After a four-year hiatus from staging major First Nations runway events, FNFD (First Nations Fashion + Design) will make a historic return to Sydney to present Reclamation.
Reclamation, an independent, First Nations-led platform created by and for Mob, asserts sovereign control over representation, narrative, and industry infrastructure. The runway presentation will highlight the power and agency of First Nations communities, inspiring pride and respect in the audience.
FNFD will present Reclamation on Sunday, May 10, at Artspace Woolloomooloo.
The runway is set to be a powerful act of cultural authority, bringing together six First Nations designers and 24 Indigenous models to showcase storytelling as a projection of modernity, emphasising its cultural significance beyond fashion.
Following its international tour, Reclamation will include the highly anticipated return of Grace Lillian Lee's debut couture collection, The Guardians. Reclamation will be both a celebration and a statement, an assertion of space, sovereignty, and creative authority within the Australian fashion landscape.
The program also includes exclusive costume works from Grace Lillian Lee's collaboration with Flora, presented by The Australian Ballet in partnership with Bangarra Dance Theatre, recontextualised here within a First Nations-led framework.
"Reclamation is not about visibility within existing systems," Lee said.
"It is about dismantling those systems and rebuilding them on our terms. Our culture is not a trend, a reference point, or a resource. It is sovereign."
Reclamation establishes a new model in which First Nations creatives define value, set standards, and build infrastructure accountable to community, empowering Indigenous voices to reshape the industry from within.
The runway is the first step in a three-year strategy to build a permanent, independent fashion platform, owned and led by First Nations people, designed to outlast the systems it challenges.
Since its inception, FNFD (First Nations Fashion + Design) has operated as a critical intervention within the Australian fashion industry, emerging in response to decades of systemic exclusion, underrepresentation, and cultural appropriation of First Nations design.
Initially founded by Grace Lillian Lee, FNFD has consistently challenged the industry's gatekeeping structures by creating independent platforms that centre First Nations designers, models, and creative practitioners.
From early runway activations and workshops to national showcases aligned with key cultural moments, FNFD has reframed First Nations fashion as a space of cultural authority, not cultural reference, shifting the narrative from inclusion to ownership.
The evening will be a mix of industry and community, with a limited number of tickets available for purchase on Eventbrite from Tuesday, 21 April 2026.
For more fashion, beauty and lifestyle news, subscribe for free to the Style Up newsletter.
