Drake’s
loafers
Alden
sunglasses
Guépard
watch,
vintage
Swatch
jacket $4,700
Dior Men

OPPOSITE PAGE his own pants


Marc Jacobs
ALEX WINCHELL, his own boots
MATTHEW Gucci
WOODRUFF, AND jewelry, his
CHASE WINFREY own
THE DR AKE’S CREW
for additional
Meet the guys on the credits, see
front lines of the modern page 141.
tailored-clothing
insurgency. Winchell,
Woodruff, and Winfrey Raúl de
hold down the Drake’s
store on Crosby Street,
Nieves
and whether on duty or Artist
off, the trio prove that In February, at the Cleveland
Museum of Art, the Brooklyn-
there doesn’t have to based de Nieves debuted his
be anything stuffy about first solo show, an homage
wearing a suit. “We don’t to his mother, Fina, who
was a talented seamstress
really mind if we’re the in Michoacán, Mexico.
only guys at the bar with It features couture-level
a tie on,” says Winchell. wearable sculptures made
with countless hours of
That’s because their hand-sewn beading, a nod
ancient madder ties to his home country’s
crafting traditions. (Some
look downright casual literally take years to finish.)
when paired with soft- “Making us clothes was
shouldered Ivy-style [my mom’s] way of being
creative,” de Nieves says.
suits, relaxed cashmere “Now I love making clothes
sweaters, and suede as art objects. Right now
cowboy boots. Being I’m cutting up these horrible
beaded ’80s party dresses
the most uptown thing and making them even
downtown works: A tackier.” De Nieves’s own
style is similarly maximalist,
steady stream of what but more trippy than
Woodruff calls “young tacky—as exemplified by
fashion kids” are leaving the towering, bead-encrusted
high heels that turned
Drake’s with the latest him into a breakout star of
in men’s haberdashery. 2017’s Whitney Biennial.

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 1 1 7
BY MICHAEL FINKEL
OF

ART
THE
THE

THIEF
SECRETS

WORLD’S
GREATEST
ART Sleeping Shepherd by François Boucher
HOW TO STEAL

RTH OF
& ANOTH R BILLION
THIS PAINTING

DOLLARS’ W
And he insists that he never sells any. Stealing knife and sets upon the plexiglass dome.
art for money, he says, is stupid. Money can be Breitwieser is shorter than average and tou-

D
made with far less risk. But stealing for love, sle-haired, with piercing blue eyes that, for
Breitwieser knows, is ecstatic. all his stealth, are often animate with expres-
And this piece, right in front of him, is a sion. He is lithe and coordinated, and uses
marvel. He had discovered it during a visit to athleticism and theater in his work. Maybe
the museum two weeks previous. He wasn’t five seconds pass before Kleinklaus coughs
able to take it then, but its image blazed in and he vaults away from the carving, revert-
his mind every time he sought sleep. This ing to casual-art-gazing mode.
is why he’s returned; this has happened It’s a start. He has turned the first screw
before. There will be no good rest until the twice around. Each job is different; impro-
object is his. visation is crucial—rigid plans do not work
It’s an ivory sculpture of Adam and Eve, during daytime thefts, when there are vari-
carved in 1627 by Georg Petel, a friend of ables too numerous to preordain. During his
Reubens’s, who, according to Breitwieser, previous trip to the museum, he had studied
gifted him the piece for his 50th birthday. how the Adam and Eve was protected and
The carving is a masterpiece, just ten inches had also spotted a convenient door, reserved
tall but dazzlingly detailed, the first humans for guards, that opened into the central court-
gazing at each other as they move to embrace, yard and did not appear to have an alarm.
Eve’s hair scrolling down her back, the ser- Over the course of ten minutes, progress-
“DON’T WORRY ABOUT parking the car,” says pent coiled around the tree trunk behind ing fitfully, Breitwieser removes the first
the art thief. “Anywhere near the museum them, and the unbitten apple, cheekily, in screw and pockets it. He does not wear gloves,
is fine.” When it comes to stealing from Adam’s hand, indicating his complicity in the trading fingerprints for dexterity. The second
museums, Stéphane Breitwieser is virtually fall of man, contrary to the book of Genesis. screw takes equally as long.
peerless. He is one of the most prolific and suc- “It’s the most beautiful object I have ever Now he’s set. The security guard has
cessful art thieves who have ever lived. Done seen,” says Breitwieser. already appeared three times, and at each
right, his technique—daytime, no violence, check-in Breitwieser and Kleinklaus had
performed like a magic trick, sometimes with THE IVORY SCULPTURE is sealed beneath a stationed themselves in different spots. Still,
guards in the room—never involves a dash to plexiglass dome fastened to a thick base, rest- the time elapsed in this room has reached his
a getaway car. And done wrong, a parking spot ing on an antique dresser. Breitwieser’s first acceptable limit. There’s a group of visitors
is the least of his worries. objective is to remove the two screws that present, all using audio guides and studying a
Just make sure to get there at lunchtime, connect the dome and the base. There’s no painting, and Breitwieser judges them appro-
Breitwieser stresses, when the visitors thin camera here, and only one guard is in motion, priately distracted.
and the security staff rotates shorthanded to poking her head in every few minutes. He nods to his girlfriend, who slips out of
eat. Dress sharply, shoes to shirt, topped by a The tourists, as usual, are the problem— the room, then lifts the plexiglass dome and

O P E N I N G PA G E S : R M N - G R A N D PA L A I S /A RT R E S O U R C E , N Y. T H I S PA G E : C H R I S TO P H E K A R A B A / E PA / R E X /
jacket that’s tailored a little too roomy, with a too many of them, lingering. The room sets it carefully aside. He grasps the ivory and
Swiss Army knife stashed in a pocket. is filled with items Rubens had amassed pushes it into the waistband of his pants, at
Be friendly at the front desk. Buy your during his lifetime, including marble busts of the small of his back, adjusting his roomy
ticket, say hello. Once inside, Breitwieser Roman philosophers, a terra-cotta sculpture jacket so the carving is covered. There’s a bit
adds, it’s essential to focus. Note the flow of of Hercules, and a scattering of 17th-century of a lump, but you’d have to be exceptionally
visitor traffic and memorize the exits. Count oil paintings. observant to notice.
the guards. Are they sitting or patrolling? Patience is needed, but a moment Then he strides off, moving with cal-
Check for security cameras and see if each soon comes when it’s just Kleinklaus and culation but no obvious haste. He knows

SHUT TERSTOCK. OPPOSITE PAGE: ART COLLECTION 3/AL AMY STOCK PHOTO.
has a wire—sometimes they’re fake. Breitwieser alone, and in an instant he that the theft will swiftly be spotted. He’d
When it comes to museum flooring, unfolds the screwdriver from the Swiss Army left the plexiglass bell to the side—no need
creaky old wood is ideal, so even with his to waste precious seconds replacing it—
back turned, Breitwieser can hear footsteps and the guard will surely initiate an emer-
two rooms away. Carpeting is the worst. gency response. Though not, he’s betting,
Here, at the Rubens House, in Antwerp, quickly enough.
Belgium, it’s somewhere in between: mar- From the room with the ivory, the museum
ble. For this theft, Breitwieser has arrived layout encourages visitors to ascend to the
with his girlfriend and frequent travel com- second floor, but Breitwieser pushes through
panion, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, who the door he’d seen on his earlier trip, crosses
positions herself near the only doorway to the courtyard toward the main entrance, and
a ground-floor exhibition room and coughs walks past the front desk onto the streets
softly when anyone approaches. of Antwerp. Kleinklaus rejoins him before
The museum is the former home of Peter they reach the car, a little Opel Tigra, and
Paul Rubens, the great Flemish painter of the Breitwieser sets the ivory in the trunk and
1600s. Breitwieser isn’t interested in stealing they drive slowly away, pausing at traffic
a Rubens; his paintings tend to be extremely lights on the route out of town.
large or too overtly religious for Breitwieser’s
taste. What sets Breitwieser apart from nearly CROSSING INTERNATIONAL borders is stress-
every other art thief—it’s the trait, he believes, Stéphane Breitwieser robbed ful but low-risk. They travel from Belgium to
that has facilitated his prowess—is that he will nearly 200 museums to amass his Luxembourg to Germany to their home in
steal only pieces that stir him emotionally. secret art collection. France without incident, just another young,

1 2 0 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
HIS HIDEAWAY SHIMMERS WITH STOLEN TREASURE.

“MY ALI BABA’S CAVE,”

Georg Petel’s ivory sculpture of Adam and Eve, HE CALLS IT.


stolen from—and later returned to—the museum
at the home of Peter Paul Rubens in Antwerp.

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 1 2 1
stylish couple out for a jaunt. It’s the first their fantasy world. The walls are lined with book, lavishly illuminated, from the 1400s.
weekend of February 1997, and both are only Renaissance paintings—portraits, land- Ornate battle weapons and rare musical
25 years old, though Breitwieser’s already scapes, still lifes, allegories. There’s a bustling instruments. Bronze miniatures and gilded
1522/MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS ET D’ARCHÉOLOGIE DE

been stealing art for a while. peasant scene by Dutch master Adriaen van teacups. Masterworks in enamel and marble
T H I S PA G E : A L B R E C H T D Ü R E R ( 1 47 1 –1 5 2 8 ) , ‘ B AT,’

The road trip ends at a modest steep- Ostade, an idyllic pastoral by French lumi- and copper and brass. The hideaway shim-
roofed house built amid the sprawl of nary François Boucher, an open-winged bat mers with stolen treasure. “My Ali Baba’s
BESANÇON, FRANCE/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Mulhouse, an industrial city in eastern by German genius Albrecht Dürer. A resplen- cave,” Breitwieser calls it.
France. The ivory might be worth a million dent 16th-century wedding portrait, the Entering this place, every time, dizzies him
dollars, but Breitwieser is broke. He does bride’s dress threaded with pearls, by Lucas with joy. He describes it as a sort of aesthetic
not have a steady job—when he is employed, Cranach the Younger, may be worth more rapture. Breitwieser sprawls on the bed,
it’s often as a waiter. His girlfriend works in a than all the houses on Breitwieser’s block put examining his new showpiece. The Adam
hospital as a nurse’s aide, and the couple live together, times two. and Eve ivory, after a four-century journey to
in his mother’s house. Their private space is on In the center of the bedroom sits a gran- arrive in his lair, appears more stunning than
the top floor, an attic bedroom and small living diose canopied four-poster bed, draped with ever. It goes on the corner table, the first thing
area that Breitwieser always keeps locked. gold velour and red satin, surrounded by fur- he sees when he opens his eyes.
They open the door now, cradling the niture stacked with riches. Silver goblets, sil- During the week, while his girlfriend is
ivory, and a wave of swirling colors seems ver platters, silver vases, silver bowls. A gold working, he visits his local libraries. He learns
to break over their heads as they step inside snuffbox once owned by Napoleon. A prayer everything he can about the ivory, the artist,

