The Fashion designer Vasil Tabatadze was born on 2 March 1982 in Georgia. Vasil founded his eponymous label VASKA in 2015 and his debut appearance was during MBFW (Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Tbilisi) He had designed the women collection, from 2017 he made his first men collection. He studied at Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, faculty of architecture, and in the early years, he was working with Georgian fashion houses. “Being an architect helps me to perceive patterns and cubes more easily. I am starting to think about construction, before painting the sketch”

VASKA is a fashion label established in 2015 and based in Tbilisi, Georgia. His collections are accompanied by a poetic and romantic spirit. The brand is constantly trying to be elegant tailoring, with noble fabrics and with handmade details. As signature silhouettes are conformable, easy to wear, and couture-like sophistication.

Tamuna Karumidze is a multi-media artist born and based in Tbilisi who has dipped into the world of fashion designer under the label Tamra. Her work focuses on exploring marginalized urban tribes with one-of-a-kind garments that she can feature in her video works that have been screened at various International Film Festivals, Art Forums and Exhibitions, several in collaboration with Vogue.

In collaboration with an Artist and Skater DRO (Sandro Popkhadze) born and based in Tbilisi, Tamra Skateboards brand was born.
Since 2017 “Tamra Skateboards” has become a keystone for young generation’s quest for identity and source of unifying global identity.

About Tamra x Tamra Skateboards

The universe where TAMRA garments belong seems to lie in deserted dry plains of some dystopia, the city depicted in Bladerunner or Wu-Tang Clan’s New York. The Asian influences, at times bordering on exoticism, contribute to the mysterious appeal. Tamra is about interdisciplinary design, the relation between art, movies, music, skateboarding and fashion.

With a sporadic approach to the fashion week schedule, Tamra’s shows are few and far between: but when they do happen, they’re one of the most artistic, imaginative, and boundary-pushing events on the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week line-up. “I don’t want to create collections, I want to tell stories,” says the founder of the brand Tamuna Karumidze.
Beloved by the skateboarding community of Tbilisi, the skate-inspired streetwear label is wholly dedicated to a sustainable method of production and a distinct, DIY aesthetic – collections crafted from old duvets, and repurposed surplus fabrics and finishings, with blown-up, XXL silhouettes and garments designed without gender in mind.

The brand deals with three different realities, namely Tamra – a uniquely menswear brand, experimental and full of custom-made items, Tamra Skateboards – gender fluid, uniquely dedicated to the metropolitan skate world and Troublemakerz, an internationally popular model agency, proposing their talents for fashion shows like Balenciaga and Vetements. The first line, in any case, focuses on pure research, looking for fabrics of out of stock or of the rural Georgian tradition. “My goal is to create something beautiful by adapting what already exists according to my needs, giving a new life to these fabrics that would otherwise be lost and inserting the most street elements that belong to my creativity.” designer confides. Some of the garments, unfortunately, are not for sale as part of the research process; but if they were, they would be unique in Georgian creativity, both in terms of product and creative approach. An example of how to deal with sustainability in a different way, using it as a means and not as an end to describe a new aesthetic.

TATUNA is a Georgian label founded by designer Tatuna Nikolaishvili in early 2008. Tatuna graduated from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts with BA in Leather and Accessories.

Her first fashion show was held at the age of 16. From 2013, she started participating in international showrooms and displaying her brand globally.  Since then the brand has maintained worldwide sales and is distributed by different high-end retailers. She has become a must-see at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tbilisi. TATUNA collections were shown during Pitti Uomo and Paris Fashion Week Showrooms and mentioned in the most influential fashion media such as Vogue UK, Vogue Fr, Dust, Business of Fashion and many others.

TATUNA belongs to intelligent fashion and is known for its extraordinary pattern cuts, luxurious fabrics, minimalistic lines, and unusual forms. The brand has also always kept to its core features of geometrical and feminine silhouettes.

As an avid creative designer, Tatuna still contributes to every part of the artistic process. Every item is handmade in the Tbilisi workshop by a staff of 15 dedicated seamstresses.

Muzaradi, founded in 2017 by Ketevan Kherkheulidze soon became a staple fashion accessory for many across the world.

Muzaradi in Georgian means “warrior’s helmet” worn in battles by warriors in ancient Greek and Roman civilizations.

Muzaradi’s original classic hoodie remains the brand’s most popular and demanded product. They are comfortable, multifunctional, and unisex. They are instantly recognizable with a trademark logo depicting the founder’s family crest.

