Brand introduction: Made in Colkinikha

Made in colkinikha is a cute brand inspired by the cold and Russian lands.
Kate Sakai is the designer (and model too) for the brand.
In 1996 she started modeling for a few magazines when she was younger (like the popular no-non) thanks to the english antique shop her parents owned (since 1982). Which also made her interested in clothes, since she was surrounded by them all the time.
While she was in university, she started MIC and started selling in a department store in Shinjuku.
(Everything has been loosely translated by me from MIC's website, so there may be tons of errors. Point them if you find them!)

You can find her blog also hosted in zozopeople, like MEG' and Syrup.

Colkinikha is said to be a (fictional) place in Rusia, it's a small place with 14ºc of temperature, thus it's a cold place.
This small region is situated among many villages, and even if the color of the sky is grey and it's winter every day, the villager's heart is warm and welcoming.
Thus, when you wear the kind of clothes Colkinikha's habitants wear, you'll get the same feeling.

(All this is taken from their website, I haven't made up anything! haha)

MIC has a romantic side to it, with an obvious reminiscence to western/north Europe feeling, but with a twist, since Sakai goes a bit further than that (physical and creatively), to colder lands in the east like Russia. Which makes great clothes for Mori and Dolly girls.
Her prints sometimes remind me of Tsumori Chisato (which is great, btw! haha)

I specially love their accessories and the watercolor drawings they use for some of their prints (like t-shirts and tights).

You can see their AW collection for 2010 or wheir past catalogues on their website. Which is really cool (there are a couple of catalogues unavailable though, such a pity).
I recommend taking a look at them all. A piece of art every season haha
The ss2009 collection is specially adorable, and the ss2008 is more mori orienter (and the pictures are so pretty too!), but I think this season's the best so far.

Suuuper cute tights from MIC!

MIC doesn't have a physical shop (as far as I know), but they do have an Online shop at the Parco city online shopping mall. They do have a few retailers that can be found in their shoplist section of their blog.

But Sakai also has another trick under her sleeve.
She joined forces with Yasutaka Nakata (Capsule member, MEG producer, etc) to produce a couple of mini-albums to complement MIC.
The duo got the name COLTEMÖNIKHA and together created some amazing electronic/technopop songs. Sakai singing and writing the lyrics and Nakata doing his usual.
The name was the result of joining Contemode (Nakata's label) and Colkinikha.

Coltemonikha have released two mini-albums to date, the first on 17 May 2006 and the second on 26 September of the same year and both are much worth listening.

You can find their songs on youtube (as far as I know, there's no PV for any song).