Nikita

Nikita celebrates its 10 YEAR anniversary this year.  Co-founder and GM / Moral Support at Nikita Clothing, Runar Omarsson, takes some valuable time out after an energetic game of footy and a cold beer to think about what’s happened over the last decade as Nikita moves into it’s 10th year in 2010. 

“I can‘t really believe its been 10 years since we started Nikita!  It feels more like 5 years but when I look at the facts and figures, it still must be 10 years.  We‘ve done 19 collections of clothing.  That means going on 19 trips with our team to different places to shoot photos, including Morocco, Amsterdam, Miami, Hossegor, Barcelona, New Orleans, Sagres – and a few in Iceland as well.  We‘ve had sales meetings in Whistler, Berlin, Chamonix, Barcelona, Iceland, the Swiss Alps, Sardinia and more interesting places.  Nikita is now available in 30 countries.  We are 37 who work here instead of 3.  We‘ve worked with a bunch of fun loving, hard working people who we all get to share our ideas and energy with.  It is quite an incredible feeling to tell the truth!

When we started importing snowboards to Iceland in 1991, there were around five snowboarders up here.  When we sold our snowboard shop in 1999 to start Nikita, there were around 1500 snowboarders up here. In our store, you would get a free lesson with every snowboard we sold.  Us and our team guys (some of them among the five guys mentioned before) would teach everyone to snowboard, but we did that also because so many parents were sceptical about this new thing and didn‘t really want their kid to be on their own in the mountains learning how to do something that the parents didn‘t have any idea about. They were also a bit sceptical about entering our store, because it was a dirty little hole with loud music and skateboarders – who as we all know are VERY dangerous people (laughs).

For almost 10 years we had the pleasure of promoting snowboarding, skating and surfing in Iceland; and make a living out of it. In 1995 Nikita founders Heida and myself plus two friends were the first four Icelanders to start surfing here. But then at one point in time we got this idea; Heida, being the most active snowboard / skateboard / surfer girl in Iceland, had been designing some of her own clothes and jewellery.  She‘d also been working in a fashion store to save money for some artsy university in London but took her money and bought herself a share in this snow / skate / clothing store.  We didn‘t have any girls streetwear in the store, just some t-shirts from Sessions, Burton, Zero skateboards, Toy Machine, Girl / Chocolate. So what is a girl clothing designer turned snowboarder / skateboarder / surfer to do when she can‘t find any cool streetwear despite being the distributor and retailer for all the best brands in the industry at the time?  Launch our own line! After all, I believed that I had some marketing/sales talent, and our third guy Valdi some finance/logistic skills. A true love triangle with the three of us.

We started small, with mainly fleece and microfleece second layer pieces with street fashion style. Sold a bunch of them in our store. Heida’s designs actually helped the store grow A LOT! We believed this could apply to many other boardsport stores, because we suddenly had an all-new group of excited customers.  And they didn‘t only want to feel warm on the mountain, but look cool!  After selling Heida‘s clothes exclusively in our own store in Reykjavik for two years we were ready to stop importing goods to our tiny little island and go for slight expansion...

In the meantime, we had to find a name for the collection, build a ‘team’ (it used to matter a lot on this market what brands supported riders, especially if the riders were good), create our first catalogue, do an international price strategy, figure out international labelling, find some manufacturers to work with, and a few other things.

The name, NIKITA we thought sounded cool.  Like a cool girls name, could be from wherever.  And it was easy to remember, because it’s easy to spell, looks good in print and everybody can say it (including Japanese people).  We liked the chick in La Femme Nikita who hung out with all these cool guys and she was still the coolest of them. We still love the name of our brand. Love it!

Now we offer two collections of Nikita street fashion per year, one collection of Nikita outerwear, a small and more dressy line called Nikita Selekzion which comes out twice a year; spring / summer and fall / winter like the streetwear and then when we need a break from Nikita we create a few guys styles under the name Atikin (the other side of Nikita) but we don‘t really promote it.  It´s out pet and only available in a few cool stores.

Our motto from the beginning was always to do what we love to do and make a living out of it. Well, we‘ve been riding (in some incredible places) for the whole time since we started Nikita.  We snowboard, skate and surf.  Heida won the national moto-cross championships one year as well and we‘ve competed as a team in enduro racing.  We work with a bunch of amazing people.  We work with board sports activists and fashioners alike.  We get to share our vision with people who add all kinds of influence and qualities to it.  We are very grateful for being able to do this for a living.  We‘re not rich in that sense, we drive simple old cars and work our ass off every day and worry about bills to pay like everyone.  But we have a lot of fun doing excactly that!  You are offered so many choices to screw up when you try to launch a brand selling your own designs around the world that its crazy.  We‘ve managed to go this far without doing that and it feels good!  It means that all the obstacles; finding good manufacturers (all our clothing is Nikita’s own cut / sew so it‘s harder!), good staff (each and every one was hired into a position that had not existed before that person started), dealing with financing a small but exploding international brand on a far away island in the middle of the ocean, setting up offices in different countries, working with distributors all over the world, its been so much work, we could never do it unless it was our true PASSION!  And now we celebrate our 10 year anniversary at Nikita by opening up our own Nikita flagship store in Reykjavik, only a few steps away from were we started the brand.  It feels great to be 10!  Everyone knows how full of energy and excitement you are when you are 10!  You better believe we do too!

Thanks to the whole boardsports industry for the super nice and warm welcome that we have gotten from all of you in the last years.  Thanks to you media guys for spreading the word.  Thanks to our team riders, thanks to our staff.  Last but not least, THANKS to all the girls out there who have stood by us from the start, always eager to know when the new stuff is coming and finding out where to get it.  We love you right back!”