1 2 2 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
A gouache of a bat by Albrecht Dürer

A still life of flowers by


Jan van Kessel the Elder

his masters, his students. He takes detailed stamps and coins and old postcards, which museum—his parents often dropped him
notes. He does this with nearly all his pieces— he’d purchased with pocket money. Later it off—or touring archaeological sites, of which
he gets attached to them. Back home, he was medieval pottery fragments he’d find there are dozens in the area where he grew
meticulously cleans the carving, with soapy near archaeological sites, free for the taking. up, but around others he was sometimes
water and lemon, his thumb passing over the When he covets an object, says Breitwieser, hotheaded and temperamental.
sculpture’s every nubbin and ridge. he feels the emotional wallop of a coup de Breitwieser was born in 1971 in the Alsace
But this is not enough. His love for the ivory coeur—literally, a blow to the heart. There are region of northeastern France, where his
doesn’t fade, that’s not fair to say—he just has just things that make him swoon. “Looking family has deep roots. He speaks French and
room in his heart for a little more love. So he at something beautiful,” he explains, “I can’t German and a little English. His father was a
consults his art magazines and auction cata- help but weep. There are people who do not sales executive in Switzerland, just over the
logs. The Zurich art fair is about to begin. He understand this, but I can cry for objects.” border, and his mother was a nurse. He’s an
plots a route into Switzerland, avoiding tolls His interactions with the world of the liv- only child. The family, for most of his youth,
to save money, and early the next Saturday ing were far less fulfilling. He never really was well-off, living in a grand house filled
morning they’re back on the road. understood his peers, or almost anyone with elegant furniture—Louis XV armchairs,
else for that matter. Popular pastimes, like from the 1700s; Empire dressers, from the
A L L H I S L I F E , inanimate objects have sports and video games, baffled him. He’s 1800s. His parents had hoped he’d become
had the power to seduce him. “I get smit- never had any interest in drinking or drugs. a lawyer, but he dropped out of university
ten,” Breitwieser says. Before artwork, it was He could happily spend all day alone at a after a couple of years.

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 1 2 3
THE SHEER SCALE OF
His first museum heist came shortly after museum, in front of the pistol, Kleinklaus’s top to bottom, overflowing the end tables,
a family crisis. When he was 22 years old, still response, the way Breitwieser remembers it, displayed in his closet’s shoe rack, leaning on
living at home, his parents’ marriage ended made him believe that they were destined to chairs, stuffed under the bed.
explosively. His father left and took his pos- be together. The collection is not random. Virtually
sessions with him, and Breitwieser and his “Go ahead,” she said. “Take it.” So he did. everything he steals was made before the
mother tumbled down the social ladder, Industrial Revolution, in an age when items
re-settling in a smaller place, the antiques FROM THAT MOMENT ON, he catered to his were all still formed by hand; no machines
replaced by Ikea. impulses in an unimaginable way. His only stamped out parts. Everything finely crafted
Cushioning the trauma was a woman goal was to obey temptation. By the time he in this way, Breitwieser believes, from medical
Breitwieser met through an acquaintance, pilfers the Adam and Eve ivory, three years instruments to kitchenware, is its own little
a fellow archeology buff. Anne-Catherine after stealing the pistol, he’s amassed some work of art, the hand of the master visible in
Kleinklaus was the same age as Breitwieser, 100 objects, all on display in his hideout. He is each chisel mark and burr. This, to Breitwieser,
and similarly introverted, with a kindred ecstatic beyond measure, cosseted like a king. was the height of human civilization.
sense of curiosity and adventure. She had a He feels as though he and his girlfriend have Today the world is wed to mass produc-
sly smile and an irresistible pixie cut. They discovered the meaning of life. tion and efficiency, much to our benefit. But
shared a passion for museums, thrilled to A curious thing about temptation, at least a side effect is that beauty for beauty’s sake
be immersed in beauty. Breitwieser finally in Breitwieser’s case, is that it never seems to seems increasingly quaint, and museums
experienced a coup de coeur for an actual abate. If anything, the more he feeds it, the themselves, small ones especially, can have
person. “I loved her right away,” he says. hungrier it gets. The weekend after the ivory the whiff of the dying. Stocking pieces in his
Soon after Breitwieser’s father departed, theft in Belgium, Breitwieser and Kleinklaus room, Breitwieser feels, is rescuing them, like
Kleinklaus moved in. drive through the snow-streaked Alps to the pets from a shelter, giving them the love and
A few months later, the couple were vis- Zurich art fair. Behind a dealer’s back, quick as attention they deserve.
iting a museum in the French village of a cat, he steals a spectacular goblet, filigreed
Thann when Breitwieser spotted an antique with silver and gold, from the 16th century. THE MORE HE STEALS, the better he gets. He
pistol. His first thought, he recalls, was that Then they head to Holland for another learns, with precision, the limits of a secu-
he should already own something like this. fair, and at one booth, while the vendor is rity camera’s vision. He hones his timing and
Breitwieser’s father had collected old weap- eating lunch and not keeping careful watch, perfects his composure. “You have to control
ons but had taken them when he’d left the Breitwieser takes a brilliant rendering of your gestures, your words, your reflexes,”
family, not bothering to leave a single piece a lake bobbing with swans, dated 1620. At Breitwieser says. “You need a predatory
for his son. The firearm, exhibited in a glass another booth, again with the dealer pres- instinct.” He pounces the instant he senses
case on the museum’s second floor, was hand- ent, he removes a 17 th-century seascape everyone’s attention is diverted. “The plea-
carved around 1730. It was far nicer than any- painted on copper. sure of having,” says Breitwieser, “is stronger
thing his father had owned. A few weeks later, it’s back to Belgium, to a than the fear of stealing.”
He felt an urge to possess it. The museum village museum with a single security guard, He tries to take only smaller pieces—
was small, no security guard or alarm system, where he takes a valuable still life, butter- with paintings, no more than about a foot
just a volunteer at the entrance booth. The flies flitting around a bouquet of tulips, by by a foot—and if time allows, he prefers to
display case itself, Breitwieser noted, was par- Flemish master Jan van Kessel the Elder. This remove the frame and hide it nearby, often in
tially open. He was wearing a backpack and is followed by a trip to a Paris auction, where, a bathroom, so the artwork disappears more
could easily hide the pistol in there. at the pre-sale show, he steals a painting from completely beneath his jacket. He purchases
One must resist temptation, he knew. the school of Pieter Brueghel the Elder and new frames for most of the works. Sometimes
It even says so in the Bible, not that he was Pieter Brueghel the Younger, two polestars of he steals weapons, but he wouldn’t think of
particularly religious. What our heart really Renaissance art. brandishing one. To walk into a museum with
wants, we must often deny. Maybe this is why Once again he returns to Belgium—a coun- a gun, he says, is disgusting.
so many people seem conflicted and misera- try whose museums, says Breitwieser, “attract The set of thefts he describes as the most
ble—we are taught to be at constant war with me like a lover”—and filches a vivid tableau of exquisite of his career are a study in simplic-
ourselves. As if that were a virtue. a rural market, then over to Holland to snatch ity and sangfroid. They take place in Belgium,
What would happen, he wondered, if he did a droll 17th-century watercolor of house cats his beloved target, at the vast Art & History
not resist temptation? If, instead, he fed temp- chasing hedgehogs, followed by a journey to Museum in Brussels, which Breitwieser
tation and freed himself from society’s repres- the northern French city of Lille for another estimates employs 150 guards. There he
sive restraints? He had no desire to physically Renaissance oil work, and finally, for good and Kleinklaus spot a partly empty display
harm anyone or so much as cause fright. He measure, one more raid in Belgium. case, with a laminated card inside that reads
contemplated the flintlock pistol and whis- All of this in a matter of months. These objects removed for study. Nothing in
pered a few of these thoughts to his girlfriend. paintings alone represent a haul worth mil- the case interests them, but Breitwieser has
ALBUM/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus has never lions of dollars. And it’s not just paintings— an idea and steals the card.
spoken to the media about her relationship he also steals a gold-plated hourglass, a Breitwieser understands how security
with Breitwieser and any possible role in the stained-glass windowpane, an iron alms box, guards think. At age 19, he was employed for
crimes, and neither has Breitwieser’s mother, a copper collection plate, a brass hunting a month as a guard at the Historical Museum
Mireille Stengel. Though there exist support- bugle, a cavalry saber, a couple of daggers, a of Mulhouse, near his home. Most guards,
ing documents and reported accounts, much gilded ostrich egg, a wooden altarpiece, and he realized, hardly notice the art on the
of this story is based primarily on inter- a half-dozen pocket watches. Everything is walls—they look only at people. Breitwieser’s
views with Breitwieser. While he was in the crammed into the hideout, filling the walls brashest thefts, like (continued on page 136)

1 2 4 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
Sibylle of Cleves by Lucas Cranach the Younger—perhaps the most valuable piece in Breitwieser’s illicit collection.

M A R C H
2 0 1 9
THE THEFTS IS SO FAR

G Q . C O M
BEY ND THAT OF NEARLY EVERY OTHER CASE AS TO BE PRACTICA LY INCONCEIVABLE.

