I first visited Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week (MBFW) Tbilisi in 2018, and at the time, the city was full of creative optimism. Demna, a famous Georgian fashion export, was making waves at Balenciaga and Vetements, and plenty of eyes were on the capital, scouting for the next breakout star. Designers, drag performers, and club kids alike were collaborating on subversive, politically charged shows and events, culminating in an output that was an electric mélange of queer culture, performance, and bold resistance to the nation’s Soviet roots.

But MBFW Tbilisi has taken place intermittently over the years since. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the nation’s right-wing Georgian Dream party became increasingly conservative and pro-Russia, prompting political unrest and violent protests across the nation that both prevented fashion week and threatened the local creative community.

In 2024, the government then passed an anti-LGBTQ+ bill, which has deeply affected Georgia’s fashion industry, commercially and creatively. That same year, MBFW Tbilisi founder Sofia Tchkonia held Culture Days, a scaled-back take on fashion week allowing designers to express themselves and share their experiences with the world, via exhibitions, installations, and shows. The Fall/Winter 2026 edition of MBFW Tbilisi, which ran from May 7 to 11, was the first since May 2023.

“Over the last few years, while we were on pause, a few Georgian designers continued to grow globally despite difficult circumstances,” says Tchkonia, who founded MBFW Tbilisi in 2015. “But there was a clear need to bring back a strong platform that reconnects local talent with international buyers, press, and industry professionals. Relaunching MBFW Tbilisi is about supporting that momentum and creating opportunities for the next chapter of Georgian fashion.” To bring it to life, Tchkonia secured existing partners Mercedes-Benz and Coca-Cola, alongside newer organizations like Stenheim and recent hotel opening The Telegraph.

“Like many creative industries, fashion in Georgia has been affected by economic uncertainty, regional instability, and broader geopolitical tensions,” Tchkonia continues. “These realities impact production, logistics, investment, and international mobility. At the same time, the Georgian creative community has shown remarkable resilience. Designers have continued creating, adapting, and finding ways to stay internationally relevant despite difficult conditions. In many ways, those challenges have strengthened the authenticity and emotional depth of the work coming out of Georgia today.”

MBFW Tbilisi FW26 featured 11 shows and three exhibitions, alongside a rich program of concerts, cultural events, dinners, and of course the drag ball, now a Tbilisi institution. “There is really something special here in Georgia,” says Andam Prize founder Nathalie Dufour, who visited the capital for the third time this fashion week. “There’s lots of commerciality, the inspiration is very rich, [from] Saint Laurent to Balenciaga, but there’s something unique and dramatic about Georgian designers,” she says. “I’m sure it is not easy in terms of building an international career and finding buyers and press here. But the reason why they do what they do is so amazing.”

Against the odds, this season was a reminder that many designers are still scaling their businesses in Georgia, and rely on the fashion week platform to capture attention abroad.

Here are the key takeaways from the week.

Scaling slowly against the odds

Fortunately, some of the Georgian brands from the early days are still intact. Situationist just staged its debut show on the official Paris Fashion Week calendar, following investment, while Keburia, which has shown several times at London Fashion Week and has a strong China business, now has 12 global stockists. But as a result of international show costs, neither of these labels showed at MBFW Tbilisi this season. Meanwhile, some of the other designers I once loved in the city have sought refugee status across Europe, in response to violence and oppression (more on this later).

However, Tchkonia felt the demand for fashion week from a new cohort of Georgian designers, who were keen to either return or show for the first time and reach new audiences outside the country. “We felt a renewed energy within the creative community,” she says. “Relaunching MBFW Tbilisi now is about supporting that momentum and creating opportunities for the next chapter of Georgian fashion.”

“I haven’t participated in MBFW Tbilisi since 2020, so I’m so happy to be back, because we need to work together on it,” says Georgian designer Lado Bokuchava, who collaborated with London-based stylist Jamie-Maree Shipton on a high-octane show on Friday night. “We need to make it big, bigger, and bigger again. The whole industry in Georgia is connected, we have to do something bigger and bigger to reach the point we want to get to.”

Compared to many Tbilisi brands, Bokuchava is faring pretty well. He was not able to share revenues, but the brand currently has four stockists: Revolve, South Korean stores Opener and Empty, and Georgian boutique Ieri. He also does a significant portion of his business via online sales from his webshop, particularly in the US, so “even though the wholesale has been a challenge, retail sales have grown significantly. As well as attention around the brand,” he says. Despite having scaled his business without the fashion week, the label is still riding on it to gain further momentum and to reach new customers, buyers and press, Bokuchava says.

