Family First

Years after their serendipitous meeting, businessman Nico Bolzico and multi-hyphenate artist Solenn Heussaff Bolzico have created a home together that is bursting with love for their daughter, Thylane

Ryanne Stephanie Cheng

It is picture-perfect. Nico Bolzico and Solenn Heussaff Bolzico, glamorous and successful and now first-time parents, sit casually and comfortably on the sofa, while daughter Thylane Katana or Thylane for short, is happy with her toys in her playpen. Nine years of togetherness have brought them here today.

“I think neither of us was looking for anything serious,” Bolzico starts, speaking on their initial meeting in 2011. Heussaff agrees. “It actually started as a fling because Nico was set to be based in another country after three months, but then he fell in love with me,” she shares. “Actually”, Bolzico interjects, smiling, “Solenn fell in love with me first.”

The couple’s relationship, prominently featured online, has always been fun to follow. Together with Thylane and their roster of Instagram-famous pets—the dog Pochola, the cat El Gato and the tortoises Patato and Pechuga—the Bolzicos project the image of a perfect family. Yet, the two admit that much like everyone else, their lives, and their relationship, are far from perfect. “Every day, [you have to make an] effort in order to be able to have a successful marriage,” Bolzico shares. “It’s a bit of hard work, right? Enjoyable hard work but still, you cannot let yourself go.”

Heussaff’s view on their dynamic is also refreshing, especially at a time when “co-dependency” and “toxic” have become common throwaway words. Heussaff shares that the secret to their compatibility lies in their own individuality. “The reason why it still works with Nico and I is that whoever I was or whoever he was before we married is still pretty much the same person [we are today]. We’ve had to compromise on certain things, but nothing changed [about] who we are as people.”

Now four years married, the couple have a ten-month-old daughter, the apple of their eye, and a sweet manifestation of some of their best traits. “We expect Thylane to get the same talents as Solenn: painting, singing, the whole right side of her brain,” Nico jokes. Heussaff, on the other hand, says that Thylane is “literally Nico”. She shares, “She’s all over the place, she’s loud. She eats a lot.”