1 2 5
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Nipsey Hussle and Lauren
London—the people’s champ
of West Coast hip-hop and New New from ATL—are
redefining what a storybook
romance looks like in 2019. en

G
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Ant
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By

1 2 6 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
GRAMMY-NOMINATED West Coast hip-hop titan
Nipsey Hussle and his scene-stealing-actress
girlfriend, Lauren London, appeared in
the middle of Slauson Avenue with a white
stallion, TMZ assumed they were taking
engagement photos. But it was just your
run-of-the-mill magazine photo shoot in
the Crenshaw neighborhood of Los Angeles,
where Nipsey has lived and worked his whole
life and is pretty much royalty. (Everyone in
Crenshaw has a story about Nipsey.) Before
you get mad at Harvey and co., though, we
can all admit that sometimes facts get a little
murky, right? For example: how Nipsey and
Lauren started dating.
“Our stories are very di≠erent,” Lauren
blurted out. Her sinkhole-deep dimples and
her pearly teeth flashed when she laughed,
pushing Nipsey aside. “I did not slide into his
DMs. My homeboy did....”
In 2013, while filming BET’s The Game,
Lauren wanted to buy Nipsey’s new mixtape
as a wrap present for her co-stars. You might
be thinking that’s kind of a cheap gift, but
at the time, Nipsey, who was massive among
hip-hop fans from L.A., was selling each copy
for $100.
“The marketing for the mixtape was that
we only made a thousand units and sold
them for a hundred dollars apiece,” Nipsey
explained. “It was a scarcity model. Jay-Z
bought a few copies, et cetera.”
If, like most people, you consider “a few”
to mean three, then Jay-Z actually bought
97 copies plus “a few.” After Lauren got the
mixtapes, she started following Nipsey on
Instagram. “You know what that means,
right?!” Nipsey said. So he followed her back
and then, yes, slid into her DMs. Fast-forward
to today, and they’ve been together for

THIS PAGE
jacket $4,310
sweater $1,390
pants $1,350
boots $2,250
scarf $295
Tom Ford
watch (throughout)
$55,400
Audemars Piguet
PREVIOUS PAGE
jewelry throughout,
bib $2,530 his own
shirt $1,320
pants $1,050 ON HER
Louis Vuitton dress
sneakers $795 Christian Cowan
Dunhill bra and panties
Fleur du Mal
ON HER
dress shoes
Philosophy di Christian Louboutin
Lorenzo Serafini at bracelets
Barneys New York Popular Jewelry

1 2 8 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
shirt $690
pants $990
Fendi
shoes $1,295
Christian
Louboutin

ON HER
jacket
sports bra
shorts
Fendi
shoes
Manolo Blahnik
earrings
Jennifer Fisher
other jewelry,
her own

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 1 2 9
THIS PAGE
blazer and
sweater (price
upon request)
pants $750
Z Zegna
shoes $1,200
Hermès

ON HER
dress
Versace at Barneys
New York
shoes
Christian
Louboutin

OPPOSITE PAGE
sweater $780
pants $1,260
Prada
sunglasses $215
Retrosuperfuture
“Do I choose

Lauren said. “I went with my soul.”


five years—raising their adorable little boy, So I just fought everybody.” Lauren and I really clear about his message, because before
Kross, fighting o≠ TMZ engagement rumors laughed. Nipsey didn’t. His eyes are perma- he was just making rap gang-bang music. But
together, and “building,” as Nipsey puts it. A nently squinted, his demeanor buzzed into I think he has a purpose in all the raps, and
modern-day love story, if ever there was one. a cool that’s normally reserved for 1950s-era that’s coming to light,” she said.
Nipsey Hussle is alarmingly upright. jazz musicians. His braids are so perfectly in Career-wise, Nipsey Hussle and Lauren
“He didn’t like the way I made the bed this place, it looks like he’s able to hold each strand London occupy the same branch on the
morning, so he re-did it,” Lauren said. And accountable for its actions. “You’re not going pop-culture tree. I call this branch: The
he’s polite. Like really, really polite. “I just to scare me into being somebody I don’t want Branch White America Hasn’t Exploited Yet.
want to make sure you’re happy. I appreci- to be,” he continued, “so I’ll just fight you.” It has its pros and cons. Nipsey, for his part,
ate your work,” he said during the fitting in Lauren, used to hearing Nipsey issue pro- has had mixed recognition over the years.
a cramped Hollywood hotel room. He elabo- found and ironic salvos like that, focused on Some people know him solely by his invest-
rated at dinner: “I grew up in an environment Nipsey finally getting his message out to the ments. A quick but not complete list includes
where being polite was taken as a weakness. world. “He’s gotten more of a platform to be a crypto-currency business, a co-working

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 1 3 1
“You’re not going to

into being somebody I don’t want to


be,” Nipsey said, “so I’ll just fight you.”

jacket $1,980
pants $1,380
Gucci

ON HER
jacket
Versace at
Barneys
New York

space, a STEM program for inner-city kids,


a fish shop, a barbershop, and a clothing
store—The Marathon—located on Slauson
that’s always full of locals and visiting fans.
But the audience for his music continues to
grow as well. After more than ten mixtapes
over a decade, his first studio album was just
nominated for a Grammy. “The artist part of
me always wants to be appreciated,” he said. “I
read every review. But I never wanted to seek
validation by awards or anything controlled
by politics.” The people who know, know.
The same could be said for Lauren. For
example, if you ask the right people, Lauren’s

1 3 2 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
shirt $790
pants $1,290
belt $290
Amiri
underwear $40
(for pack of three)
Calvin Klein
Underwear
sneakers $85
Puma

ON HER
top and shorts
Jeremy Scott
shoes
Off-White
c/o Virgil Abloh
for additional
credits, see
page 141.

first film, ATL, is a cult classic. And Lauren’s episode, just like New New did, but still got pregnant with our son. That was a really
performance as New New, by far the most never got that mainstream opportunity. hard decision for her to make.”
electric part of the film, should have given her “I auditioned to be Faith Evans in “It was the toughest decision of my career
the same career jolt that, say, Margot Robbie Notorious,” Lauren recalled. “I talked to by far,” Lauren said. She had to pass on the
got from The Wolf of Wall Street. Faith, Pu≠, everybody. It just came down role, and the show became a big hit.
But it didn’t. That’s the con, of course. that the director didn’t believe me as Faith.” “I didn’t put any pressure on her for what-
Still, that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been Riding the ups and downs together, they ever decision she wanted to make,” Nipsey
successful. In fact, Lauren London has seem to be having fun. But it was one sin- said. “I learned then that what she believes
proved that she can not only act but also gle decision that made them more than in, she really believes in.”
boost ratings. While The Game was on air, just another celebrity couple in Nipsey’s “Do I choose my soul or myself ?” Lauren
it was one of the most watched, least cele- eyes. “Lauren was handpicked by John said. “I went with my soul.”
brated shows on TV. In certain categories, Singleton to do Snowfall. She read, got the
it came in second only to Duck Dynasty. part, shot the pilot...did stunts...this was mark anthony green is gq’s special
Yeah, really. Lauren stole the show each her dream role,” Nipsey said. “And then she projects editor.

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 1 3 3
LU CA S H E D G E S

for Hedges after Hill’s sister, Beanie Gallery. “It’s hard to do a long run of a play
Feldstein, called him from the set of Lady without having your performance calcify,”
Bird and said, “There’s this actor. You’re Lonergan, who directed Hedges in Manchester
going to freak out.” by the Sea as well, told me. “It’s the same story,
To prepare for the role, Hedges spent a few the same marks, but the characters have to
weeks walking around Venice Beach in his cos- develop, the relationships have to get deeper
tume: head shaved, Eminem-style; diamond and not just fall into a routine.” Hedges,
studs in his ears; baggy jeans. “It was really Lonergan continued, “has only ever done one
shocking how di≠erently people treated me,” other Broadway play, but there he is, every
he recalled. “People would ask, ‘Did you see the night, up there with Elaine May and Joan
game last night?’ And nobody has ever in my Allen.” The character he plays is supposed
life, not once, asked me if I’ve ‘seen the game.’” to be a few years older than Hedges is in real
C O N T I N U E D F RO M PAG E 9 4 Having a shaved head, he said, seemed to
inspire fear in people. “If I looked at a girl, she
the air quotes wouldn’t be just insulting but would look away immediately,” he said. “And it “Listen, Lucas is not going
also incorrect. Hedges didn’t verbally articu- was honestly the same with guys.… I’ve never to have three movies
late any of this, but it was obvious that’s what been a person anyone was scared of, so I think
was going on inside his head. I was little excited about the prospect of people
and a Broadway play every
“After every movie I do, the only scenes being frightened by me.” year—it’s just not going
that people compliment me on are the ones Hill, who thinks of Hedges “like a little to happen. But he can
where I cry,” Hedges said, laughing. This brother,” said that “nobody else could have
makes sense. He’s a good crier, and crying on played that role,” one for which he didn’t want wake up every day and try
command seems really hard. But the thing to cast someone “who would present as stock to do meaningful work.”
he’s maybe best at—and it’s sort of a weird asshole.” Hedges, he said, “is a heart with arms
thing to compliment—is portraying barely and legs” who knows, intuitively, that it’s when —peter hedges
contained male rage. In Manchester by the a person feels most sensitive that they “over-
Sea, Hedges plays Patrick, a 16-year-old kid compensate by being harsh and violent.” The life. When they began rehearsals, Lonergan
outside Boston whose father has just died of very best actors, Hill continued, could also explained, that was evident to a degree, but
heart failure and who is suddenly put in the be the very best psychiatrists. “It’s the same in the few months since, “he seems like he’s
care of his grieving uncle. The performance thing,” he said. “They’re interested in human matured three to four years.”
got him nominated for an Oscar. Everyone behavior; they’re curious about why people do “I think a lot of people mistake naturalism
talks about the part where he breaks down, the things they do.” Like Shia LaBeouf, who for relaxation,” Lonergan went on. “But being
sobbing, after a bunch of frozen meat falls out called Hedges a “truth-seeking missile,” Hill comfortable is not the same thing as being
of the freezer. But that scene is only one min- praised Hedges’s inquisitiveness, his “billions” alive and real and truthful. Any conversation
ute long; the movie itself is over two hours, of good questions. “When you mix curiosity you begin with Lucas, you’re immediately in
and throughout it, in dozens of moments, we and sensitivity, you have a great artist,” he said. it. He can be a little self-conscious, but he’s
see Patrick helplessly enter and then fail to “When you add incredibly good looks to that, also very much an open book, and that com-
exit concentrated moments of adolescent you have a movie star. A movie star who is also bination is great in anyone, but it’s particu-
indignation at a register just barely higher a great artist. That’s Lucas.” Hill went on to talk larly great in an actor. You talk with him and
than what would be typical were everything about how the roles that Hedges has chosen you get the impression that you have the full
going his way. have allowed him to be seen—by audiences and benefit of his soul turned on you.”
“It’s not a bleeding heart he’s showing film critics and all-purpose fans—for who he is. Hedges’s nights usually went something
you, it’s a broken one,” Ashley Gates Jansen, “It took me years and years to figure out a way like this: Arrive, eat dinner, stretch, do a
an ordained minister and acting teacher and for my work to align with who I am,” Hill said. bunch of breathing exercises, curtain. But
the person Hedges most credits with “chang- “And Lucas is just, well, he’s already there.” some nights it was more like: Arrive, “fuck
around,” curtain. By “fuck around” he mostly
AF TER LUNCH ONE afternoon in December, meant run absurdist baby names by Elaine
“Any conversation you we settled into a bench in Washington May, the play’s 86-year-old star. “The one she
begin with Lucas, you’re Square Park, a Manhattan locale best known likes a lot right now that I also love is Oates,”
for the fashionably dressed N.Y.U. students Hedges said. “But I like to mess with her, too.
immediately in it. You talk who ramble through it and the murmuring I’m like, ‘What do you think about the name
with him and you get pot pushers who service them. A man with Rope?’ And she goes, ‘Eh, too literal.…’ She
the impression that you a bongo drum scored our conversation; likes consonants, and a lot of the names I
teenage skateboarders provided the figu- come up with are more about the vowels. Like
have the full benefit of his rative B-roll. “I always wanted to skate, but Ingemar. I ran that one by her the other night.”
soul turned on you.” I could never figure it out,” Hedges said. Just then, a man in a black suit and payot
“They’re the coolest people in the world…like approached our bench. “Are you Jewish?” he
—kenneth lonergan how they seem e≠ortless and lazy while also asked Hedges, pointedly ignoring me. Hedges
just being really good at something. That’s shook his head. “No, man, I’m not.” The man
ing his life,” told me. She cited his charac- so appealing—doing the most but looking scurried away. “That was the most suspicious
ters’ lack of eye contact and his monosyllabic like you’re doing the least.” He was speaking ‘Are you Jewish?’ I’ve ever gotten in my entire
answers as “the kind of armor that young men in a meandering, only half-conscious way, life,” Hedges said, laughing. “Like, was that
put up, that armor of bitterness and cynicism not realizing that he was, in e≠ect, describ- dude actually just a drug dealer maybe?” We
and agitation.” Jansen, who has an 18-year- ing acting and arguably also the reason for watched him approach a pair of skateboarders
old son, told me, “I really do see my own kid his own success. “Were you into skaters?” who, upon spotting him, immediately rode o≠.
up there whenever Lucas is on-screen.” Hedges asked. But as I was midway through “I can’t say those are the two coolest skaters
Most of the characters that Hedges has admitting that yes, of course, who wasn’t, I’ve ever seen,” Hedges said. “Or…the most
played are, like him, sensitive, thoughtful, he interrupted to apologize for the ques- Jewish skaters.”
smart. Ian, Hedges’s character in Mid90s, tion, which presupposed (correctly) that I A brief mention of his girlfriend segued
Jonah Hill’s directorial debut about a gag- didn’t skate myself. into a moment of spontaneous gratitude. “I
gle of Clinton-era skaters, is, at first glance, In only a few hours, Hedges would be due really can’t tell you how amazing life is right
an exception. He’s self-hating and violent; at the theater where, for four consecutive now,” Hedges said. “I feel like every interview
he steals, beats up his little brother, scowls months this winter, he did eight performances I do, it’s like, ‘I’m so anxious, I’m so scared,’ but
all the time. Hill wrote the part specifically per week of Kenneth Lonergan’s The Waverly I’m just fed up with saying that. I mean, it’s