Aleksandre Akhalkatsishvili has also managed to maintain his business over recent years, but the brand has “lost many stockists”, the designer says. Now, it is stocked at just four stores: Fabric of Society, Opener, More is Love, and Ieri. “We are facing the same issues as many brands concerning wholesale, some of our major stockists went bankrupt or are facing financial problems,” Akhalkatsishvili explains. “To survive for a small brand such as Aleksandre Akhalkatsishvili is an everyday challenge. The return of MBFW Tbilisi is very important for both business and creative development. It’s crucial to show the brand to your audience.”

Continuing the fight

“Our existence is resistance,” said drag queen Otaraant Queer in her opening speech at the drag ball, which also took place on Friday night (performers are not named to protect their safety). “We are not going anywhere, no matter what they try to do to us,” she said, as cheering resonated from the hundreds of young people in the crowd. This spirit rings through the entire creative community of Tbilisi, who, whether queer themselves or allies, continue with their art even despite the dangers.

Designer Nino Goderidze launched her experimental label God Era in 2020 and made her MBFW Tbilisi debut for FW24. While the fashion week was dormant, Goderidze stayed creating, having sold collections via the Tranoï showroom in Paris and Tokyo, as well as LA-based fashion showroom and retailer Tata LA. However, the absence of the fashion week, coupled with rising conservatism in the country, has set her business back; for one, her long-time collaborator and stylist left the country this year.

“There have been many challenges, especially financial limitations, a lack of resources, and the overall political and social instability here,” Goderidze says. “But I think those experiences also shaped my work emotionally. They pushed me to become more experimental, more resourceful, and more honest in the way I approach design and storytelling. The aim is to continue building international visibility, connect with new collaborators and buyers, and keep expanding the work beyond Georgia.”

God Era’s FW26 collection, which was shown around a giant tongue sculpture — a nod to the censorship designers are facing in Tbilisi — featured fitted gray hoodies with graffiti crossed out across the front, in homage to the remnants of the protests. During demonstrations, people leave graffiti and slogans across the city, and by the next day, they are often covered with black paint, she explains. “When you walk through Tbilisi, you constantly see these erased surfaces,” Goderidze says. “For me, they became symbols of silenced voices. I translated this into the collection through hoodies printed with these covered marks. These themes are not abstract; they are part of everyday life and impossible to separate from creative work today.”

“This season feels more intentional and emotionally charged,” says Tchkonia. “There’s a stronger focus on storytelling, identity, and resilience. Many designers are responding to the realities of the world around them, so the collections feel very personal and culturally grounded. We’re also approaching the event with a more curated perspective — focusing not just on scale, but on quality, dialogue, and meaningful international engagement.”

A creative exodus

There has been a creative exodus from Georgia in the wake of rising conservatism, which was reflected in the MBFW Tbilisi shows this season. In God Era’s show, emigration was an important topic. “During the runway, models spoke as if they were talking to themselves, saying things like, ‘I should leave, start a completely new life… maybe I’ll apply for asylum,’” God Era’s Goderidze says. “It reflects how deeply this feeling exists within the younger generation.”

This was reflected in Bokuchava’s show, too. “The models are wearing and holding a lot of things, like they’re trying to escape something,” the designer said backstage. “With what’s going on in the world, and the mental state people have right now. You want to run.”

One of Tbilisi’s most-celebrated designers Akà Prodiàshvili, who boldly showed an EU flag dress in his FW25 show at Tbilisi Culture Days, fled the city just over a month ago, and is now based in Berlin. Georgian fashion has lost many important artists, like Prodiàshvili, who have infiltrated the industry through different mediums — designers, models, musicians, makeup artists, and stylists. This is felt backstage at shows and events, where familiar faces from previous show seasons are notably missing.

“One of the few spaces that truly allowed me to realize myself creatively was MBFW Tbilisi. But due to financial struggles and increasing stigma, finding sponsors became near impossible,” Prodiàshvili says. “Many brands and institutions no longer wanted to support LGBTQ+ or queer aesthetics. Government-funded opportunities became inaccessible to me; while other designers received support through showrooms and various cultural initiatives, both my brand and I were left to survive on our own. Still, a few strong visionary artists remain in the country, trying to convey the pulse of Georgia, even though it has already slowed.”

