IRAKLI RUSADZE

Interview by Filep Motwary

There is a particular kind of precision that emerges from places living in permanent transition. In Tbilisi, where past and future seem to negotiate with one another daily, fashion has evolved into something far more layered than industry alone. Here, clothing often functions as a form of cultural memory, political expression, and survival instinct simultaneously. Few designers embody that tension more compellingly than Irakli Rusadze, founder and creative director of Situationist — the Georgian label that, over the last decade, has become synonymous with razor-sharp tailoring, sculptural outerwear, and an austere sensuality that feels both deeply rooted in Eastern Europe and entirely contemporary.

When we speak, Rusadze has just returned from his first official runway debut on the show calendar at Paris Fashion Week, a milestone that arrives not only as personal recognition, but as a defining moment for Georgian fashion itself. It comes after years shaped by disruption: the pandemic that destabilized global luxury, the war in neighboring Ukraine that altered the geopolitical atmosphere of the entire region, internal political unrest in Georgia, and the collapse of several major multi-brand retailers that had once accelerated the rise of independent labels. For many emerging designers, those overlapping crises fractured momentum. Yet if there is one thing Rusadze appears to understand instinctively, it is how to continue building while conditions remain unstable.

At 34, he speaks softly and deliberately, choosing words with the same precision visible in his garments. There is little theatricality in the way he presents himself. Instead, one senses the composure of someone who has spent most of his life constructing — systems, silhouettes, teams, and slowly, over time, an entire fashion language.

Long before international attention arrived, before Bella Hadid wore Situationist and before retailers such as Net-a-Porter and Ssense began championing the label, Rusadze was already working independently in Georgia at the age of fifteen. While attending pattern-making classes, he simultaneously created bespoke garments for private clients, learning through practice rather than institutional structure. There was no traditional fashion school education, no inherited network, no direct entry point into the European luxury system. Instead, there were local artisans, technical rigor, and instinct.

“Starting that early, without a framework or institution to guide me, forced me to rely on instinct very quickly,” he says. “I didn’t have the option to question whether something was ‘correct’ in an academic sense. I had to understand through doing, through repetition, through mistakes.”

That process fundamentally shaped his relationship to discipline. Rusadze speaks about craftsmanship not romantically, but physically — as something learned through the hands, through hours spent trying to solve practical problems. Confidence, for him, did not emerge through validation or visibility, but through accumulated process.

“I don’t separate confidence from process,” he explains. “Confidence comes from knowing that I’ve built everything step by step myself and with my team, without shortcuts.”

Unlike many designers shaped by formal academies and inherited fashion systems, Rusadze’s education emerged directly through construction itself. Working closely with Georgian artisans gave him what he describes as a “direct relationship to craft”—an understanding of garments through labor, precision, and time. It also allowed him to avoid the uniformity that often accompanies traditional fashion education.

“I never learned to design through trends or references in a structured way,” he says. “Trusting my own vision became not a choice but a necessity.”

That independence remains visible in the DNA of Situationist today. The label’s tailoring possesses an almost architectural authority, but beneath the severity lies restraint rather than aggression. Rusadze’s silhouettes rarely feel decorative. Instead, they communicate through reduction—through removing excess until only tension and clarity remain.

Pattern-making, unsurprisingly, remains central to his practice. “Construction is not separate from expression,” he says. “It begins with research and development, allowing each piece to evolve from something grounded rather than arbitrary.”

In many ways, the philosophy of Situationist can be traced back to that refusal of arbitrariness. Rusadze often speaks about structure—not merely as a technical device, but as a broader conceptual principle. “Structure is about clarity,” he explains. “Removing what is unnecessary and focusing on what remains essential.”

The garments themselves seem to embody this idea. Sharp shoulders, elongated lines, and controlled proportions create silhouettes that command space quietly rather than loudly. They project presence without spectacle—a quality that feels deeply connected to the visual psychology of Georgia itself.

