FACEs of Fashion 2026 Celebrates Atlanta’s Icons While Making Room for the Next Generation

There is an old saying that children are our future, but Fulton County Arts & Culture Director David Manuel opened FACEs of Fashion 2026 with a different perspective. He said he believes our children are not simply the future, they are the here and now. And then, almost as if to prove his point, the show opened with a beautiful elementary aged brown girl opened the show strutting down  the runway, followed by another and another.

The young girls were part of I’m Sew Fantastic, the youth sewing program founded by designer Kenya Freeman, and it was one of the most beautiful ways I have seen a fashion show open. These were not children being brought out as a cute addition to the program. They had learned to sew, learned to create and were now being given the opportunity to see their work and their creativity treated as something worthy of a real runway. Kenya Freeman deserves tremendous credit for the work she is doing teaching young girls a skill while also teaching them that what comes from their imagination deserves to be seen.

Under David Manuel’s leadership, Sunday evening’s FACEs of Fashion 2026: The Art of Influence at Skillshot Media in Buckhead was simply exquisite.  Everything about the evening felt beautifully done, from the production and presentation to the designers, models and people gathered in the room. But more than anything, there was a sense of purpose behind the glamour. You could enjoy the fashion and still understand that Fulton County Arts & Culture is making a much bigger statement about who creates culture in this city and who deserves access to the spaces where that culture is celebrated.

Immediately following Sew Fantastic, the runway became a beautiful representation of just how diverse fashion can be. There was everything from bridal gowns to couture to baby doll couture; dramatic looks and designs that reflected completely different perspectives. Some collections were elegant, some playful, some edgy and some made you look twice because they pushed the idea of what we traditionally expect fashion to be. That variety was one of the things I appreciated most because nobody was asked to fit into one Atlanta fashion box. Different designers, different ages, different bodies and different creative voices all shared the same runway.

Atlanta, specifically Fulton County, is filled with people from different backgrounds, generations and creative communities, and FACEs of Fashion reflected that richness instead of simply talking about it. Designers and emerging talent connected to SCAD, Le Fashion Lab and Clark Atlanta University were given space alongside more established creatives, creating an evening that felt like a real cross section of where Atlanta fashion is and where it is going. That matters because our creative community is too big, too talented and too diverse to be represented by one look or one definition of beauty.

The evening also celebrated the people who have already spent years influencing culture. B.J. Arnett, Clark Atlanta University Fashion and Arts instructor, was recognized for her commitment to educating and developing young creatives, which fit perfectly with everything we were seeing on the runway. Then there was Dallas Austin, this year’s FACEs Icon honoree, whose career is woven into Atlanta music history. When you think about the records he has created, the artists he has helped develop and the sound he helped export from Atlanta to the rest of the world, honoring him during an evening called The Art of Influence made perfect sense.

What I loved was that the evening never made influence feel like something reserved for the famous person in the room. Dallas Austin represents what influence can look like after decades of changing culture. B.J. Arnett represents the influence of an educator who pours into people who will become the next generation of creatives. Kenya Freeman represents the influence of somebody taking her talent and using it to teach young girls that they can become creators themselves. And those little girls walking that runway represented exactly what David Manuel said at the beginning of the night. 

That is why FACEs of Fashion feels like it is becoming something Atlanta can genuinely look forward to every year. Yes, we came to see beautiful clothes. Yes, we came to celebrate fashion, art and culture. But somewhere between the couture, the music, the honors and those little girls taking their first steps down that runway, the evening became about something bigger. It became a reminder of just how much creativity lives inside Fulton County and what can happen when somebody is willing to create a platform large enough for all of it.

David Manuel and the Fulton County Arts & Culture team created an event that can honor the legends without overlooking the people coming behind them. And Kenya Freeman gave us one of the most memorable images of the entire night by putting those young Black girls exactly where they belonged: kicking off the night. Because they are not simply our future, they are already here.