1 3 4 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
LU CA S H E D G E S C O N T I N U E D

true to some extent, but I’m so just so happy A decade later, at the “imploring” of Julia before games. “I was just like, ‘This is what a
right now. Everything’s going really well.” Roberts, Peter Hedges was able to persuade basketball player should have!’ ” he recalled.
He wondered aloud if loving and grieving his reluctant son to star in Ben Is Back. Over “So fucking ridiculous.” Hedges has come to
weren’t actually symbiotic emotional states tea at a Brooklyn co≠ee shop around the cor- a more realistic assessment of his own tal-
and whether an e≠ective method for keeping ner from where Lucas grew up, Peter told me, ents over the years, though he’s still a fan. He
a long-term relationship vividly alive might be with a bit of remorse, how much he overshot sat courtside at Madison Square Garden for
to try to remember, always, that one’s partner many of the scenes in the film. “It wasn’t until the first time a few weeks before we met, but
would, like everyone else, die eventually. “I we got into dailies and could project it big he admitted that he spent most of the game
know how weird that sounds,” he said, laugh- and I wasn’t in a parka, freezing and worried thinking about that episode of Curb Your
ing again. It didn’t sound weird at all. The only for time, that I was often able to really see his Enthusiasm where Larry David accidentally
thing weird about it was the uncanny expe- performance. I was repeatedly, I wouldn’t say trips Shaquille O’Neal.
rience of receiving poignant, precocious, and stunned, but in awe at how much was there, We made our way up The Goog’s iconic spi-
ultimately correct relationship advice, unbid- how much more there was.” ral ramps, Hedges stopping often to close-read
den, from a 22-year-old. Peter spoke of his son both as a father the wall text. His reactions to the paintings
and as a professional peer, and by the end were immediate and playful and appreciative
of our conversation there were tears in his and mostly muttered under his breath rather
WHEN HEDGES IS preparing for a role, which, eyes. “Listen,” he said, “Lucas is not going to than to me: “Whoa,” “Wow,” “Holy shit,” “This
these days, he seems usually to be, he writes have three movies and a Broadway play every is insane,” “Wait, this is her work, too? Oh, no,
himself a letter before going to bed. “Dear year—it’s just not going to happen. But what ha, that’s a Seurat.”
Inner Self,” he begins. “If it is your will, please can happen is that you can wake up every I mentioned to him that I had talked, the
reveal to me in a dream tonight, what it is day and try to do meaningful work and to day before, with Ashley Gates Jansen, his for-
you’d like me to learn about this character.” also engage meaningfully with family and mer acting teacher, and that she had praised
Then he dreams whatever he dreams, wakes friends and even the people you meet on the the social responsibility with which he seemed
up, transcribes the images and sensations, street.” He sighed and knocked three times to have chosen all his roles to date. He knew
and e-mails his dream coach, who responds, on the table. what she was referring to. She was referring to
therapist-like, with a bunch of questions him playing characters who are grieving and
that in aggregate are meant to produce, for questioning their sexuality and struggling
Hedges, what he calls “a blueprint of what all ABOUT A MONTH after our first, thwarted with drug addictions, but that isn’t necessar-
the moments in the movie remind me of in attempt, we returned to the Guggenheim, or ily what he’s most interested in doing going
my own life.” as Lucas began referring to it in text messages, forward, at least not immediately, he said.
Hedges, who describes his job as the work between pictures of his family dog in a hat, “I want to do something where you couldn’t
of “turning the character into me,” knows “The Goog.” The current show, a retrospec- watch it and say that’s wrong or that’s bad. I
exactly what he sounds like when he talks tive of the Swedish painter and mystic Hilma mean, I suppose anything could be bad, but
about his process. “You know, that’s where it af Klint, had, over the few months since it more like something in which it’s like, ‘Oh,
sort of becomes very esoteric. To some extent, opened, gone from critically acclaimed curi- there are infinite possibilities here instead of
it’s just like, uh, ‘Just act, just fucking act. Act osity to go-to Instagram backdrop. For every aiming for one thing,’ if that makes sense.” He
with the other person in your scene.…’ But I mentioned Wild at Heart, David Lynch’s 1990
don’t really know how to suddenly have, like, a crime comedy, as an example.
whole family history with someone I’ve known “Right now I’m not looking “All I know right now is that I’m really
for a week or less.” to do a project that carries loving getting to do these jobs and that I’m
Hedges’s own family history has been one getting a better and better sense of what it is
of privilege: Brooklyn Heights brownstone, the weight of life itself I want to do, and right now I’m not looking
private school, intact family, celebrated father on its shoulders.… I want to do a project that carries the weight of life
(the writer and director Peter Hedges). But it’s a itself on its shoulders or even anything super
nexus of luck that seems to have furnished him to do something that feels socially relevant,” he said. “I want to do some-
with everything the most optimistic and least very personally significant.” thing that feels very personally significant,
cynical economists model for: gratitude, gen- which might mean something that’s actually
erosity, social grace, cultural savvy, intergener-
—lucas hedges really insignificant.… I mean, I love dancing,
ational friendships, confidence. Hedges thinks and I was thinking about this on my way over
that if he weren’t an actor, he might have liked two or three severe-looking Appreciators of here, how I’d love to just make a music video.
to be a teacher. It’s easy to imagine him leaving Fine Art milling around, there was at least one Go o≠ somewhere and make one with some
a modest, tastefully decorated outer-borough teenage girl done up in a Kylie Jenner Lip Kit. friends—or not, maybe just me.”
apartment, NPR mug in hand, and taking the Hedges arrived in sweatpants, sleepy-eyed, It’s unclear whether other people, having
subway to some high school in the Bronx. wearing white Air Force 1s and a Brave New gotten used to the ethical approach he’s so
Growing up under the roof of a director World T-shirt, both well-worn. As usual, he far given to his career, will want something
meant early exposure to moviemaking and its had been onstage the night before and not as “insignificant” as what Hedges is fanta-
adjacent thrills. Hedges appeared as an extra, returned to the SoHo apartment that he sizing about. Casey A±eck, who co-starred
at the age of 10, in Dan in Real Life, which his shares with his elder brother, who works in with Hedges in Manchester by the Sea and
father wrote and directed. His first proper role finance, until after midnight. “I read about whom Lonergan witnessed being a mentor
was in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, for sports at night,” he admitted. “For hours and to Hedges on set, said, “He’s kind of a shining
which he was cast on the spot in the audition, hours. Like, last night I came home, and I example of the best of his generation. He’s
which itself was an indirect result of a seventh- was exhausted, but I couldn’t not read about socially conscious, he’s informed, he’s confi-
grade production of Nicholas Nickleby. Peter sports. I was on NBA.com, on NFL.com, read- dent but humble and kind, too. He’s really
Hedges, recalling the performance, said that ing about the Jets, reading about the new head expressive and supportive and earnest and
“everyone else was in a school play, and Lucas coach, checking the players’ Instagrams.” He won’t be deterred despite his humility. He
was in a Bergman film.” During intermission, shook his head and rubbed his eyes. makes me think of those kids in Parkland,
Peter remembers, he asked a group of high Before he wanted to be an actor, Hedges you know? I mean, they’re all just so amazing,
school students loitering in the doorway why wanted to be a basketball player. As a kid, he and it makes you think, Jesus, everyone over
they were there. “It was an assignment,” they made everyone call him Sprewell, as in Latrell 25 should just get out of the way for all the
answered ensemble. “Why,” Peter asked, “were Sprewell, the small forward who played for Lucases of the world.”
high school students assigned to see a middle- the Knicks from 1998 to 2003—i.e., from when Hedges resisted talking about his career as
school play?” They laughed. “We weren’t Hedges was 2 until he was 7. His bedroom was anything methodical or planned, as a possi-
assigned to see the play—we were assigned plastered with posters of basketball players ble plot that he himself had intentions about
to see Lucas.” and coaches, to whom he’d pray every night or even the ability to control. “Anything that