Georgia occupies a uniquely complex cultural position: geographically suspended between Europe and Asia, historically marked by Soviet occupation yet fiercely protective of its identity, balancing ancient traditions with accelerating modernity. In TbilisiGeorgia, this tension is visible everywhere—in the architecture, the music, the nightlife, the politics, and increasingly, in fashion.

Rusadze grew up surrounded by women who approached clothing instinctively and creatively. In 1990s Georgia, where resources were often limited but ingenuity abundant, many families made garments at home using pattern magazines and improvised interpretations of European fashion imagery.

“Fashion always felt very close to everyday life,” he recalls. “People adapted styles themselves. It was very hands-on and personal.”

At the same time, imported European magazines introduced another reality entirely—distant, glamorous, aspirational. Those fragmented glimpses of international fashion culture left a lasting impression. Yet Rusadze never became interested in imitation alone. What fascinates him instead is reinterpretation: the movement between cultural memory and contemporary expression.

“Georgia is constantly trying to reinvent itself while staying deeply connected to its roots,” he says. “That creates tension between generations and different ways of seeing things. But I think that tension is necessary.”

He rejects the idea of tradition as something fixed or untouchable. “No one really owns cultural heritage,” he says. “Everyone should be free to reinterpret it and make something of their own with it.”

That perspective perhaps explains why Situationist has resisted becoming trapped within the aesthetics often projected onto post-Soviet fashion. While international audiences frequently romanticize Eastern European severity or political melancholy, Rusadze approaches identity more fluidly. His work rarely references Georgian culture literally. Instead, its influence exists atmospherically — through discipline, proportion, emotional restraint, and the quiet tension between austerity and sensuality.

When Situationist launched in 2016, the Georgian fashion industry itself was still emerging internationally. Much of that visibility came through Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tbilisi and the work of its founder, Sofia Tchkonia, who helped create a bridge between local designers and the international industry. Yet there was no established roadmap for success.

“There wasn’t really a defined system to follow,” Rusadze says. “We were building as we went.”

Paradoxically, that lack of infrastructure became a source of freedom. Without fixed systems or expectations, Georgian designers were forced to define their own methods of communication, production, and presentation. “We were not just entering a system,” Rusadze says. “We were actively shaping it as it was forming.”

A major turning point came in 2017, when Situationist received an unexpected invitation from the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana to present during Milan Fashion Week as a guest designer. Suddenly, the intimate ecosystem of a Tbilisi atelier collided with the machinery of global luxury.

“That moment shifted my understanding of scale almost overnight,” he recalls. “Until then, everything existed very closely around the atelier. Suddenly, the work had to function within a much larger system—international visibility, buyers, and press.”

The transition also introduced a different level of responsibility. Fashion, particularly independent fashion, often romanticizes creative freedom while concealing the immense logistical pressure required to sustain growth. Rusadze became acutely aware that every decision extended beyond aesthetics alone—affecting teams, production, timelines, and livelihoods.

Yet unlike many emerging brands that rapidly outsourced production in pursuit of scale, Situationist deliberately chose a slower path. The atelier remained central. Much of the production continues to happen in Tbilisi through a collective of women artisans—seamstresses, knitters, and craftspeople whose contributions Rusadze considers inseparable from the identity of the brand.

“The work is never truly individual,” he says. “The garments only come into existence through collective effort.”

Every garment produced in the atelier carries a label signed by the seamstress who created it—a gesture that quietly disrupts fashion’s long-standing mythology of singular authorship. For Rusadze, authorship is naturally shared, evolving through constant dialogue between designer and maker.

“There are adjustments, interpretations, and refinements,” he explains. “The final piece is shaped collectively.”

That philosophy feels increasingly radical within a luxury industry still deeply invested in personality cults and individual genius narratives. Rusadze repeatedly redirects attention away from himself and toward systems, continuity, and community. “Success is never truly individual,” he says simply. “It’s built collectively.”

Perhaps nowhere did that collective resilience become more necessary than during the political upheaval that recently transformed Georgia’s cultural landscape. Over the past several years, protests against controversial “foreign agents” legislation and anti-LGBTQ+ policies deeply affected the country’s creative industries. Fashion weeks were postponed. Cultural institutions became politically charged spaces. For many Georgian creatives, silence no longer felt possible.

