Photos by Skyy Wonders
The audience saw a polished runway. Here's what it took to get there.
By the time guests stepped into Skillshot Media in Buckhead on Sunday, September 27, the hard part was already done. FACES of Fashion 2026, "The Art of Influence," ran like the most natural evening in the world. It wasn't. It was months of planning and casting, and a lot of work behind a curtain most people never see.
The work started back in June, when Fulton County Arts & Culture held its first model call for the show. More than 40 models came out, many of them from Fulton County and the city of Atlanta. Arts & Culture Director David Manuel made a point that stuck: this wasn't just exposure. The county was giving models a platform to work and get paid, and treating everyone on the runway, behind the camera and in production as part of the show.
Holding all of it together was fashion show producer POSHE Productions and team. Their job was to turn ten designers, a youth runway, a live orchestra, visual artists, two celebrity hosts and an awards program into one show with one rhythm. Every designer had their own vision, their own models and their own timing. Somebody had to make it all line up, and POSHE did an amazing job.
The ten designers came ready: Cleah Couture, Roderick Lyndon, Octavius Terry, Farrierbell Couture, Aja King, Maria Olivares, Deondre Cumberbatch, Aura Globalwear, Bree Reid and D'Voncil Design House. Some were students from SCAD, Clark Atlanta University and Le Fashion Lab. Others were established names, including Octavius Terry, fresh off Project Runway. Cleah Murray and Terry had spent the weeks before doing the morning-show circuit on ATL Live and Good Day Atlanta, building buzz before a single look hit the runway.
The youngest people backstage may have had the most to carry. The girls of I'm Sew Fantastic, Kenya Freeman's youth sewing program, were opening the show in looks they had made with their own hands. When Manuel told the crowd that children are not just the future but the here and now, those girls were the proof, and they walked first.
Out front, "Beyond the Gates" stars Daphnée Duplaix and Keith D. Robinson kept the room moving. The Sinfo-Nia Youth Orchestra of Metropolitan Atlanta played live, and visual artists Sehar, Qinza, Dutchess Lattimore and Kasia Camon showed their own takes on the theme. Between it all, the county honored Jamie Tankersley of Neiman Marcus Atlanta for Fashion, Henry Cheng of the Johns Creek Symphony Orchestra and MYSO for Art, Jo Ann Haden-Miller of the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau for Culture, and Clark Atlanta's B.J. Arnett for Education. Dallas Austin received the 2026 Icon Award.
That's the thing about influence. The audience only sees the finished product. But what made this night the talk of Atlanta Fashion Week was everything they didn't see: the casting calls, the planning, the production and the team that made five years of FACES look effortless.