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exists in a collective consciousness, it proba- and the couple actually eat at the museum,
bly doesn’t actually exist,” he said. By collec- Breitwieser’s arm held rigid the entire time.
tive consciousness, Hedges means consensus, They rent a cheap hotel room and wait two
a sometimes tacit, sometimes blurted-from- days and return yet again, newly disguised,
the-headlines agreement among moviego- and he steals four more pieces. That’s a total of
ers and critics and fans about who he is and 13, and such is their level of euphoria that on
what he’s up to: “Like, if it goes down in the drive home they can’t contain themselves
the historical narrative, it’s somehow less and stop at an antiques gallery displaying an
trustworthy to me, because it’s like once immense ancient urn, made of silver and gold,
something gets believed by a mass number in the front window.
of people, you have to wonder if it’s actually Breitwieser enters, and the dealer calls
true. The people whose opinions I care about from atop a staircase that he’ll be right down,
most exist outside of this collective con- C O N T I N U E D F RO M PAG E 1 2 4 but by the time he descends no one is there.
sciousness, so there’s a part of me that really Nor is the urn. They return to France plun-
doesn’t trust this big old narrative about the Adam and Eve ivory, are spotted in min- der-drunk and giddy, and for fun, Breitwieser
whatever is happening with me, because it’s utes, but when he’s furtive, hours often pass, recalls, Kleinklaus phones the gallery and
like, well, if I asked the people I respect most, and sometimes days, before anyone realizes asks how much the urn in the window costs.
they might be like, ‘Eh, I didn’t really like that what’s happened. About $100,000, she’s told. “Madame,” says
movie, to be honest.’ ” In the Brussels Art & History Museum, he the dealer, “you really must see it.” He hasn’t
I asked for an example of someone whose carries the objects removed sign to a gal- yet noticed it’s gone.
opinion he trusts. lery with a display case of silver pieces from
“My friend Fred,” he answered. the 16th century. To break into this case,
“Careers don’t exist,” he continued. “Does a Breitwieser uses a screwdriver and levers OF COURSE THE POLICE are after them.
father or a mother exist in any way other than the sliding door o≠ its tracks. Other times, he Investigations are opened after many of their
how they are with their children? A parent carries a box cutter and slices open a silicone thefts—witnesses questioned, sketches made.
who would think in terms of a bigger picture joint. For museums with antique display cab- Yet no one’s ever quite sure what they saw.
is to some extent completely absent to their inets, he brings a ring of a dozen old skeleton Breitwieser is videoed in action in a museum
children.… A father who is making decisions keys he’s amassed—often one of his keys is in France, but the images are grainy. The best
to be This Kind of Father? To me that doesn’t able to tumble the lock. Also handy is a tele- the French authorities are able to deduce is
even seem like a father.” scoping antenna, to nudge a ceiling-mounted that several times a year, in seemingly random
Hedges paused, suddenly aware that security camera in a di≠erent direction. places, a man and a woman steal art together;
whatever he just said could possibly He selects three silver items, a drinking they envision the criminals as a retired couple,
sound, to my ears, pretentious or abstract stein and two figurines; then he sets the nowhere close to their actual age.
or maybe even stoned. “Yeah,” he said. objects removed card in the case and The couple themselves keep tabs on
“ Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” And then he re-attaches the sliding door, and they leave their peril by reading newspaper cover-
laughed. the museum. They’re already at the car before age of their crimes. Some articles mention
Tourists with Nikons yoked around their he realizes he’s forgotten the lid to the stein.
necks passed us by; so did art students, Breitwieser detests missing parts or
children, and pearly-haired women in inter- any sign of restoration. The items in his In the annals of art crime,
esting eyewear. By the time we reached the collection must be original and complete. it’s hard to find someone
second floor, Hedges had begun to modulate Kleinklaus knows this, says Breitwieser, and
his speech in a way I hadn’t heard before. she abruptly removes one of her earrings and who has stolen from
Sometimes, midsentence, he would lower heads back to the museum, her boyfriend in ten di≠erent places. By
his voice to a near whisper. There was never tow. She marches up to a security guard and
a pause, never an interruption in what was says she’s lost an earring and has a feeling she Breitwieser’s calculations,
an otherwise fluent and charming conversa- knows where it is. The couple are permitted he’s nearing 200 thefts
tion, and it didn’t immediately occur to me back inside. They return to the case and he
that he wasn’t just speaking and listening but takes the stein’s lid and, why not, two addi-
and 300 stolen objects.
also clocking everyone around us, adjusting tional goblets from another case.
his voice, in real time, to strangers’ various Two weeks later, they’re back. Kleinklaus that law enforcement is sure that a large
levels of voyeurism. It was like being with an has changed her hairstyle, and Breitwieser network of international tra∞ckers are
intelligence agent. has grown out his beard and added a pair of systematically stealing. The authorities,
“So much of it is luck,” Hedges said. “And I glasses and a baseball cap. At the display case, much to Breitwieser’s satisfaction, seem to
feel like there is some force watching over me the objects removed card still there, he have no clue as to whom they are chasing—
that’s making it really fucking easy for me. grabs four more items, including a two-foot- the sheer scale of the thefts is so far beyond
And I don’t mean like it’s so easy for me to do tall chalice so breathtakingly gorgeous that that of nearly every other case as to be prac-
great work, but for whatever reason my path Breitwieser suspends his size-limitation pref- tically inconceivable.
has not so far looked like the path of some- erence and, with nowhere else to put it, stu≠s In the annals of art crime, it’s hard to find
one who has been working for 40 years and the item up the left sleeve of his jacket, forc- someone who has stolen from ten di≠erent
not gotten a job. It just hasn’t. And I guess ing him to walk unnaturally, his arm swinging places. By the time the calendar flips to 2000,
because it hasn’t looked like that, I’m really sti±y like a soldier’s. by Breitwieser’s calculations, he’s nearing 200
wary and cautious of accepting praise in any On their way to the exit, they’re stopped separate thefts and 300 stolen objects. For six
way because there’s actually just no way I by a guard. They feign calm, but Breitwieser years, he’s averaged one theft every two weeks.
can be truly great at this until I’ve put in 20 has a terrible feeling that the end has come. One year, he is responsible for half of all paint-
more years, there’s just no fucking way. And The guard wants to see their entrance ings stolen from French museums.
I think a lot of the actors who get success at tickets. Breitwieser, unable to move his left By some combination of skill and luck,
a really young age, they’re just not as good. arm, awkwardly reaches across his body Breitwieser and Kleinklaus are doing every-
How could they be?” with his right to fish the tickets from his thing right to avoid capture. They constantly
We had reached the top of the spiral by this left pocket. He wonders if the guard senses shift the countries they target, alternating
point. Hedges peered over a rail and onto the something amiss. between rural and urban locations, large
terrazzo lobby six coils down. “Are you afraid A guilty person would cower and try to museums and small, while further mix-
of heights?” he asked. “I’m terrified of them.” leave, so Breitwieser boldly tells the guard ing things up by stealing from churches,
that he’s heading to the museum café for auction houses, and art fairs. They don’t
alice gregory is a gq correspondent. lunch. The guard’s suspicion is defused, kick down doors or cover their faces with

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masks—actions that would trigger a much the most comprehensive database of stolen it’s a fantasy. Living amid a mountain of sto-
greater police response. Crime works best, art, more than 99 percent of art thieves are len art, no matter where, can never o≠er true
Breitwieser believes, when no one realizes motivated by profit rather than aesthetics. freedom at all.
it’s being committed. This is why art crimes are typically solved on After the police had taken their fingerprints
Several times, he steals while they’re on the back end, when the thieves try to sell the in Switzerland, Breitwieser says, Kleinklaus
a guided tour, then casually continues the work. But with Breitwieser, law enforcement’s fears that the prints are now filed in every
tour while holding the item. At an art fair in chief strategy—poring over art-market data, nation’s database. Even if she leaves him, she’ll
Holland, Breitwieser hears a shout of “Thief!” waiting for the stolen items to reappear—is be hunted forever. What will they ever do
and sees security guards tackle a man. It’s dead on arrival. with all this stu≠ ? What’s the endgame? She
another burglar. Breitwieser takes advantage wants him to quit, but he doesn’t even agree to
of the commotion and slips a painting under abate. The best deal she can wrangle is a sworn
his coat. A notion had been building promise that from now on, when stealing, he’ll
in Kleinhaus that perhaps always wear surgical gloves, which she’ll bring
home from her job at the hospital. There is no
several close calls.
T H E R E A R E , I N E V I TA B LY, there’s something endgame, Breitwieser says. He plans to keep
Once, Breitwieser accidentally shatters a glass more fulfilling than life going and going.
display case. Another time, he returns to his
car while holding sections of a 16th-century as an outlaw and rooms
wooden altarpiece only to encounter a police filled with riches. She HE RETURNS FROM another thieving trip with
o∞cer in the process of giving him a parking a little curled bugle, dated from the 1580s,
ticket. While hiding the artwork beneath his
begins to feel su≠ocated. once used by hunters on horseback to com-
jacket, he manages to persuade the o∞cer municate. It was a stylish theft, Breitwieser
to withdraw the ticket. Soon after a theft Still, a multi-million-dollar collection of balancing atop a radiator to cut open a display
in France, roadblocks are set up on some of stolen art concealed in an attic bedroom in a case high on the wall, then delicately snipping
the routes leading from the museum, but middle-class suburb seems too extraordinary the nylon cords holding the bugle in place.
Breitwieser and Kleinklaus manage to avoid to remain secret forever. If just one friend Kleinklaus is unimpressed. They already have
being stopped. found out, it’s inevitable others would learn one like it.
Then they visit an art gallery in Lucerne, and the game would be finished. “Did you wear gloves?” she asks, suspicious.
Switzerland. It’s a hot day, and Breitwieser is Breitwieser and Kleinklaus, though, have “I’m really sorry,” he says.
not wearing a jacket that he can use to hide no friends. “I’ve always been a loner,” he The one thing she’d been promised. Then she
a stolen object—and even worse, they are says. “I don’t want any friends.” Kleinklaus, learns that he’d stolen the bugle in Switzerland,
the gallery’s only visitors. The place is also he claims, feels the same. They occasionally the one country where they’d vowed never
directly across the street from a police station. spend time with acquaintances but never to steal from again. He had even gone to a
Kleinklaus, according to Breitwieser, issues invite anyone over. If repairs are needed in museum near Lucerne—the same city in which
a warning. “Don’t do anything,” she says. “I his room, he does them himself. Nobody is they’d been caught. They argue bitterly, and in
don’t feel it, I’m telling you.” allowed to enter, ever, except him and his the morning Breitwieser says he’ll go back to
But Breitwieser has spotted a 17th-century girlfriend. “We lived in a closed universe,” Switzerland and erase the prints.
still life by Dutch painter Willem van Aelst Breitwieser says. Breitwieser says that this idea doesn’t work
that is simply too tempting. And it seems so for Kleinklaus; she wants to go to the museum
easy to take. He puts the painting under his and clean the prints herself. It’s too risky for
arm and walks out as casually as if he’s carry- 30 years old when
T H E Y ’ R E B OT H N E A R I N G him. Breitwieser says that at least he should
ing a baguette. A gallery employee instantly their universe starts to crumble. A notion drive, and she consents.
spots the theft, accosts the couple outside the had been building in Kleinklaus ever since They’re frosty to each other on the trip, but
gallery, and escorts them across the street the night they spent in police custody in as they pull into the Richard Wagner Museum,
to the police. Breitwieser and Kleinklaus Switzerland—that perhaps there’s something housed in a country manor where the com-
remain in custody overnight but manage to more fulfilling than life as an outlaw and poser once lived, their spirits are buoyed. The
convince the authorities that this is the first rooms filled with riches. She’d like to start one thing that can stir Breitwieser as much
time they’d ever stolen and that they are ter- a family. But not, she realizes, with the man a magnificent artwork is a sublime sweep of
ribly, deeply sorry. They are released with she’s been dating for almost a decade. There is nature, and this museum is on a lake cupped
hardly any punishment. no option for a child in their conscribed exis- in the spiked mountains of Switzerland. He
Rattled, the couple make a vow never to steal tence. They could be arrested at any minute; feels for a moment, as Kleinklaus opens her
in Switzerland again and decide to take a break they can’t even entertain visitors. She begins door, a handkerchief and a bottle of rubbing
from thieving entirely. The respite lasts all of to feel su≠ocated. alcohol in her bag, that maybe they can again
three weeks before Breitwieser, at an auction Breitwieser, meanwhile, says he feels find their love.
in Paris, steals a scene of a grape harvest by “invincible.” Tension between the two inten- “Stay in the car,” she pleads.
Flemish painter David Vinckboons. After that, sifies, ugly fights erupt, and Breitwieser starts “I’m just going to take a little walk,” he says.
he returns to stealing as frequently as before. stealing alone. Any restraining influences “Don’t worry.” And he, too, gets out, handing
An art thief Breitwieser admires, he says, is Kleinklaus once provided are shed. From a her the car keys to hold in her purse.
Thomas Crown, from the two Thomas Crown village church not far from their house, he She enters the museum, pays the entry fee,
A≠air movies. But that’s fiction. Breitwieser unbolts an enormous wooden carving of the and walks up to the second floor. Breitwieser,
is furious at nearly all actual art thieves, Madonna and Child, weighing 150 pounds, circling around the outside of the building,
especially people like those who broke into and hauls it away, one strained step at a time, watches her progress as she appears in one
Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in without the slightest attempt at stealth. If any- window, then another. There’s only one other
1990. The two thieves took 13 works worth a one had entered the church during the theft, person around, an older man walking a dog,
total of $500 million, but they used knives to he’d have been caught. who seems to stare curiously at Breitwieser
slice some of the paintings from their frames. Later, in February 2001, at a hilltop castle, before moving away.
Breitwieser would never consider cutting out he removes a monumental 17th-century tap- A few minutes later, Kleinklaus exits the
a painting—that, he says, is vandalism. He estry, larger than ten feet by ten feet, assum- museum. She walks quickly toward him,
wouldn’t even roll up a canvas, an action that ing ridiculous risk to steal it. There’s no room nearly jogging, which is odd. They never
risks cracking the paint. “You roll up an old in their lair for a trophy this size—it’s left wanted to appear as if they were fleeing. He
painting,” he says, “and you kill it.” rolled up on a dresser—but Breitwieser tells has the impression that she’s attempting to tell
About 50,000 artworks are stolen each year his girlfriend they’ll display it as soon as they him something, but she is too far away to hear.
around the world, and according to the direc- are free of his mother and residing in a place He tries to decipher the anxious expression
tor of the London-based Art Loss Register, of their own. By this point, Kleinklaus knows on her face as the police car pulls to a stop

