View online – Schön! 28 Maddie Ziegler

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.” — Carl Jung

This is issue 50. I still get excited every time we close an issue, but this one — this one I want to hold for a second.

Schön! has been publishing independently for more than 15 years: no parent company, no safety net, just a group of people who believe that a magazine can be a place where fashion, music, film, and art meet on equal terms—and that the meeting itself is worth the effort. Fifty issues later, I can tell you: it has been worth every late night, every impossible deadline, every moment where the only thing keeping us going was the feeling that the next page might be the best one yet.

I want to talk about the people first, because they are the whole story. The team around this magazine — whether working on editorial, production, casting, design, copy, or digital — are my family, spread across cities, countries, and time zones. Some have been here from the very first issue. Others arrived last year and changed the energy in ways I could not have predicted. What they share is something I could never hire for or plan around: taste, instinct, and the willingness to care more than is strictly reasonable. This magazine exists because of them. Full stop.

A magazine also lives through the people who trust you with their stories. Honesty runs right through this issue. Danna, seen here wearing Pandora for her Schön! 50 cover story, is building an entire creative universe from her dreams across continents. With a three-part conceptual body of work on the way, a new record label and a reclaimed sense of self, she is finally dreaming with her eyes wide open. “In some way, I found myself as an artist, getting full control of what I envision,” she shares with us. Alongside this, she has taken on a stronger role as a producer, collaborating closely with her partner while recording across multiple countries. This new chapter represents Danna reclaiming her identity, finding empowerment in her artistry, and building a career on her own terms — something that the ethos of Schön! 50 truly represents. 

Throughout the issue, we learn more about those who are shaping their creative worlds in their own way. Ayra Starr is carrying Afrobeats across every border with the confidence of someone who always knew where she was headed. Naïka sings in three languages because one was never going to be enough. These are artists who do not wait for permission, and that energy is exactly what Schön! has always tried to champion.

When Sofia Boutella tells you that dance and acting are the same language, or when Odeal describes music as a time capsule where people come together, you understand that the work we do is really about listening. When Hannah Waddingham walks into a room, you feel it before she speaks — that is the kind of presence these pages were made for. And when Jack Quaid talks about a character who became part of his soul, you realise that the best interviews are not about celebrity — they are about openness. 

The same is true on screen. Chase Stokes picks up the camera for the first time after seven years of being in front of it. Hari Nef, never content with one discipline, is now writing the films she wants to see. Fernando Lindez moves between fashion weeks and film sets with the rare gift of staying completely present. Emily Rudd navigates a world as vast as the ocean her character sails. Each of them gives us something real, and that generosity is what makes a magazine come alive.

The fashion in this issue has the same spirit. There are stories here with Fendi, Louis Vuitton, and Jonathan Anderson’s Dioriviera for Dior — each one a conversation between heritage and the present tense. GANT and Parajumpers bring a different texture, grounded and full of movement. MCM, which in 2026 celebrates 50 years, appears in these pages at the exact moment we reach our 50th issue — a symmetry too good not to enjoy.

People sometimes ask what keeps an independent magazine going for this long. The honest answer is love: love for the image that stops you in your tracks or the story that changes shape as you tell it; love for the chaos of a shoot day, the silence of an edit, the moment you see a layout click into place and think, yes, that’s it; love for the readers who come back, and the ones finding us for the first time. It sounds simple, but it is the truest thing I know about this work.

Fifty issues is a milestone, and I am glad to have reached it, because we are still curious, still ambitious, still in love with what a magazine can be when it is made by people who give a damn. Thank you — to the team, to the talent, to every collaborator and reader who made these 50 issues possible. You are the reason this exists, and you are the reason it keeps going. Fifty issues down, and we have never been more excited. Here’s to the next one, the one after that, and all the ones we haven’t even imagined yet.

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Schön! 50 Danna | Schön! 50 Hannah Waddingham | Schön! 50 Hair Nef | Schön! 50 Dior

“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Fashion is a living language. As a vital creative force, it constantly reinvents itself, shifting form with each new season, each new voice, each new body that wears it. For this issue of Schön! we wanted to look back at why fashion magazines exist in the first place. We questioned our creative process, our work and our vision, and we realised this: it all starts with the models and the designers, the talented teams, the faces and the stories that give shape to a concept. The impulse for change gives the beat, and the need for reinvention sets the rhythm.

At the centre of our Issue 49 story is our cover star Aweng Chuol, who wears Valentino and epitomises beauty as something alive, fluid and ever-changing. Inside, model Noah Bates adds a sharp edge to menswear, underscoring fashion’s core: evolution over stasis.

We spotlight the talent reshaping style and culture in their own ways. Haley Lu Richardson, radiant in Pandora, reinvents herself through her debut poetry book and pole dancing pursuits. Lexie Liu bridges music and futurism, while Charlie Heaton captures the restless momentum of change, as he prepares for the release of the final season of ‘Stranger Things’. Sonja Weißer grounds the idea of reinvention with an actor’s quiet strength, while actor and singer Asha Banks and actor Ella Anderson embody youth in flux, a reminder of film’s creative power.

The pages of Schön! have always been open to voices who resist definition, such as those of model and activist Vivian Jenna Wilson and timeless icon Erykah Badu, whose groundbreaking fusion of music, soul and style has redefined cultural boundaries for decades, reminding us that change is not a trend but a way of being.

In Berlin, we turn our lens to artisans whose craft becomes a form of storytelling: florist Lilo Klinkenberg, food stylist Hannah Kleeberg, photographer and content creator Melanie Kieback and author Raphaëlle Red. Each of them is portrayed in CHANEL, underscoring how creation itself is an act of reinvention, whether through words, images, flavours or blooms.

In an exclusive editorial with Louis Vuitton, we show iconic codes reimagined through a fresh lens: the A/W 2025 collection by Nicolas Ghesquière is a perfect example of fashion which combines heritage, modernity and novel inspirations to continue writing new stories.

Schön! 49 explores the energy of fashion: the forward-motion of imagination, the inventive flow that underpins all the features in this issue. Creating is an act of reinvention, and every reinvention begins with the people behind the stories.

Get your print copy of Schön! 49 at Amazon Globally, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Italy, Amazon Spain, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Poland, Amazon Belgium, Amazon Sweden and the UK Schön! store.

Download your favourite cover now at the Schön! store.

This Schön! 49 cover story is produced by

photography. Michelle Helena Janssen
creative direction + fashion. Patrick Clark
model. Aweng Chuol @ IMG NY wearing Valentino
casting. Jean-Marc Mondelet
hair. Miwa Moroki @ The Tag Agency using Color Wow
make up. Lisa Legrand @ Airport Agency
set design. Hélène Helleu
lighting. Cassian Gray
fashion assistant. Ambre Amagat
set design assistants. Elise Siegwald, Julia Durand, Pierre Simon + Lucas Farina
production. Patrick Clark @ Schön! Studio
studio. Les Studios Français