The man with the great white suits and the glowing typewriter, Tom Wolfe, had a description of the 70s that stuck: The “Me” Decade. The varnished 00s have proved more apt for that title. In the “me, me, me” decade – where 55 percent of all magazines produced are going back to pulp, unpurchased and unread, it is wonderful to have a magazine around – with its name taken from a certain Teutonic chanteuse – that is everything but a glossy pretender: the beautiful, biannual, bilingual Nico from Luxembourg (and the world) is in une classe à part.

“The Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol and one of the very early independent magazines, Interview, are obviously an inspiration for many creatives today,” says its publisher/editor Mike Koedinger to Just another colette blog. “I also believe that the magazine as a ‘classic medium’ still has a lot to express, and that the high-end magazines are excellent both in informing and entertaining their readers.” Koedinger’s passion for magazines is perceptible throughout Nico, and how it mirrors the thoughts and expressions of gifted people you hardly knew of, or more well-known creators that you will find in a new light here.

“Beauty reveals that which is sacred. Whatever one’s beliefs, the desire to refine reality, the need for spiritual uplifting, it’s the notion of the sacred that holds sway. Beauty suggests something intangible but essential to life,” states Dior Homme’s creative director Kris Van Assche in this issue of Nico. These are words that also suit the magazine very well. Nico is graceful, compassionate and irreverently respectful towards its topics, its readership and magazine making itself. Only the third issue in order and nonetheless already a magazine with a great personal stage experience, a great presence, a great “I”.