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behind him. Two o∞cers approach, handcu≠ arrive at the house, hoping to find the bugle, Breitwieser himself, though, has learned as
Breitwieser, who is startled but doesn’t resist, and perhaps more. Breitwieser’s mother is much as he can, and combining his insights
and place him in the back seat of the squad car there and says she has no idea what they’re with police investigations and interviews, it’s
and drive o≠. talking about. possible for him to piece together the events
The o∞cers enter the house, climb the as he believes they may have occurred. Some
stairs to the hidden lair, and open the door. specifics are lacking, and the precise time line
night, November 20, 2001,
H E S P E N D S T H AT And there, inside, they see no hunting bugle, is hazy, but not the result. The end, Breitwieser
in jail, and the next morning the interrogation no silver objects, no Renaissance paintings, no says, is always the same.
begins. At the start of the questioning, says musical instruments. Not so much as the trace He envisions his girlfriend driving back
Breitwieser, he denied everything. After all, of a picture hook. Nothing but clean, empty from Switzerland, alone in the car, terrified.
he didn’t have any stolen items on him when walls surrounding a lovely four-poster bed. She’s just witnessed his arrest and has not
he was arrested. But both the cashier at the been caught herself. At least not yet. When
museum and the dog walker who’d been on she gets home, Breitwieser suspects, she tells
the grounds, says Breitwieser, have provided BREITWIESER REMAINS in jail, knowing noth-
formal statements to the police. ing. No one visits or writes. Christmas comes
The dog walker, a retired journalist, and goes without even a holiday card. He feels He aches for what he once
had read in that morning’s paper about the sick; he cries frequently. He has admitted to was—“a master of the
Richard Wagner Museum theft, and when he only the theft of the bugle, but he knows that
saw a man there acting oddly, he went inside he’s close to breaking. world,” as he puts it—and
and mentioned it to the cashier. She looked Soon after New Year’s Day 2002, he is he weeps for what will
out the window. The day the bugle was sto- escorted from his cell and seated in an inter-
len, a total of three visitors had come to the rogation room, across the desk from a Swiss never be again. The
museum, and this, she was certain, was one police lieutenant named Roland Meier. The paintings especially. But
of them. He was wearing the same jacket. So o∞cer opens a drawer, removes a single photo,
she called the police. No one realized that and places it in front of Breitwieser. It’s of a
also the sheer thrill of it.
Kleinklaus, who had overheard the conversa- large commemorative medal that he had sto-
tion and was trying to warn him, had traveled len from a di≠erent Swiss museum, a week his mother at least some part of the truth
with Breitwieser, and she was able to drive o≠ before he’d taken the bugle. Breitwieser had about the extent of the crimes. The fact that
in her car unnoticed. imagined it could serve as a good-luck charm. Breitwieser is in custody means the authori-
Breitwieser realizes that to wriggle free The medal appears a little rusty and worn, and ties will surely soon arrive and probably arrest
from this jam, he needs to ensure that the Breitwieser wonders what happened to it. both of them as well.
authorities do not find out who he really is or “We know you also stole this,” says It’s now, Breitwieser presumes, that his girl-
send anyone to search his home. He tells the Lieutenant Meier. “Tell us, and after that friend takes his mother upstairs to their hide-
police that he’d come to Switzerland by train, everything will be okay. We’ll let you go home.” out. When Breitwieser visualizes his treasures
alone, and admits to stealing the bugle. He Breitwieser swiftly confesses. through his mother’s eyes, they look di≠erent.
Just one more thing, says Lieutenant Meier, She’s not spellbound by color or entranced by
opening the drawer again and placing another beauty. His mother works full-time to house
A passerby notices a photo before Breitwieser. This one is of a and feed her 30-year-old unemployed son and
shimmer in the water. He golden snu≠box, also slightly oxidized. his girlfriend, and he’s repaid her by breaking
Breitwieser confesses to taking it as well. the law in a way that will likely ruin her life.
returns with a rake and And then, according to Breitwieser’s ver- To her, his treasure is poison. She’s always
finds a gold-plated chalice. sion of these events, the o∞cer pulls out a had a temper, and his mother’s reaction, he’s
huge stack of photos, and Breitwieser realizes sure, is a boiling rage. Once she decides some-
When the police drain the it’s checkmate. There are pictures of an ivory thing, there’s no bending her will. “She’s like a
canal, they discover objects flute from Denmark, an enameled goblet from wall,” Breitwieser says. And she makes a deci-
Germany, silver pieces from Belgium, and sion now, one of finality and force.
likely worth millions. even the very first item he stole, nearly eight It likely began that evening. First,
years before—the flint-lock pistol from France. Breitwieser thinks, his mother and possibly
explains, sorrowfully, that he is short of money He confesses to every one of them, pro- his girlfriend clear o≠ the furniture, empty the
and just wanted a nice Christmas gift for his viding details and dates. When the stack of closet, and collect everything under the bed.
mother. He has no idea, he adds, that the bugle photos is exhausted, he’s admitted to stealing It’s all piled in bags and boxes, then carried
is valuable; he was only attracted to it because 140 objects. The lieutenant is staggered—he’d downstairs and crammed into his mother’s car
of how shiny it was. doubted this kid had stolen a single one of the until the vehicle is completely full.
In the course of his conversation with the items, let alone all of them. It must be very late, Breitwieser believes,
o∞cers, he learns that the police never even Only now does Breitwieser see the police when they drive to the canal. They go to a
considered dusting for prints. report that accompanied the photos. At the spot where the waterway runs plumb straight
Days drip by, then weeks, as he waits alone top it says “Objects found in the Rhone-Rhine through a quiet, rural area, bordered on
in his cell, worry mounting. He’s not permitted Canal.” He’s confused. The canal, part of the both sides by sheltering trees, the trail
to make phone calls, and he has the impres- system built under Napoleon to connect the alongside it often busy by day with cyclists
sion, he says, that the entire world has aban- rivers of France, is a murky, slow-moving and joggers. The two women, Breitwieser
doned him. No one will give him any news. waterway not far from his home. thinks, then toss piece after piece into the
What’s happened is that the police have Then he realizes why the pieces seemed dark water. Even in these panicked, angry
uncovered the report of Breitwieser’s previous discolored—they must have been rescued actions, Breitwieser sees a filament of love—
brush with the law in Switzerland. This was from water. One more thing dawns on him as his mother, in some way, is trying to protect
very intriguing. They’d at first assumed that well. There were no photos of any paintings him, to hide what he’s done.
Breitwieser was nothing more than a small- he stole. “What about the paintings?” he asks Some pieces aren’t thrown far enough
time thief who’d hoped to make an easy profit the lieutenant. And it’s only then that he starts from shore, and a few days later a passerby
from a lightly guarded museum. Could he be to find out. notices an intriguing shimmer in the water.
something more? He returns with a rake and finds a gold-plated
Swiss authorities pursue an international chalice. Then he rakes out three more pieces of
search warrant for Breitwieser’s residence W H AT H A P P E N E D E X A C T LY remains a mys- silver and a jewel-handled dagger. He tells the
in France. It takes a while to complete the tery. And because Breitwieser’s mother and police, and they eventually drain a section of
warrant, but four weeks after his arrest, it’s girlfriend have never talked to the media, the canal and discover a collection of objects
ready. A group of French and Swiss o∞cers the details may never be fully revealed. likely worth millions.

