You might remember that, last October Nikita announced the winners of its competition to find girls to take part in the photoshoot for their autumn winter 2008/9 catalogue.

Well the shoot has just taken place and the girls who took part have been sharing their experiences of life on location with the Nikita crew…

Andrea Ostertag

Andrea wrote in explaining how she had been snowboarding since 1995. She also loved to surf but, being based in the city studying architecture, found it hard to train at either which is why she started BMX Flatland. She’s been doing that now for three years and gets out there every day to practice. Alongside that she also models so she jumped at the opportunity to combine everything she loves doing that fits into her lifestyle and be able to wear the clothes which suit that lifestyle.

“I checked out the Nikita homepage and read about the photoshoot competition. A friend of mine told me that she wanted to join the competition and so did I. We both ride BMX Flatland and so decided to take some action pictures together to send them to Nikita.

When I got the email that I was the European winner I was really stoked; going to Vancouver, meeting the team girls and Nikita crew, making pictures there…….WOW…YIPPPIE…. so great!!! I couldn’t imagine that before!

My trip started on the 30th of October - first to London and afterwards directly to Vancouver. I arrived there at 8:00pm. Tenaya picked me up and we drove directly to the restaurant to meet the Canadian girls. After eating and drinking two beers, we were ready to start the party night.

We went to a Halloween party to meet up with the team girls there. All of the girls were dressed up really funny in their Halloween costumes. Two of the girls came from Austria too. It was so funny, because I already heard a lot about Julia (Baumgartner), but I have never seen her before. We both met each other in Vancouver for the first time - so far away from home!

All the girls were very friendly to me and made me feel very welcome. After hours of dancing and partying, we made our way to the hotel to get at least a few hours of sleep.

Next morning, after 4 hours of sleep, I took a shower to get up. I was so tired and jet-lagged (no, I wasn’t drunk :)), that I was sure, I was still sleeping. However, this feeling ended after a few minutes of taking a shower, when the smoke detector started to ring because of the hot steam. At least this time I was wide awake!

At 7:30am we started to make our way to the Nikita house, which was based a little bit outside of Vancouver. It wasn’t that easy to find right away. There are so many 125A-streets around Vancouver, I am sure we saw all of them. I think it took us at least 2 hours to find the Nikita house, but anyway it was fun!

At the house we met the rest of the Nikita crew and then we got our make up done to look fresh again. We visited lots of amazing locations to take pictures. Sometimes it was hard to get the permission for the shoot. One of my favourite spots was the plastic-waste disposal site. The light and all the colours of the surrounding were amazing. They took some pictures of one of my outfits there.

During the two days of shooting, we had a little time to look through the streets and shops and so we got to take away some impressions of Vancouver city. It’s a beautiful place - so much different to Vienna. After we had taken all the pictures, we had a great dinner at the Nikita house. It was so much fun to hang out with all of the girls, eating, talking and of course drinking! Everybody was really relaxed and all of us enjoyed the last evening together, time passed by much too fast!

Afterwards Tenaya, Isabelle, Vero, Emily and I drove back to Vancouver down town. We went to different bars, partying the whole night. Of course, Emily and I were the last standing!!! :)

After all clubs closed we found a food store. There we had our last beer and a pizza. Luckily we found our way back home to the hotel. “Oh what a night”(*sing*) :)……it was great!

Thanks to Nikita for making this trip possible. I met so many nice people and brought a lot of amazing impressions back home to Austria.”

Emily Jeanne Pattison

Emily had been a fan of Nikita for years – both wearing and selling it. When she heard about the contest she grabbed her friend to take some photos around Toronto and hope that the pictures would give her a chance to model for the next FW08 catalogue.

“To my great surprise those photos landed me a plane ticket to Vancouver and an opportunity to model for Nikita!!

First on the agenda was meeting up with the rest of the Nikita crew. They were already on location, taking photos of Gabby. It was cool seeing the photoshoot first hand before we had to do it ourselves. We met all the girls (and guys) who were all amazing and very welcoming! They had been shooting for hours that day and with Halloween in the air the girls were pumped to get dressed up and paint the town red.