Many of the designers still in Tbilisi are now classed as foreign agents, following the passing of the foreign agents bill, or “Russian law”, in 2024. This means that, because they do more than 20% of their business abroad, the government can audit them at any time and has full permission to shutter their enterprises at will. Many of the brands in Georgia, particularly those who celebrate queer culture, face this threat daily. “My work was increasingly framed as ‘propaganda’ to the point where I feared legal consequences, including fines or even imprisonment,” Prodiàshvili says. “I received many threats, and ultimately, I made the decision to leave the country for my own safety.”

Prodiàshvili applauds the designers who remain in Tbilisi and continue to display powerful messages. As for himself, the designer is starting again, with plans to build his first capsule collection from Berlin in the months to come.

Exhibitions and cultural programming

Each show at MBFW Tbilisi takes place in its central venue, The Factory Tbilisi, which is owned by fashion week pioneer Tchkonia and has been refurbished to create more space for local creatives to work and exhibit.

LVMH Prize finalist Galib Gassanoff staged one such exhibition for his FW26 collection, which debuted at Milan Fashion Week. But this time, the designer brought some of the artisans he employed from a village two hours outside Tbilisi to demonstrate how they’d hand-woven the carpets in the collection. “It feels so special to be here in Tbilisi, I got my start here in 2013 when I won the [talent competition] BeNext aged 18. I won a scholarship in Milan and stayed there, so I haven’t done anything here since,” Gassanoff said in the exhibition space. Now, he’s on the BeNext jury, alongside Andam’s Dufour, Louis Vuitton’s creative talent acquisition head Millie Aoki de la Valette, and LVMH Prize 2023 winner Satoshi Kuwata of Setchu.

The 2026 winner of the BeNext contest was announced on Saturday, with Eva Gogotidze awarded €5,000 and a year of mentorship from Kuwata. Meanwhile, runners-up Tebrole Kemoklidze and Ekaterine Japaridze will each receive a summer scholarship to Milan universities Istituto Marangoni and Istituto Europeo di Design (IED), respectively.

Reckless is another Georgian brand that made its debut in Tbilisi three years ago. Launched in 2020 by Salome Gvelesiani, a former marketing director for the country’s biggest gas station business, the label’s concept was born from the loss of her teen son; Gvelesiani recruited — and still employs — designers her son’s age to express themselves creatively, showing what it’s like to be a youth in Georgia. The brand opened a store and cultivated a strong community of direct-to-consumer (DTC) customers, but things have slowly changed.

“Business-wise, it’s a bit difficult. The situation in Georgia is quite difficult now, and has been for three years. We closed our store,” says Masu Mtsariashvili, a third of the young trio that fronts the Reckless brand, now aged 25. “There were some difficulties, but in the end, we wanted to shift the brand online to [target] a global audience. The store was taking a lot of our energy,” adds co-designer Anka Koiava.

The return of MBFW Tbilisi is important to Reckless: it allows the label not only to show its collection, but also for its community of teens and young adults to tell the story of the brand and boost its global appeal. The show was more of a cultural happening than a traditional runway. It featured a performance from Georgian singer Lola, as well as a theatrical portion during which the lights went down and models appeared with torches, to show the youth searching through the darkness, the designers say. “For us, contacting international media and international platforms is very difficult. We want to show Georgian culture to the world,” says Mtsariashvili.

Commerciality in the face of crisis

While some Georgian designers, like God Era, favored more conceptual, metaphorical thinking for FW26, long-time Tbilisi designer Tamuna Ingorokva — who launched her eponymous label in 2002 — leaned toward commerciality this season, in an attempt to scale. The collection, aptly named Continuingorokva, is about ploughing on in times of struggle. Even as MBFW Tbilisi paused, Ingorokva managed to maintain a select number of stockists, including local Tbilisi store Ieri and Tata LA. “I became much more careful and selective about growth,” she says. “I’m focused on meaningful long-term partnerships over rapid expansion.”

Like many designers, she is hoping the fashion week has returned for good this time. “MBFW’s return is a manifestation of Tbilisi’s collective resilience,” Ingorokva says. “For the brand, it means reconnecting our work with global buyers and press. It’s a chance to bridge our internal evolution with the wider fashion community.”

For Tchkonia, the ambition is to build MBFW Tbilisi into a long-term cultural and industry platform that supports both established and emerging designers, where fashion intersects with art, music, technology, and social dialogue. “Internationally, we want to strengthen Tbilisi’s position as a creative capital with a unique voice. Locally, we hope to help develop infrastructure and opportunities that allow Georgian talent to thrive globally, while remaining connected to their roots,” she says. “We hope to return to a more regular schedule, potentially including a November edition. But right now, the focus is on rebuilding the platform thoughtfully and sustainably.”