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Back at Breitwieser’s house, probably the Breitwieser’s mother goes to trial for her the only one who doesn’t find this a joke.
same night as the canal dump, his mother role in destroying the works and is found To hell with everyone, he thinks. “I can live
and perhaps his girlfriend again load the guilty. She spends just a few months in jail. on an island like Robinson Crusoe and it
car, possibly this time with the bigger In court it was stated that she thought it was wouldn’t bother me,” he says. He eats lunch
items, including the heavy Madonna and “just a bunch of junk” and that until her son’s most days with his mother and then wanders
Child, the tapestry, and three paintings on arrest, she had no clue he’d been stealing. alone in the woods.
copper panels. The Madonna and Child Breitwieser supports these claims, testify- The problem is that he knows exactly
is deposited in front of a local church—his ing that his mother is unfamiliar with the what he wants. Just one more sensual blast
mother is observant—while the tapestry is art world and that he told her he’d picked like the thump he felt every time he unlocked
discarded aside a road and the coppers are up trinkets at flea markets. Even though he’d the door to his lair. But when he closes his
tossed into a wooded area. shared a house with her, he’d made sure, he eyes and tries to conjure the scene, all he
All these items are eventually recovered. A adds, to keep his mother mostly shut out of can see is a fire.
passing motorist spots the tapestry and turns his life and completely shut out of his room. Then one day in early 2018, he comes
it in to the local police, who are not aware of Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus spends just across a brochure for the Reubens House
its significance and unfurl it on the floor of a single night in jail. The story she tells the Museum. And there it is, like a slap in the
their break room and play billiards on it for court strains credulity. She had no idea, she face—a photo of the Adam and Eve ivory, the
a while. The three 17th-century coppers are says, that her boyfriend was a thief. “I never first thing he’d once regarded every morning.
found by a logger, who brings them home and played the role of the lookout,” she adds. It had been thrown in the canal, but ivory is
hammers them onto the roof of his henhouse, “There were paintings and objects in his sturdy and it hadn’t been damaged. Now the
which had been leaking. They remain there room, but nothing struck me as unusual.” piece is evidently back on display.
until Breitwieser’s story hits the news. Breitwieser, testifying at the trial, doesn’t Just looking at the photo pries open some
The paintings, Breitwieser believes, were contradict her, gallantly trying to protect her. box inside him that he’d hoped had been for-
the final step. His Renaissance paintings If he can spare her some punishment, he will. ever sealed. He’s not sure if he ever wants to
formed the heart of his collection and repre- He believes his gesture may have worked, see the ivory again or if he has to run immedi-
sented the majority of its value. Breitwieser is at least for her. She is never charged with ately to the museum. For more than a month,
sure that as the pictures are pulled from the destroying the art or convicted for direct he fights an internal battle before deciding
walls, Kleinklaus is in shock—all he’d wanted involvement in the thefts, only for han- that he needs to go.
to do was protect them from an uncaring dling and knowledge of the stolen goods. He travels to Belgium, enters the Rubens
planet—but his mother, he knows, is unstop- Breitwieser realizes he’s still in love and House Museum, and heads to the rear gallery.
pable. Later his mother will purchase putty writes her repeatedly from jail. She’s his last And there it is, in the same spot, in a rein-
and wall paint to cover the holes, and she hope that something worthwhile will remain forced case. Twenty-one years have elapsed
will also throw away everything else in the in his life. But there’s never a reply to his let- since he’d stolen it, but the ivory’s power to
rooms, including his clothing and books. But ters, and eventually he finds out why. Shortly enchant is unlimited. Breitwieser leans for-
for now his mother drives all the paintings to after his arrest, Kleinklaus had started ward, knees bent, so that his face is directly
a secluded area. another relationship, and soon thereafter she in front of the carving. His eyes widen, his
She creates a big pile, Breitwieser imag- was pregnant. By the time Breitwieser learns forehead scrunches—the look on his face a
ines, the portraits and still lifes and land- this, she’s the mother of a baby, and he vows jumble of awe and distress. An electric inten-
scapes all jumbled, the luminaries of never to see her again. sity seems to build in him until it appears as
Renaissance art—Cranach, Brueghel, Teniers, if he’s ready to combust.
Dürer, van Kessel, Dou—gathered as one. He doesn’t want to make a scene in the gal-
Every piece has survived some 300 years, HE’S RELEASED FROM prison in 2005, and at lery, so he hurries out to the museum’s court-
through Europe’s bloody centuries, carry- the age of 33 he feels defeated. He had lived yard. The air is warm, spring is coming. He
ing its singular image to the world. Sixty-six a hundred lifetimes while stealing, and now shu±es foot to foot on the pale cobblestones;
paintings in total. In a haphazard heap. everything is colorless and dumb. He cuts the wisteria on the walls is just starting to
A lighter is sparked and the flames rise, trees for a while, he drives a delivery truck, bud. The last time he’d been here, the ivory
slowly at first and then wildly, oil paint bub- he mops floors. The relationship with his was under his jacket. This time he stands
bling, picture frames crackling, the great mother is mended, though he rents a cheap with nothing at all, tears blurring his eyes,
mass burning and burning until there’s apartment of his own. mourning the lost years of his life—not when
almost nothing left but ash. As a result of his crimes, he says, he’s not he was stealing, but since he’s stopped.
permitted to enter a museum or any other He says he only realizes now, in hindsight,
place showing art. He muddles away a cou- what he couldn’t possibly have known then:
what does anything matter?
A F T E R T H AT, ple of years, the bare walls of his apartment His previous visit to this museum may have
Breitwieser is so shattered that he’s med- a kind of slow-drip torture, until, as it must marked the high point of his entire life. The
icated and placed on suicide watch in the with a mania like his, the deep-seated desire absolute pinnacle.
jail. Later he’s just numb. He is charged with breaks through. He aches for what he once was—“a master
theft and goes to trial twice, in Switzerland He goes to Belgium, and at an antiques of the world,” as he puts it—and he weeps for
and in France, and serves a total of four years fair, he sees a landscape that slays him—three what will never be again. The paintings espe-
in prison, the punishment modest because people strolling through a wintry forest, by cially. But also the sheer thrill of it. “Art has
no one has been physically injured, and the one of his favorites, Pieter Brueghel the punished me,” he says.
value of his loot, which some sources placed Younger. He doesn’t even try to stop himself Then he heads to the exit, through the gift
at over a billion dollars, didn’t a≠ect the and finds that his skills are still sharp. shop, where the museum catalog is sold, with
penalty—in the eyes of the law, there’s little With the painting hanging in his apart- a photo of the ivory and a story of its theft. He
di≠erence between mass-produced baubles ment, suddenly there’s joy in his life. “One has no cash—just to get here, he’d borrowed
and Renaissance masterworks. beautiful piece,” he says, “makes everything gas money from his mother—and out of habit
In prison he meets with several psychol- di≠erent.” A relationship blooms with a he notes the positions of the cashier, the secu-
ogists. He’s described in reports as an “arro- woman he’s met, and he admits to her what rity guard, the customers. He checks to see if
gant” and “hypersensitive” man who believes he’s done. She seems to accept the one theft— there are any security cameras. There aren’t.
he is “indispensable to humankind” but and, he insists, it’s just this one theft—but He picks up a copy of the catalog and walks
is never given a diagnosis and is not con- when the romance ends, she informs the discreetly out the door.
sidered mentally ill at his trials. Because he police, and Breitwieser is put in prison again.
specifically selected his loot, rather than ran- By the time he gets out, he’s 41 years old, michael finkel’s recent book, ‘The
domly grabbing, and never displayed guilt creases at his eyes and a hairline in retreat. Stranger in the Woods,’ was a best-seller—
about his actions, he doesn’t fit the criteria He has an idea that he’ll launch a career and grew out of his gq story, “The Strange &
for being a kleptomaniac. as a museum-security consultant, but he’s Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit.”