After checking into our beautiful hotel down town Vancouver it was time for a Rocking night out. So Isabelle and Tenaya started off the party with taking us contest winners out for dinner and drinks. At dinner the girls pulled out fun masks for all of us to wear at the Halloween party. Our costumes were only the beginning. People in Vancouver go all out on their costumes! That includes the Nikita team!! Their costumes were amazing….Maribeth dressed like Gabby wearing all her clothes, Julia’s home boy get up, Raf’s fat suit and Gabby’s doll costumes were all amazing!

Day 2 - The day had come. With a night of partying behind us it was time to get to work. We ventured to the Nikita house and got our make up on and outfits fitted. At this point the excitement really set in. We were about to do our first photoshoot!!

Andrea was up first, she got into her outfit and followed the crew to an old car wrecking yard. Well, little did we know the owner wasn’t a big fan of having girls posing around his wrecked cars, so she actually shot in this cool industrial parking lot….I ended up shooting my first outfit in front of this wall beside a broken down barn…It was such a rush shooting photos in front of a group of people. At first you feel kind of shy and you keep wondering if you’re doing a good job or making a fool of yourself, but once you get the hang of it, it’s so much fun!!

After our long day of work the crew took us out for another great Thai dinner. The girls are all so nice and funny, so needless to say dinner was a blast.

Day 3 started early, we went back to the Nikita house to get our make up on. Then it was out the door for the last day of shooting. Vero started it off by shooting on top of a parking garage that had a great view of the city. She also shot a mini commercial with Ben (Fee), walking down a spiral driveway of the parking garage. Ben has really creative visions when it comes the commercials and videos for Nikita. I’m excited to see how they all turn out.

I ended up shooting in front of an awesome blue wall. I felt a little more comfortable in front of the camera for the second outfit. After Vero and I had shot our second outfits and video parts we drove to a recycling plant to shoot Andrea’s second outfit. The recycling plant was awesome, there was such great colouring and made for a very cool background. No one else besides the model, stylist, photographer and make up were allowed in for the shoot…so I took some pics through the fence.

That wrapped up our last day of shooting…and almost our trip. To officially wrap it up we had a big team dinner with the whole crew at the Nikita house. It was sad saying goodbye to everyone; they are all such wonderful people, it made the trip feel like an adventure with old friends from all over the world.

I’ll cherish the experience and I thank you Nikita for everything!!”

Véronique St-Germain

Twenty four year-old Veronique decided to hold a photo session with her friend to take her entry pictures for the competition. She had trouble selected which of the pictures to submit but thought it through and chose the ones she felt best represented the vibe of the brand. Ultimately Véronique knew the final decision lay in hands of the judges.

“First of all, I would like to thank the Nikita team for giving me the opportunity to live a unique experience. During these four days, I met wonderful people. As soon as I arrived at Vancouver airport, I met Isabelle and Tenaya who I had a lot of fun with during the trip. Later during the day, I met the two other winners. Nice choice, judges!!!

I discovered during my trip in Vancouver, some excellent Thai restaurants where we ate with all the team after a big day of shooting. The shooting took place at different locations like a scrap yard, a recycling yard, a park, a parking lot, a farm etc...Truly, the new collection will be amazing! I adored the clothing I wore for the two photoshoots I did.

Thanks to Heida, to the photographer and to all the team behind the camera because you made me feel really good. I am very impatient to see the catalogue! Also, thanks to Ben (Fee)! I adored making the video with you and I can't wait to see it. And finally, thanks to Josh for his cooking talent. Each morning we went in the house rented by the Nikita team in Surrey. 'Really big house. There, we tasted the delicious meals prepared by Josh. And after we went to go and do the pictures. During the last evening of the trip we all ate together in this enormous house. It was amazing!!!!

I really had a lot of fun with you riders! You are all so funny!!! Good luck in your future competitions.

Thank you very much for everything!”