About Ketevan Kherkheulidze,

Founder and Creative Director

MUZARADI

Ketevan was born in the middle of the 80s, in Tbilisi, still under the Soviet regime, but with some glimmer of a better, free future already on the horizon. Born in a family of academics, intellectuals, literature, and poetry lovers and patriots of their country, Ketevan grew up surrounded by books, art, and night-long discussions of books, films, and music. Her upbringing and close contact with many prominent personalities of those times, shaped Ketevan’s personal priorities, taste, her style, her eye for something different, outstanding, colorful and eclectic.

She went on to pursue a career in journalism as she was a keen writer and felt the urge to express herself, but after stints on national Georgian television, she realized her heart was in creating something for the world of fashion. Several years later, Muzaradi was born, quite by chance, but with big ambitions. Influenced by Ketevan’s childhood and youth years, where art, film, music, and literature were organically and naturally merged to help her develop her unique style of clothing and inspired by Ketevan’s travels, Muzaradi, a brand that carries Ketevan’s family name’s “Kherkheulidze” crest, combines everything Ketevan stands for history, tradition, freedom, love, hope, respect, energy, color, future. The values that have shaped Ketevan.

This season Materiel welcomes new Creative Director Tiko Paksashvili. Graduate of Tbilisi Academy of Arts, Tiko is the creative force behind one of the strongest collections presented on Mercedes Benz Fashion Week.

Tiko’s unique approach juxtaposes structural tailoring with feminine forms. She brings back classic Materiel silhouettes and examines them through new lens with carefully selected color palette and unconventional details. Her first collection at Materiel represents an ongoing conversation of geometric and architectural forms with character of determined and ambitious woman.

I graduated from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Design. My graduation collection “It Wardrobe” won the international design contest Benext 2018 in Tbilisi. In 2019, I was among the finalists of the International Young Designers Contest (IYDC) in Kyiv. I made my debut at MBFWT S/S 19/20. In the first half of 2020, I became a junior designer at Materiel Tbilisi. Also, my brand, Levau Shvelidze, was featured in a short fashion film, “Comfort Zone” by Jordan Blady, shortlisted at Berlin Commercial 2020, ASVOFF 2020, and so on.

I believe that art is one of the most effective tools for changing people’s attitudes. On my part, I’m trying to peddle positive and harmonic changes around me. Through my work, I want to make conservative people aware of the other side of the city that they fear or hate and convert their hatred into understanding.  I always dedicate my work to fundamental human rights, and I address and challenge people to think about what really matters in life. I am a huge supporter of the current trend among fashion designers and major fashion houses of approaching fashion in more sustainable ways.

PRESS RELEASE

Levau Shvelidze SS 21 expends his surrealistic research, existing on the edge of reality and fantasy. His world is an attempt to create a new mythology, which is a soft symbiosis of modern counterculture and pre-Christian mythology. This time, he disintegrates and destroys the object of his research – humans. He locks them in an isolated, sterile place, he makes some experiments on them, and gets the dystopian picture that he seeks. Having lived through many cultural entanglements, they fall in the prehistoric universe, incomprehensible to them.

Both the video and the costumes are filled with controversies. The nonbinary genderless creatures are simultaneously carrying clichéd sexual contexts. Aestheticization is just conventionality that Levau Shvelidze mock. His clothes are grotesque manifestations of anti-fashion, which is not directed at any particular group of people. The garment itself is a character that suffocates, like a royal gown, and destroys those who wear it.

The solemn, carnival visuals are replaced by horror movie footage, laughter, and mad screams. The real feelings are so exaggerated that the viewer feels as if they are facing a virtual reality. This postmodernist approach is a pure deception from the beginning to the end that bases upon the demolition of rationality. Levau is not looking for the Aurea mediocrities; for him, it just does not exist. The world which is standing on the controversy and destruction is yet delicate and untouchable.

Established in 2018, Le Chic Radical is a Tbilisi based jewelry brand by creative duo Giorgi Wazowski and Nina Ivanovna.

Focusing on creating body-conscious jewelry, for aesthetically aware humans, designers draw inspiration from different cultures and eras.

The limited production jewelry is created by hand in a private studio, using solid sterling silver as main metal, incorporating pearls and semi precious stones.

In December 2019, the first Le Chic Radical flagship store was opened in Tbilisi, presenting permanent and seasonal collections.