“It reinforced the idea that fashion does not exist in isolation,” Rusadze says. “It is shaped by the social and political environment around it.”

The instability affected not only the atmosphere surrounding the work but daily life itself. Yet rather than withdrawing, many designers continued creating while simultaneously protesting—fashion becoming both aesthetic practice and social testimony.

For Rusadze, resistance does not necessarily require overt political symbolism. “Continuing to create with discipline and consistency can already be a form of resistance,” he says.

That philosophy informed Situationist’s Fall/Winter 2025 collection, presented during one of the most difficult moments for both the country and the brand itself. “Stepping back was not an option,” he says. “We chose to push forward, working twice as difficult to make things happen.”

The collection became less about spectacle than endurance—sharpening the brand’s language while holding together past and future simultaneously. Beneath the precise tailoring lay an emotional undercurrent of resilience.

And perhaps this explains why Situationist’s garments feel so psychologically charged despite their restraint. Beneath the structure exists vulnerability; beneath the precision, tension. Rusadze himself describes his continuing fascination as “the balance between structure and ease, precision and freedom.”

That tension remains unresolved intentionally. Even now, after a decade of growth and increasing global visibility, he resists permanence. The move from presentations into the official runway calendar in Paris was not, in his eyes, a conclusion.

“It represents continuity more than recognition,” he says. “It confirms that the work can exist within a global context while remaining true to its identity.”

The timing feels especially significant because Situationist is simultaneously entering a new chapter operationally. Backed by private investment secured at the end of 2025, the brand is now expanding beyond its original structure: relaunching e-commerce, developing accessories, and opening its first flagship store in Tbilisi this May.

Yet even while discussing growth, Rusadze remains careful about language. Scale alone does not interest him. “Growth must be defined, not followed blindly,” he says. “The atelier stays at the center of the process.”

That insistence on protecting intimacy may partly stem from geography itself. Being based in Tbilisi rather than Paris or Milan creates both limitations and freedoms. “It feels like working inside a bubble,” he says. “That distance creates a certain calm around the atelier.”

The distance also allows him to maintain focus amid an industry increasingly consumed by acceleration and visibility metrics. While many contemporary brands struggle under the pressure of constant digital exposure, Situationist continues to operate with relative slowness and control.

Rusadze is particularly thoughtful when discussing continuity. For him, success is measured not through virality or celebrity visibility, but through whether the work can continue evolving without losing coherence. “The objective is not scale alone,” he says. “It’s to grow in a way that stays consistent with how we work and what we stand for.”

That philosophy extends to his broader vision for the future. He speaks about wanting to build stronger bridges between fashion, art, and design, both within Georgia and internationally. Collaboration interests him precisely because it destabilizes fixed systems and introduces new forms of dialogue.

Yet despite all the milestones—Paris, investment, expansion—Rusadze still speaks most passionately about evolution rather than arrival. He remains suspicious of becoming static.

“The challenge is to keep the work in movement,” he says. “To avoid becoming fixed or predictable.”

In an era when fashion often mistakes visibility for permanence, there is something unusually grounded about his perspective. Perhaps because Situationist was never built through spectacle alone, but through endurance: through ateliers, artisans, instability, experimentation, and years spent constructing systems where none previously existed.

As Georgian fashion enters a new phase of international recognition, Situationist occupies a singular position—both a participant in and witness to a cultural transformation still unfolding. The brand’s trajectory mirrors the emotional landscape of contemporary Georgia itself: disciplined yet restless, fragile yet defiant, rooted yet perpetually evolving.

And if the first decade of Situationist was about establishing a language, the next may be about testing how far that language can stretch without losing its essence.

“The first decade was about defining a voice,” Rusadze says near the end of our conversation. “What comes next is making sure that structure can evolve without losing its core.”

In Tbilisi, where reinvention has become both cultural condition and survival instinct, that may be the most sophisticated form of resilience of all.