The Paper Trail No one invested...they went years without making a profit. Was this publishing duo's path pigheaded or visionary?

Few inhabitants of mainstream USA expressed interest in anything"indie" before 1996, when Oscar-winning films likeFargo and Shine engaged audiences with small budgetsand little-known actors. Younger consumers discovered indie in theearly '90s, when the once-underground "grunge"aesthetic infiltrated mass-market music, film and fashion. Butyears before anyone was watching obscure movies, and before kidsdeemed flannel-wearing fashionable, "grandma and granddaddy ofindie" Kim Hastreiter and David Hershkovits were pointingpeople in the direction of hip as publishers and editors ofPaper magazine. Never heard of Paper (launched 16years ago) or Papermag.com (live in 1994) or Paper PublishingCo.'s 1999 book From AbFab to Zen: Paper's Guide to PopCulture? That's probably because Hastreiter and Hershkovitshave always run their New York City company on a shoestring andaccepted little investment. But no one's ever told them what todo, either. And they like it that way.

The last time Hastreiter, 48, and Hershkovits, 52, answered toanyone was in 1981, right before former employer The Soho WeeklyNews, a Village Voice-esqe publication unique in itsstyle coverage, folded after its owners failed to focus on thedowntown scene about to erupt. "They were English anddidn't really understand New York City," says Hastreiter."They just couldn't deal with punk-rocker types with greenhair working for them."

Shocked by The Weekly's untimely departure,Hastreiter and Hershkovits, former style editor and associatemanaging editor, respectively, decided to fill the void by startingtheir own weekly publication. Their style and ideal audience wereclearly outlined. But having no start-up experience made it achallenge. They did know having a style section would getadvertising. "All that existed in those days were brainlessstyle magazines that got all the fashion ads, or things that wereall content and no style, like The Village Voice, that wouldget local ads but no fashion ads because they didn't lookgood," says Hastreiter.