Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tbilisi returns as a laboratory of identity, heritage and resistance

Strategically positioned between Europe and Asia, Tbilisi is a tapestry of historical layers. Soviet heritage, brutalist architecture and medieval churches coexist with a cultural scene linked to electronic music, independent art and new creative communities. This coexistence of references has made the Georgian capital a particularly interesting observatory for understanding how new cultural discourses emerge from hybrid and constantly transforming contexts.

For several years, the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week circuit operated as a global network of interconnected platforms, within which Tbilisi progressively built its own identity. International designers, including Spanish names like Dominnico and Célia Valverde, participated in the Georgian catwalk through creative exchange programmes that helped position the city on the industry's international radar.

After a four-year hiatus, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tbilisi returned from May 7 to 10, 2026, reaffirming the city's role as a meeting place between tradition and modernity. In this edition, fashion once again functioned not only as a commercial platform or aesthetic exercise but also as a tool for cultural reflection and a vehicle for articulating new creative narratives from the Caucasus region.

“I think this edition stood out both for the strength of the collections and the way the designers presented them; after such a long break, it felt like a real breath of fresh air for our city,” said Sofia Tchkonia, founder of the event. She also stressed the relevance of MBFW Tbilisi as an essential platform for local fashion that “plays a fundamental role in allowing Georgian designers to present their work from their own cultural context and project it to a global audience”.

The programme, held mainly at Factory Tbilisi, brought together catwalk shows, installations, conferences and round tables focused on technological innovation, sustainability and new production models.

Carpet weaving is one of the greatest expressions of the cultural heritage of the Caucasus, and it is carried out exclusively by women. At the main entrance of Factory Tbilisi, two generations of master weavers from Borchalo, in southern Georgia, worked live on a traditional loom as part of the installation by Galib Gassanoff, a finalist for the LVMH Prize 2026 and winner of the Zalando Visionary Award.

Born in Georgia and later trained in Milan, Gassanoff presented in Tbilisi an extension of Institution, the project he launched in 2024. With it, he has shifted his practice from ready-to-wear to research focused on Caucasian textile heritage. His work incorporates ancestral weaving techniques developed with rural communities and translates them into architecturally constructed silhouettes. This positions craftsmanship not as a decorative element, but as the conceptual structure of a collection that, on this occasion, was incredibly woven from shoelaces.

The decision to place the artisanal process at the centre of the exhibition experience also connected directly with the work of Samoseli Pirveli. The firm was founded in 2009 with the aspiration of seeing new generations wear traditional garments reinterpreted for modern life, an idea that runs through both the firm's work and much of the local creative scene.

From the men's chokha – a long, fitted wool coat – to silk dresses and hand-embroidered garments, the project has built a narrative based on the active preservation of local savoir faire and the reintroduction of historical codes into contemporary wardrobes.

Fashion as a political space

The catwalk transforms into a political space as the God Era collection unfolds. It is conceived as a direct response to the country's context, where creation coexists with “political pressure, social uncertainty and a constant sense of friction between openness and restriction”.

In the words of its founder, Nino Goderidze, creating from Tbilisi means “operating within a constant friction between freedom and restriction,” a condition in which cultural production cannot be detached from the political environment. “We are connected to global culture, while at the same time we are deeply rooted in a very specific local reality.”

This interpretation runs through a proposal that turns clothing into language and archive, incorporating references to censorship, migration and queer expression as structural axes. The idea of migration is not limited here to its geopolitical dimension. It shifts towards the psychological, as a persistent feeling in the younger generation who imagine the future from a place of uncertainty. In this context, models walk the catwalk saying: “I should leave, start a whole new life... maybe I should apply for asylum.”

In parallel, garments appear covered in “dust,” like those many women keep for “special” occasions, thus accumulating not only wear and tear but also time and meaning. The collection also incorporates a reflection on the mechanisms of silencing in the public space, visible in practices such as the systematic erasure of graffiti: “during demonstrations, people leave graffiti and slogans all over the city, and the next day they are often covered in black paint.”

Between heritage and future

Matériel

This interpretation of clothing as language and archive resonates with the work of Matériel, one of the most relevant firms in the contemporary Georgian scene, which has managed to consolidate a continuous evolution over the years. Considered the oldest fashion house in Georgia, still active in its current format after the fall of the USSR, its origins date back to 1949 under the name Materia.

In this edition, the firm presented a catwalk collaboration with Georgian designer Lasha Mdinaradze, founder of Gudu and winner of the Be Next Fashion Design Contest. Essential wardrobe pieces—such as the trench coat, the office shirt and denim—are reinterpreted through exaggerated silhouettes, architectural volumes and brightly coloured leather opera gloves, elements that elevate the ensemble and reinforce the expressive character of the proposal.

Lado Bokuchava

In this context, the figure of Lado Bokuchava, who was part of the Materiel design team for seven years, embodies a generation of designers who have moved from institutional structures to independent projects with international reach. His brand, initially focused on womenswear and progressively expanded towards a more inclusive approach, is articulated around the construction of identity through pattern and form.

This approach has allowed the firm to consolidate its presence in international markets through a network of distributors such as Ssense, Revolve and H.Lorenzo, among others, as well as having its own e-commerce platform with global shipping.

Bokuchava himself describes his practice as a form of personal and emotional fulfilment, where fashion becomes a language capable of translating intimate experiences into shared narratives. “For me, fashion is the strongest way to communicate my vision of the world and to transform personal experiences into something that people can feel and connect with.”

This materialises on the catwalk as a mix that feels as if 90s grunge had a romance with industrial futurism. It moves from the rigidity of glossy vinyl to the warmth of teddy-style faux fur coats, all tied together by a common thread of metal hardware and leather.

Emerging languages

In the streetwear segment of the contemporary Georgian scene, Reckless explores chaos, identity and a sense of social belonging through clothing. With a product line focused on unisex garments that include oversized sweatshirts, graphic T-shirts, trousers and accessories, its proposal is aimed at a Gen Z audience.

The creative and strategic direction of the project is led by a trio of young designers—Anka Koiava, Liza Kajrishvili and Masu Mtsariashvili. They are responsible for shaping the Half Sleeper collection, which delves into the unstable space between sleep and wakefulness, “where emotions intensify, and stability always seems provisional.” This articulates a psychological reading of youth, marked by the constant tension between escapism and confrontation.

Closing this journey through new narratives from the local scene, Syndrom proposes an exploration of the processes of change. These are understood as a terrain where vulnerability, tension and strength silently reconfigure identity. In this interpretation, femininity shifts towards an imperfect territory in constant reconstruction, deliberately moving away from the polished to embrace an aesthetic of continuous transformation, as if each garment had been salvaged and reassembled with a new intention. From the perspective of its founder, Tekla Gurgenidze, the project draws from Tbilisi's underground scene and introduces a poetic dimension to the practice. It articulates a visual language that oscillates between the tactile, the unfinished and the emotionally precise.

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