MKM stands for "Maniago Knife Makers”, the name of the company to which this brand belongs, the Italian Consorzio Coltellinai Maniago, headquartered in Maniago, northern Italy. Founded in 1960, it includes knives/scissors makers and the like. The MKM brand, already used in the past, has been graphically revisited and has been relaunched in order to create a new range of products, all made in Maniago, with projects developed in collaboration with local specialized manufacturers.
Considering the proximity and importance that mountains had and still have for the territory of Maniago, as a logo they chose an angular line representing the profile of the mountains behind Maniago with the slogan "climb the edge", a pun in which the idea of the mountain is assimilated to a knife’s "cutting edge".
MIKITA project - What is it?
In spring 2018 a new reality called MIKITA (Maniago Innovation Knives Italy) was born in the Maniago area. It is a business network composed of four of the main local producers of sport knives: Fox Knives, Lionsteel, Mercury and Viper.
These four companies together have about two hundred years of experience in the production of knives and one hundred employees.
This network is something unique in the world of cutlery – four major companies working together and sharing promotional, production and marketing activities.
The goal is to present themselves as a structured and consolidated reality without compromising the craft skills typical of local companies, which have been handed down for generations.
This collaboration will also increase the efficiency of individual plants and strengthen the sales network.
MIKITA decided to contact two world-class designers to design a new line of sporting knives, Lucas Burnley and Bob Terzuola.
The line consists in five models: four folding blade knives and a fixed blade one. To stress the connection with the mountains, their names are inspired by peaks or places of Maniago area: the knives are in fact called Arvenis, Clap, Fara, Jouf and Raut – they can be seen in the opening photo.
All these knives are characterized by the presence of two logos on them, one is the MKM logo and the other is the logo of the company that has made most of the knife production process, keeping in mind that the various phases have been shared among all the companies of the MIKITA network.
The first lot will be available on the market around the middle/end of October 2018.
The knives were already officially presented during the 2018 Blade Show in Atlanta, from June 1st to 3rd. The success was immediate.
They won the Knife Collaboration of the Year award, in the same ceremony in which Fox Knives (“Knife of the Year”), Lionsteel (“Manufacturing Quality Award ”) and Viper (“Kitchen Knife of the Year”) were individually awarded.
To date, MIKITA companies are already developing and working on a new line of sports knives, still under the MKM brand, to be presented in 2019.
