Nikita 10th anniversary

Activewear company Nikita is celebrating its 10th anniversary, which began with the opening of Nikita’s first flagship store in Reykjavik, Iceland last September. Being pioneers of the snowboarding, surf and skate scenes in Iceland, Heida Birgisdottir, Runar Omarsson and Valdi Hannesson incepted Nikita a decade ago. They were the first distributors and retailers of some of the industry’s key name brands and started a boardsports revolution in Iceland.

Initially Heidi began hand making a few pieces of streetwear to wear herself. After receiving positive responses from friends, the pieces were sellling like hot cakes. At first, the production was limited, but then the founders decided to go one step further by all invest fully into the new venture and establishing Nikita. They built on a loyal and local fan base through the store before launching internationally as Nikita Clothing in 2000. As from day one, the brand Nikita stands for the love and passion of riding in the snow.

Nikita’s collections grew from one street fashion line to include a snow outerwear line each winter, a limited collection of styled silhouettes for party people called Nikita Selekzion and menswear line Atikin. All designs are Nikita’s own cut and have a Scandinavian stylish feel to it.

Runar Omarsson, Co-founder and GM / Moral Support at Nikita Clothing, comments: “I can‘t really believe it’s 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. (ed.)”

Image: Nikita