February 1992 ...: The UK edition of Esquire launched in 1991 under the editorship of Alex Finer. Rosie Boycott takes over in February 1992. As a feminist, she is ideally qualified to front a magazine for "men who mean business".
March 1997 ...: When Boycott leaves to edit The Independent on Sunday, she's succeeded in March 1997 by the self-styled "very properly educated man" Peter Howarth, who'd previously worked for the designer Paul Smith, as well as having a proper degree in literature from Cambridge. When he leaves to write a novel, he's succeeded by the Harpers & Queen deputy editor Simon Tiffin, who announces he wants to inject some libido into the title.
August 2007 ...: Having (presumably) injected all that he could on this front, Tiffin leaves to pursue "new projects". Next into the hotseat is Jeremy Langmead, the editor of IPC's Wallpaper*. One of his first moves at Esquire is to relaunch it in a smaller size, which more accurately reflects the standing of modern man, he avers, although Langmead claims that his newly constituted organ will have "a more masculine and solid feel in the hand".
September 2010 ...: Langmead launches Esquire's first UK website in May 2009. Seeing the future, he joins Net-A-Porter's site, Mr Porter. He leaves Esquire in the hands of the acting editor, Dan Davies, who, Langmead says, can be trusted with new growth.
May 2011 ...: But he's not left to act for long. A new editor, Alex Bilmes, formerly of GQ, is drafted in quietly at the start of the new year and he begins work on a revamp. In the first week of May, it's unveiled at a party hosted by Bilmes and the singer Lily Allen. Bilmes maintains that his Esquire will be bigger and bolder than it has ever been before. Its new tagline masquerading as a mission statement is: "Style and substance."
Fast forward ...
September 2011: For months, there had been speculation that Bilmes had, in fact, been editing the magazine in partnership with another "household name" journalist. Now, following the partial lifting of an injunction, it is revealed that his co-editor has, in fact, been the BBC's Andrew Marr.