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 1 3 9
T UN DE WE Y

read deeply about America’s racial past and the media’s obsession with “the minutiae of
present, from W. E. B. Du Bois to Eduardo whiteness.” I said I had written about a per-
Bonilla-Silva, whose 2003 book, Racism son, not “whiteness,” whatever that meant. He
Without Racists, became a particular touch- said that the fact I didn’t know was part of the
stone. In it, Bonilla-Silva points a damning problem. I wondered whether, in the age of
finger at those who know enough to know that Trump, he thought this was really the best use
overt racism is no longer socially acceptable of his formidable skills and growing power.
but stop short of challenging the fundamental “People are dying, Brett,” he said.
structures that keep a racist society alive. That “But not from chef profiles!” I sputtered.
is to say: nearly all of us. And of course then he had me.
In March 2016, at a local butcher shop “Wouldn’t you agree,” he said, switching
called Shank Charcuterie, Wey returned to to graduate-student mode, “that the aggre-
C O N T I N U E D F RO M PAG E 8 3 pop-ups with a series of four dinners, but gate of all these disparate reinforcements of
this time was di≠erent: Attendees were given whiteness or white fantasy or white power
“I thought, ‘Are they fucking people in a reading list to study up on before arriving. and privilege creates the conglomerate
here?! I don’t want to be in this situation,’ ” At the tables were questions for discussion. oppressive power?”
he says. Dinner included jollof rice, pepper soup, Another time, I accused Wey of hating
The next day, he was sent to a facility and whole fish, and presentations from, among food. I said I sometimes suspected that his
housed with other detainees clad in blue others, the leader of a nonprofit aimed at help- indignation at foodie culture was, at least in
jumpsuits to signify that they were nonvio- ing African-American girls in New Orleans. part, a pu≠ed-up justification for what was
lent o≠enders. The detainees, almost all of In his flyer for the event, Wey had promised: really a deep ambivalence about pleasure. I
them Hispanic, slept in huge barracks lined “Spicy Nigerian Food. Adult Beverages. Dim told him I thought it was actually his most
with bunk beds. Finally, after 20 days, Wey Lights. Sexy Chef. Sexy Music. Sexy Guests. American trait.
was brought before a judge who would decide Honest and Respectful Conversations. A Good “I love to eat. I love to fuck. I love to sleep,”
whether he would be allowed to post bond Ass Party.” And so it proved. he said. Of course, he went on, there should be
while awaiting a hearing. “It was a moment “It was the beginning, and I just had peo- places where dining is simple pleasure, where
that only happens in movies,” he remembers. ple come up and talk about shit,” Wey says. “I food is respite and solace. “The problem is that
“I was sweating. My palms were wet. Very had no idea what I was doing, and I just kept we have too many spaces where food is just
few people feel that feeling: when you have doing it.” that. We need spaces where we can eat and
no control over your whole life.” The judge There has remained an improvisatory not think about shit, but if all your spaces are
granted bond, with a hearing set for two nature to the dinners as Wey has staged spaces where you eat and don’t think about
years later, which e≠ectively placed Wey into them around the country over the past three shit, then you’re never thinking about shit!”
a kind of limbo: not in imminent danger of years. Some have speakers, but discussion has Finish him!
being picked up or deported, but unable to become the focal point. Wey himself often says Still, anybody who has been on the receiv-
re-enter the country if he left or, technically, little, other than to call on people and pose the ing end of Wey’s critique might reasonably
to work. Still, it was the first safe status he’d occasional prompting question. Some of the find themselves asking a version of my ques-
had since being a student. It was the freest dinners were confrontational, others stilted. tion: Why spend so much time going after
he’d felt in years. (The BYO booze often proves to be the most potential allies when there are so many more
important course in this regard.) It is not egregious and obvious threats and enemies?
unusual for there to be tears. “In critique, you have to be hyperbolic. In
I LOVED WEY’S okra at the St. Roch Market, For Wey, it is navigating the immediate practice, you need to be nuanced. But one
cooked down to the gelatinous consistency of present of the events that matters most. He feeds the other. It’s hyperbole that creates the
Ghostbusters slime. And I found myself nearly has markedly little interest in discussing them space for the nuance,” he says. “And what is the
addicted to his egusi stew, a deeply funky bowl afterward, when he is often left spent, barely role of the critic? To state the obvious? Or to
of pulverized melon seeds, tomato, and greens. leaving his French Quarter apartment except point to the hidden and understated?”
But even I wasn’t able to be the kind of reg- to play pickup games of soccer. “I give a lot of And who can say he isn’t being strategic?
ular customer he needed if he was going to energy, and I need a lot of downtime,” he says. The night after the Hot Chicken Shit event,
survive. To the out-of-town visitors at whom At one dinner in New Orleans last fall, he I went by myself to a new restaurant in East
the market was pitched, such meals were an told a group of stunned urban planners— Nashville. It was in every way a lovely exam-
even tougher sell, up against more recogniz- all of whom surely considered themselves ple of today’s modern, placeless, immaculately
able Louisianan specialties. Eventually, the progressive, justice-minded activists who tasteful restaurant: the menu of ItaloCaliAsian
market’s owners came to Wey and asked him had sacrificed much for their social ideals— New American dishes (made for sharing),
to put a chicken sandwich on the menu. “I did that they should quit their jobs. It was the the clever cocktail list, the open kitchen, the
it,” he said, “but I was also like, ‘Fuck this. I’m harshest I’d seen him be, and the most dog- exposed ducts and unfinished walls and con-
not here for a chicken sandwich.’ ” When the matic in his insistence that an abstract wrong crete floors that gave the extremely expensive
chance came to open his own freestanding obliterated the possibility of some concrete look of a space whose contractor quit three
restaurant on the edge of the French Quarter, good. I asked how he felt about the attend- days before finishing. It was all so nice. The
Wey jumped on it. I was excited to see what ees’ reactions: “I’m happy with people leav- very quintessence of nice. And I sat at the bar
he could do with a full menu and service, but ing feeling however they feel,” he answered. feeling a nagging disquiet, a dissatisfaction
it was not to be; the space fell through. And “I feel bad for them personally. But I also that I sensed would not go away no matter
anyway, Wey was by then onto a di≠erent trail. don’t have the capacity to assuage everyone’s how many clam pizzas and fluke crudos and
The Lagos dinners hadn’t been explic- upset feelings.” Later he told me, “These are Manhattan variations I poured down my
itly political, but neither were they pitched all people who have bachelor’s degrees. I’m throat in an attempt to quell it. That was when
at foodies. Wey found himself increasingly sure they’ll be fine.” I found myself cursing Tunde Wey.
repelled by American food culture, which he That it is painful and frustrating to be told
found simultaneously abstract and intellec- that one’s individual history, feelings, and
tual, and seemingly about nothing that really intentions mean nothing because of one’s in the weeks before he
W E Y WA S D I S P I R I T E D
mattered: “When you examined it, there was income or skin color is, obviously, precisely went to Nashville last July to conduct research
no morality there. I don’t mean morality in the point. Still, pain and frustration are pain for what would become the Hot Chicken Shit
terms of good or evil, I mean a relevant mes- and frustration. A couple of years ago, Wey dinners. “I’m doing all these projects asking
sage—or a message, period—outside of food took me to task for a profile I’d written for this white people to give something up,” he said,
on a plate.” magazine about a white already-quite-famous shaking his head. “And I’m realizing they
Meanwhile, the Black Lives Matter move- southern chef who was battling an autoim- aren’t going to. White people will never give
ment was gaining momentum. Wey began to mune disease. It was, he said, an example of anything up.”

1 4 0 G Q . C O M M A R C H 2 0 1 9
T U ND E WE Y C ONT I NU ED

Then he held a preliminary series of on meeting like this. There’s a white lawyer dreams. Then Wey starts telling me about
Nashville dinners. The Music City has been there who tells the story of successfully fight- the idea for his next set of dinners: Marry an
booming in recent years—even before Amazon ing a development project in his own, far Immigrant. See, the menu would be all aph-
announced in November that it would open more tony neighborhood. “So you’ll be able rodisiacs, and attendees would be paired on
a new operations center there—and the trou- to o≠er these people advice?” Wey asks. Sure, blind dates with undocumented immigrants.
bles of gentrification have predictably boomed says the lawyer. At the end, they’d all get married.
with it. The transformation of such neigh- “Pro bono,” Wey adds, not a question. “It’s illegal, but of course it’s very legal
borhoods as East Nashville, Salemtown, and The next morning, I meet Wey at a soc- because that’s how people get married these
Germantown has been all but complete for cer game he’s found on a field at Vanderbilt days,” Wey said. “It’s through the Internet. It’s
years. North Nashville, a neighborhood with University. Soccer is one of Wey’s mental through matchmaking services. It happens on
deep African-American roots, has not yet escapes and a connection to the country that The Bachelor.” He considered it happily, this
undergone that process, but the signs are all still feels most like home. There are times absurd, crazy, dangerous idea. We laughed.
there that it’s next up in developers’ crosshairs. when his homesickness is palpable; he has The dinners, redubbed Marriage Trumps
After he’d been in town a few weeks, Wey’s tone not seen his mother in ten years. All, began taking place in Pittsburgh in early
changed. He had been meeting with local com- We have lunch at Slim & Husky’s, a wildly February.
munity leaders, city o∞cials, and activists, he popular black-owned pizza business that
texted me, and he had seized on the notion of opened in 2017, not far from Westwood
a community land trust—a strategy that was Baptist. I ask about the swerve the night had on January 7, the morning
B U T B E F O R E T H AT,
originally deployed to protect black and poor taken away from the high concept of Hot after Epiphany, Wey dressed in a dark three-
farmers from losing their land. A CLT in North Chicken Shit. piece suit and, with Nelson, made his way to
Nashville would take ownership of the area’s “It’s always good when you change your the 18th floor of a building on Poydras Street,
housing stock and legally guarantee that it expectations to meet reality,” he says. “I where U.S. Customs and Immigration Services
would remain a≠ordable in perpetuity. In other had an audacious goal, and it failed.” In this has its New Orleans o∞ce. There, after a
words, Wey wanted to buy every vacant and case, “reality” had been a practical problem brief interview under oath, watched over by
potentially vacant residence in North Nashville. to solve: people who needed help staying in a scowling portrait of Donald Trump, in the
“It’s all that’s occupied my brain. It’s doing their homes. And the approach bears fruit: An midst of a federal-government shutdown
my head in,” he texted, followed by two emoji attendee at the third Hot Chicken Shit dinner predicated on keeping immigrants out of the
heads exploding. ends up donating $100,000 to the cause. Not United States, in the heart of a city that was
In hot chicken he found a characteristically enough to buy any houses, but plenty to start once the largest market for African bodies in
potent entry point for the project: a uniquely a process of neighborhood organization and North America, Tunde Wey was granted the
black food that has been flagrantly appropri- education. And not bad in exchange for a plate status of legal resident.
ated in recent years. Invented, the legend goes, of chicken and some honest conversation. Briefly overcome by this minor miracle,
by a vengeful lover of a man named Thornton For a moment, at Slim & Husky’s, I have the I texted: “Tell me why this story’s ending
Prince (who, instead of howling in pain, went disconcerting image of Wey going straight. isn’t now a warm, fuzzy message about how,
on to perfect the dish, at Prince’s Hot Chicken After all, he’s now being asked to speak despite it all, America still works.”
Shack, in North Nashville), hot chicken has at Columbia University and with United Immediately the three dots of a return
become so popular in recent years that the Nations o∞cials. He applied (though it was message being composed appeared, and I
three most famous examples in the world hard to say how seriously) for the vacant posi- smiled; Wey isn’t the only one who knows
right now are served by a white couple inside tion of restaurant critic at the San Francisco how to provoke. The dots stayed for a long
a food court in L.A.’s Chinatown, an Australian Chronicle. He recently received a book con- time, and I readied myself for the screed
who was invited to serve his at last year’s MAD tract from MCD, an imprint of Farrar, Straus about to arrive. But when the message came,
Symposium in Copenhagen, and KFC. & Giroux. Maybe his future was one of quiet, it was just one line:
As the neighborhood women pick at Wey’s earnest community activism in rooms like “’Cus you know better.”
Nigerian version at Westwood Baptist, they the one at Westwood Baptist, with its folding
talk about their homes, the years in them tables and buzzing lights and vital, very local brett martin is a gq correspondent.
calculated by recalling the ages of children,
grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. They
talk about the phone calls, the unannounced ADDI T IO NAL CRED I TS
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M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 1 4 1
P H O T O G R A P H B Y A W O L E R I Z K U
FINAL SHOT

Shirt, $1,100,
and pants, $850,
by Dior Men.
Watch, $55,400,
by Audemars Piguet.
Jewelry, his own.
O N HER
Dress by Off-White
c/o Virgil Abloh at
Barneys New York.
Shoes by Christian
Louboutin.
Ring by Renvi.
CREDIT CREDIT CREDIT CREDIT CREDIT CREDIT CREDIT CREDIT

Lauren London
and Nipsey Hussle
(with Artemus
the horse) in South
Los Angeles in
January. (For more,
see page 126.)

M A R C H 2 0 1 9 G Q . C O M 1 4 3

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