Georgia’s second ever fashion week (October 22 - 26) was held at the Rustaveli theatre, built by Alexander Mantashev circa 1879. Mantashev’s entrepreneurial nature, although grander in scale, resonated with the approach of the designers on show: “After a significant period of downfall in Georgian fashion,” states the event's press release, “the first fashion week marked the beginning of a new era…” Such optimism is also evident within the country's reigning political party. The current president Mikheil Saakashvili, came to power at the age of just 37, and has been appointing a younger generation of ministers in a strategy to build a new Georgia free from the legacy of Soviet domination.
With this in mind, the designers – some as young as 22 – seemed to adopt a forward-looking attitude with real gusto and confidence in their chosen career. They work as a team, attending each other’s shows, curious of their contemporaries' ideas and creations. Designers who stood out were Keti Chkhikvadze, Tata Nikolaishvili and Datuna Sulikashvili for an impressive theatrical show including a moving stage (Georgia’s elite were heard shouting “bravo! bravo!”) Most of the designers studied at the Arts Academy in Tbilisi, with some breaking out to London, Paris and Milan. The ideas-based emphasis of their studies has lead to a lack of knowledge relating to the promotion and selling of collections, but presumably this will come with time, and enforced by events such as the opening of Tbilisi’s first designer boutique (Flabour) only months ago, they’re heading in the right direction. There’s a long way to go before they contend on a worldwide level, but anyone looking for something undiscovered should make Georgian Fashion Week a high priority destination.
Text by Zoe Maughan
