Robert Pattinson photographed himself for GQ Magazine

GQ private messaged us on Instagram today to keep our eyes open – am guessing it’s because Rob’s going to be the June | July cover. Here’s a sneak peak perhaps from JapanFM

GQ The June / July issue, published on the Internet on Tuesday and starting to reach readers on May 26, is the first to be almost entirely produced since the blockages began in New York in March.

Welch and his team aimed to capture the frantic mix of anxiety and open-mindedness that many people experience, locked up in their homes and excluded from their usual routines. He has greened some “calculated risks,” such as letting cover star Robert Pattinson photograph himself, commissioning designs from fashion designers, and working with creators, such as the photographer known as disturbed rays, for the first time. 

…

March 11: Condé Nast orders New York employees to work from home for the foreseeable future. GQ is sending its pages from the May issue to the printer, so staff can edit the articles to reflect the pandemic. Welch selects two stories to include a last-minute feature called “Big Fits at Home”. The two main features planned for the June / July issue – a profile by Robert Pattinson and a central portfolio on the subject of “creativity in quarantine” – have not started.

…

Zach Baron, lead editor, who wrote the cover profile: [Pattinson] was filming “Batman” [in London], so the idea was to go get him on a day off or, if I’m lucky, even to visit the plateau. But we never managed to book a plane ticket.

March 20: The UK implements its own lockdown. The Batman film set had already stopped a week earlier.

…

Welch: It became very clear that any kind of filming where people had to meet was not going to be doable. [Pattinson] has a bunch of cool cameras and he’s in an Airbnb in London. He had cameras with him and maybe also a digital camera, and he was ready to photograph himself.

I do not know him. It’s not like they sent me a portfolio of his photos or anything. He just said, “I would be willing to do it if you wanted to. “

It is not something I would like to do with anyone. But in his case, everything about the directors he chose … and all the movements he made after “Twilight” showed a real creative spirit and a taste and incredible instincts.

March 25: Welch, Visual Director Roxanne Behr and GQ Entertainment Director Dana Mathews have a phone call with Pattinson, his manager and publicist to share some tips for the filming, which Pattinson will do alone in his apartment, where he is in quarantine with his girlfriend.

Roxanne Behr, Director of Visuals: I gave him a wide range of historical references to the art of self-portrait… I have never spent as much time on a bridge as for Rob.

Some were references to see the camera [in the image], part reminded him to go long, part was more conceptual.

We definitely talked to him about how to turn a cover with room for the GQ logo [on the top left of the image], which isn’t usually something that talent should think about.

Welch: But at the end of the call, it was kind of like, “Anyway, we said our song, do what you want. “

In general, I absolutely love to take calculated risks like that … It’s more exciting for me than – we want to zoom in and see each image when it arrives on a monitor and gives you direction. … Sometimes it’s better to know what you can’t control and not to try. To get away and leave those very bizarre bizarre days.

T week of March 30: GQ sends Pattinson clothing for filming: Dior and Louis Vuitton costumes, Burberry scarves, Turnbull & Asser scarf, Paul Smith blazer and pants, Elder Statesman socks and Alighieri jewelry. Before the lockdown, GQ had already photographed most of the products featured in the first section of the magazine, leaving cover filming as the main fashion challenge.

…

April 9: Pattinson sends his images digitally to Roxanne. Not hiding a messy apartment, the images have a chaotic quality. In some shots, Pattinson even tied socks and scarves around his arms, legs and head.

Dawodu: I told him to go wild.

I think it’s a good time for brands to listen and for them to accept a creativity that they would not normally have accepted before.

Baron: In some ways, the weirdness of it all set him on fire, just as it set us on fire. These are interesting problems to solve.

Behr: What he sent was very unexpected and it’s the beauty of the project…. It’s just not the shoot we would have done if we had shot it. It’s totally refreshing. You can totally say that he is in his own world – there is no hair, there is no makeup.

He sent us a ton of photos, which we then reduced to 16. There weren’t any that he said, “I really don’t like this one, don’t run it,” which surprised, in fact.

…

April 10: Pattinson and Baron begin a series of conversations for the interview.

Baron: Much of this work is based on trust and interpersonal dynamics. And this thing is just more difficult to build from a distance … Someone who is not him might have absolutely taken advantage of this situation to hide, literally and metaphorically.

Pattinson has proven to be a very good partner for this because – and he talks about it in history – he feeds on clumsiness. It feeds on strange situations.

What separates us and makes things difficult is also what is really interesting. Interrupted calls and the kind of SMS in both directions. This is what we are all experiencing right now.

Source Thanks @Monsieur_HJ and @Sallyvg