Against the Odds, Georgian Brand Situationist Is Ready for Take Two
It’s just two days out from Situationist’s first official Paris Fashion Week show on Tuesday. But when we speak, brand founder Irakli Rusadze and his team are feeling more prepared than ever. “We’re so ahead of schedule,” says stylist and photographer Davit Giorgadze, a longtime collaborator of Rusadze’s and now art director of the brand. The Georgian label has been presenting in Paris since 2021, but took a pause last season to make some breathing room. “The collection is more organized. And we have literally everything styled out.”
Rusadze didn’t attend fashion school, but grew up learning from local Georgian artisans, before launching Situationist in 2016. The brand became known for its bold, architectural tailoring and outerwear, hand-produced by a team of women artisans. When we first met in his Tbilisi atelier, back in 2018, Rusadze had just dressed Bella Hadid, was building a wholesale roster that would ultimately include Net-a-Porter and Ssense, and had received his first Vogue Runway review. Back then, neither of us could have foreseen the pandemic, Georgia’s growing political unrest, a war in neighboring Ukraine, or the collapse of several multi-brand retailers, which altogether has slowed down progress for Situationist and Georgian fashion more broadly.
Now, Situationist has some wind in its sails. It secured an undisclosed private investor at the end of 2025, allowing Rusadze to revamp the business from top to bottom and swaying the Féderation de la Haute Couture et de la Mode to let Situationist join the official Paris show calendar for Fall/Winter 2026. (The brand has previously only shown off-schedule, as well as staging several on-schedule presentations.) The money will help the designer fund Tuesday’s show, relaunch his e-commerce site, invest in marketing and out-of-home advertising in Georgia, and develop new categories like bags and shoes. He even plans to open a flagship store in Tbilisi in May, in line with the next edition of Tbilisi Fashion Week.
Tbilisi Fashion Week is returning this summer, after a two-year pause. The break followed political unrest in response to the controversial “foreign agents” bill introduced by the ruling Georgian Dream party. The law requires NGOs and media outlets receiving foreign funding to register as foreign agents, and become subject to audits or even closures. The country also passed an anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda bill in 2024. Both resulted in mass protests in Tbilisi throughout 2024 and 2025, with many designers protesting on a regular basis, despite tear gas and other violent measures. When Georgia became a candidate to join the European Union in 2023 — which could help minimize shipping and import costs — the EU warned that the bills had hurt its chances.
