After establishing her apparel brand COLKINIKHA during her time as a student, designer and model Sakai Kate (2005 graduate from Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus) accomplished her CD debut on May 17th, 2006.
Her debut has come in the form of COLTEMONIKHA, a collaborative unit in partnership with Nakata Yasutaka, the head of music label contemode. He is known as a member and producer of the music unit capsule and is widely active as both a DJ and a producer for other artists, where he’s said to handle “everything but the vocals.”
On this occasion, we spoke to her about her work in the music field alongside Nakata and her experiences at SFC.
First, please tell us about your brand Made in COLKINIKHA. I started to set it up in my freshman year of college, or 2001, and released it to the public from 2002 onwards. The overall concept has never changed since the beginning. It’s based on the idea of a small island nation close to but independent from Russia. It’s full of forests, lakes, animals and, of course, humans. The clothes I design are based on the concept of what the inhabitants of that country would wear.
What drives you to really bring what you imagine and fantasize about to life? Probably because it’s just fun for me, I think. Nakata-kun, who I worked with on this project, and myself are very similar in that respect. He also has an incredibly strong image of what he does, so that intersection between “contemode is this kind of label” and “Colkinikha is this kind of country” serves as the concept for our unit.
I used to think that if Doraemon had a tool for recording ideas exactly as you imagine them in your mind, that’d be the one I really, really wanted to have. However, because that’s impossible, I have to use programs like Photoshop and Illustrator in order to turn them into reality. And for that purpose, I have to develop artistic and creative skills.
At first, I believed that creative work was something I had to do entirely by myself. This time, though, in working on a 50-50 basis with Nakata-kun, I started to feel that I don’t have to be the sole creator of what I make. I’ve recently realized that even if I don’t do everything myself, as long as I can state the balance and image I want clearly when I commission my designs to be produced, and if I can hold on to my concept and not forget my ideals, it’s all right to entrust the rest to someone else’s hands.
Lately, I’ve been involved in more meetings with others instead of only handmaking it all personally. For clothes, I might suggest “put a little more gathers in here” or “increase the number of buttons and make them smaller.” In my music with Nakata-kun, I ask for things like “add stars” (laughs), which I use to mean high-pitched tones.
My driving force is… I’m not exactly sure how to describe it. What I mean when I say I want to express something is I want to show the pictures I have in my head to others, and see them for myself. I can’t record those and play them back exactly as-is, so I ask myself how I can take the fragments of that and insert them into people’s lives somehow instead. If possible, I thought it’d be better to give my art a more physical form in order for it to reach a greater number of people’s hands. Filling people’s lives with my creations through fashion is more interesting than illustrating, so I chose to produce clothing ahead of anything else. I released this CD under the name COLTEMONIKHA because I considered that all the more effective and meaningful.
Next, I’m thinking of writing and illustrating a picture book set in Colkinikha. I’ve written a rough draft already, so I’d like to look into when I could release that inbetween my upcoming exhibitions.
What gives you that desire to bring those things you imagine into others’ lives? Well, I don’t know where it comes from specifically, but I think I just always had some conviction that “this is what I do best.” Even if not for COLKINIKHA, I imagine I probably would’ve taken on some kind of creative job. Or even if I ended up in business, I might’ve done something like COLKINIKHA down the road.
Is there a common message you hope to express throughout all of your works? Something nostalgic with a story to it, like a picture book, I guess. If someone asked me to design a greeting card, for instance, I think I’d still sneak a story into it somewhere. I think the common factor throughout everything I create is the scope to envision stories within a similar space and time.
What sort of music do you normally listen to? Songs like this [referring to the hip-hop playing in the room] (laughs). A lot of people come to my management agency, and I put the songs on the CDs they bring on my iPod. So my iPod has everything from THE BLUE HEARTS to THA BLUE HERB (laughs). I don’t buy very many CDs on my own.
Had you wanted to pursue music for a long time? I did think about it. Up to now, several people besides Nakata-kun had even offered to produce a CD with me in the past. But the timing was never right. Ultimately, the CD I put out with Nakata-kun ended up being my earliest work in music. I’d always had some vague idea of doing it eventually, so even if I never met Nakata-kun, I might’ve still gotten involved in music activities.
There was also a time when I recorded songs every Tuesday with one of my seniors at SFC. We recorded and held on to five or six tracks, but that ended when we both graduated. Someday I’d like to find a way to release those as well. I’ve actually done music with a lot of people before this. Even in high school, I worked on it for our school arts festival. As a matter of fact, I had around 120 songs saved up. Maybe fifteen of those are left over in data form now.
If I can manage to find the right time for it, I’d like to collaborate with many more people in the future. I’ll basically keep the stuff that’s charging or being inputted into my usual routine every day inside my own internal storehouse and take it out when the chance arrives, so to speak.
Out of your experiences at SFC, is there anything which you feel led you to where you are now or made you grateful to have gone to this university? My COLKINIKHA homepage was made by someone who went to SFC. He’s the same person I mentioned before who I recorded music with. We’re still in close contact now, and he updates my homepage for me. He makes things that are simple and tasteful. Like if I made a flower, he’d make a vase. We have a very good balance between us. He understands me and vice versa. I think meeting someone like him was significant.