COSTUME, FASHION AND CULTURAL IDENTITY: A History of Georgian Attire and Visual Culture
Human history can be read through the evolution of attire and costume. From ancient rituals to contemporary fashion, clothing has never been merely a means of covering the body—it has always expressed power, belief, social status, collective memory, and cultural identity.
Spanning three weeks, this intensive 10-day course explores diverse forms of dress: sacred vestments, everyday clothing, and modern fashion design. Special attention is given to the cultural history of Georgia, where a unique visual language took shape through the synthesis of Byzantine, Eastern, European, and local traditions.
Simon Machabeli
Artist & Costume DesignerSimon Machabeli is a Georgian artist whose multidisciplinary practice brings together theatre, film, and fashion. Educated at the Apolon Kutateladze Tbilisi State Academy of Art, Edinburgh College of Art, and Central Saint Martins (MA Womenswear, 2008), he has developed a diverse career across these fields. Rooted in Georgian culture and folklore, his recent work moves beyond seasonal fashion into highly personal, research-driven exhibitions defined by craft and meaning.
Target Group
The course is intended for students and emerging professionals in art, theatre, film, fashion, cultural studies, and the humanities who are interested in the relationship between visual culture, history, and creative practice.
Prerequisites
No prior professional experience is required. The course is open to students and emerging professionals with an interest in art, theatre, film, fashion, history, visual culture, and the humanities.
Objective
The objective of the course is to develop participants’ understanding of Georgian dress and visual culture within their broader historical, social, and political contexts, while encouraging independent research and creative practice.
Outcome
By the end of the course, participants will be able to independently analyze historical and visual material, conduct research into cultural memory, apply historical knowledge within contemporary creative practice, and present their own research-based or artistic project.
Learning Methods
The program combines lectures, discussions, visual analysis, film excerpts, work with historical sources, and independent research. Participants will examine the development of vestments, clothing, and costume from the ancient world to the present day; explore Georgia’s visual cultural heritage within its broader historical and political context; and engage with questions of the body, identity, power, gender, religion, and cultural memory.
Format
Lectures and practice
Topics
Nudity, shame, and erotics in mythological, religious, and artistic representations. Clothing as a means of concealing the body, transformation, and expressing social distinction; ritual, sacredness, and the symbolic language of dress.
The transformation of religious and class-based meanings of dress. Royal court culture, luxury, industrialization, and urban life—from historical costume to the emergence of the fashion system and the design profession.
Fashion against the backdrop of political shifts, wars, emancipation, and the sexual revolution. Leading designers, the evolution of haute couture, the dominance of prêt-à-porter, and the global fashion industry; new conceptualizations of the body, gender, and authorship, alongside the notion of “Post-Fashion.”
Historical foundations of Georgian dress in relation to the Classical, Early Christian, and Byzantine worlds. Garment form, drapery, ornament, and symbolism; secular and liturgical dress in archaeological material, reliefs, icons, and frescoes.
Dress of the royal court and various social strata; local traditions and cultural exchanges. Examining frescoes, miniatures, written sources, and surviving artifacts—what historical images reveal and how to read them. Part of the session will be dedicated to a midterm review of participants’ project ideas.
The annexation, abolition of Georgian kingdoms, and loss of church autocephaly as political and cultural turning points. Changes in aristocratic and urban attire, Europeanization, Romanticism, and Orientalism; visual manifestations of preserving and transforming Georgian identity.
Georgian Modernism and the cultural milieu of the independence period. The Tbilisi bohemia, visual arts, theater, and a new artistic vocabulary; dress and the body as expressions of freedom, self-expression, and new societal ideals.
Niko Pirosmani’s painting as an interpretation of Georgian everyday life, social archetypes, and attire. Silhouette, color, gesture, and festive rituals; conceptualizing “Georgian Style” and the afterlife of Pirosmani’s visual world in theater, cinema, and fashion.
Interactions between Georgian fashion, contemporary art, and global developments. Soviet and post-Soviet legacies, cultural memory, and identity; reinterpreting tradition in fashion, costume design, and performance art.
15–20 minute presentations of participants’ research or creative projects. Collaborative discussion of sources, concepts, and artistic decisions; course wrap-up and directions for further project development.
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