Victory for Léa Laveau and Emilie Cruz at the MONTREUX JIB FESTIVAL!

Montreux will remember last Friday evening at the marketplace for a long time!  The Montreux Jib Festival dedicated its opening evening to the girls and they answered! 13 snowboarders and 6 skiers sprang onto the modules prepared by Orgiride, the organising association of the event.

Léa Laveau hailed the best performance in snowboard during the Final. From Vaud, she crossed all the modules (!) including a clean lip nose slide on the down rail with tonnes of style. The winner of the first round of the NCST in Leysin, Elena Könz, followed her with some great runs, in particular a 50/50 on the down rail followed-up with a boardslide nose press to switch on the flat box. Valais rider, Ghislaine Albasini, finished in third with her final run; tail press on the down and flat boxes.

Emilie Cruz made an accurate run ahead of fellow skiers Nina Michel and Sarah Pinton. The French skier, victorious in Leysin, landed all of her tricks with poise during the Final including an impressive switch on the flat-down box. Nina Michel just missed out on first place after an incredible qualification run but the Swiss skier impressed the judges with her performance on the picnics tables. The French skier Sarah Pinton completed the podium standing with some nice runs on the down rail.

Well done to all competitors!

The following riders qualified for the Final of the NIKITA CHICKITA SWISS TOUR:

Snowboard: Ghislaine Albasini
Ski: Nina Michel

Next stop: 6th February in Hoch Ybrig

RESULTS

SNOWBOARD :

1. Léa Laveau
2. Elena Könz
3. Ghislaine Albasini
4. Melanie Merkli et Cristina Monclùs

SKI :

1. Emilie Cruz
2. Nina Michel
3. Sarah Pinton
4. Athina Joris

Send in your action clips to Nikita and you can bag yourself an all-inclusive trip to Iceland in 2010.  Having exclusively run this contest based on girls sending in their snowboard clips, Nikita has widened the remit to include all-action heroines.

From 19th January 2010 until 12th March 2010 you just need to get out there and get some footage together and show us whatever it is that gets your adrenalin pumping.  One winner will be chosen from all the entries to fly to Iceland in May 2010.  You will be greeted at Keflavik airport just outside Reyjkavik and during your stay, will be escorted in and around the city centre where you'll see the new flagship Nikita store, choose some brand new Nikita gear and get to join our friends at Arctic Adventures on an unforgettable surfing and snowboarding trip!

Entry Details 
You must be female and 18 years or over.  You can send in as much footage as you like as long as there is plenty of action in there featuring you and the file being e-mailed is no bigger than 4MB.  Your footage will also be shown through Nikita's YouTube and Mpora pages as well as the winner featured on our main Nikita website here.  Please send in all entries from 19th January until 12th March 2010; winners will be announced on 18th March 2010.  As before, there are always so many great entries that we like to pay tribute where respect is due, so there will be some special additional prizes to include Nikita clothing for the runners-up.  E-mail all entries to contest@nikitaclothing.com 

Please include your full name, date of birth, postal address, e-mail and contact telephone number along with any other info you feel is relevant.

Our last winner, Ashley Thornton, sent in snowboarding clips that got the whole office wanting to go shredding, which bagged her the win and trip to Iceland.  Since that entry, Ashley has been signed up as part of the Nikita Team, USA.  

Check out her road trip to Iceland here and here winner clip here
 

Elena Könz and Emilie Cruz won in the 1st round in Leysin, where 19 girls took part in the NIKITA CHICKITA SWISS TOUR on 16 January.

Two lines were prepared by the crew of Leysin Park; a kicker line of 10 and 5 meters and a jib line with a sequence of 3 rails (flat, down, flat and down box or up rail).  The competition started at 11.00am with 2 hours of qualifications.

In ski, Emilie Cruz was the revelation of the day with a fat 720° rotation, frontflips and backflips launched on the kickers! The young French girl won the contest behind her compatriot and Nikita team rider, Sarah Martinais, who impressed the jury with the highest and cleanest 360° on the big kicker. Alexandra Nicole joined them on the podium.

In snowboard, Elena Könz stood out with a 360° back and 360° front sequence on the kickers. Léa Laveau followed her with a beautiful 180° front on the big kicker and a clean run on the jib line. Alba Wunderline took the final 3rd spot on the podium.

Those 6 girls are now through to the final of the NIKITA CHICKITA SWISS TOUR in Thyon on March 20!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Next stop: January 22 MONTREUX JIB FESTIVAL

RESULTS :

SKI
1.    Emilie Cruz
2.    Sarah Martinais
3.    Alexandra Nicole
4.    Athina Joris
5.    Mathilde Cordier-Huni
6.    Chloé Veuthey

SNOW
1.    Elena Könz
2.    Léa Laveau
3.    Alba Wunderline
4.    Ghislaine Albasini
5.    Sophie Defayes
6.    Delphine Monnet

And the winners are:

- Sophia Metzler from Germany

and

- Angelisa Hollick from Canada

They will be joining us at our FW1011 Streetwear Photoshoot in New Orleans.

This time we also decided to ad a little twist to the contest and invite a photographer to shoot some behind the scenes photos. The lucky girl who gets to join us and shoot some pictures is:

- Stefanie Suchy from Germany. Check out her website here.

A big thanks to all the girls from all over the world that took part. You  rock, you make it so hard for us to pick out winners every time and you are the reason why we will keep doing this contest again and again and again. Until next time........

Greetings from Iceland

The Nikita Crew