- Indigenous designers from Brazilian cooperative MI.Moda Indigena will have their creations presented in New York on 11 September 2026, during New York Fashion Week, as part of the Best of Fashion Awards.
- Fashionabc and Dinis Guarda power the presentation of indigenous creations to New York with its advanced AI.DNA technology for an AI fashion show.
- Brazilian model, entrepreneur and women’s rights activist Luiza Brunet will also participate as a special guest.
Rather than replacing the designers or their creative process, AI will be used as part of the visual presentation of the collections, including digital production, casting and creative direction.
The technology behind the presentation is being developed with Fashionabc, led by CEO Dinis Guarda, in partnership with the Best of Fashion Awards, FashionForward and MI.Moda Indigena.
Best of Fashion Awards 2026
The Best of Fashion Awards (BOFA) is an international fashion show and competition designed to recognise emerging designers, fashion students, models, and creative talent within a professionally structured global platform. Taking place in New York on 11 September 2026 at 6:00 PM, during the New York Fashion Week period, the event brings forth an AI runway presentation of the indigenous fashion designs from Brazil with industry evaluation, an awards ceremony, professional content creation, networking opportunities, and worldwide live broadcasting.
The event builds on the international experience of co-founders Rafael dos Santos and Gislaine Balzano, who have spent seven years producing over 500 events across fashion, culture, and awards.
Gislaine’s fashion experience includes bringing more than 60 brands to international runways, coordinating over 200 models, and directing more than 700 looks during international fashion weeks. The wider operation has also mobilised more than 500 professionals across international teams.
“Ancestral techniques and generative technology can go together. Seeing MI.Moda Indígena’s fabrics come to life through fashionabc’s artificial intelligence was one of the most innovative projects I’ve ever worked on.”” says fashion director Gislaine Balzano, who is involved in the project.
“Fashion Week is a spectacle, but it rarely shows ancestry in dialogue with artificial intelligence,” says Rafael dos Santos. “This year, we built a stage where fashion designers from Amazon and judges who work for some of the world’s most renowned brands could meet through technology.”
BOFA 2026 combines tech with fashion in an unprecedented way, bringing the traditional fashion from the remotest talents to runway participation. The Amazonian indigenous designers have an opportunity to showcase their work during one of the world’s most important periods on the international fashion calendar, supported by full runway production, professional photography and video, a worldwide live broadcast, and networking opportunities. Every participant receives a certificate of participation, while winners and runners-up are recognised with trophies or medals, extending the experience beyond the runway into a formal record of achievement.
The competition categories include: Best Sustainable Brand, Best Evening Wear, Best Casual Wear, Best Creative Design, and People’s Choice. Its curation process follows a defined pathway: prospective participants select a category, submit an application, undergo an approval process, showcase their collection if selected, and await the competition results.
Amazonian Indigenous Fashion for International Audience
The initiative creates a new route for Indigenous designers from the Brazilian Amazon to present their work beyond local and national markets.
MI.Moda Indigena works directly with Indigenous communities, supporting designers and makers through training in areas including fashion design, pattern cutting, sewing, tailoring and entrepreneurship.
Its work connects economic opportunity with the preservation of traditional knowledge, while also supporting women-led participation and more responsible approaches to fashion production.
For Indigenous fashion, international visibility is not only a question of exposure. It also raises wider questions about authorship, cultural ownership and who benefits when traditional design languages enter global fashion markets.
The New York presentation places those questions alongside another major transformation in the industry: the increasing use of generative AI.
Fashionabc powering the AI fashion show
Fashionabc is a fashion technology platform designed to support the digital transformation of the global fashion ecosystem through a combination of a digital directory, search engine, marketplace, and technology-driven industry solutions. By integrating technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed ledger technology (DLT/blockchain), fashionabc aims to create a more transparent, trusted, inclusive, and meritocratic fashion ecosystem. Its wider vision encompasses circular economy principles and solutions that respond to the evolving priorities of consumers and industry stakeholders, connecting fashion, technology, sustainability, identity, and innovation within a unified global platform.
With the AI fashion show, Fashionabc showcases how artificial intelligence can extend the reach of designers without necessarily removing the human creator from the process.
“The wider fashion industry is currently moving rapidly towards AI-supported production. Generative systems can create campaign imagery, digital models, virtual environments and multiple visual interpretations of garments at a speed that would have been impossible only a few years ago.
Yet the technology also makes attribution increasingly important.
When AI can generate almost any aesthetic on demand, identifying the original designer, community and cultural source behind a creation becomes more — not less — valuable.
We are proud to partner with BOFA 2026 New York edition that brings forth Indigenous fashion, demonstrating a different model: one in which AI increases access and visibility while authorship remains firmly connected to the people who created the work.” – says Dinis Guarda, global thought leader, author, and CEO and founder ztudium Group, and platforms Fashionabc, Citiesabc.com, Businessabc.net, Wisdomia.ai.
Luiza Brunet Joins the New York Programme
Luiza Botelho Brunet, Brazilian businesswoman, actress, activist, speaker and model, is an official ambassador of the Best of Brazil Global Awards. The main ceremony will take place the following day, 12 September, on Liberty Island in New York.
Her participation adds another Brazilian cultural figure to a programme intended to bring greater international attention to emerging and underrepresented creative talent.
Fashion, Representation and Responsible Technology
MI.Moda Indigena’s activities extend beyond fashion presentation.
Its programmes support professional education and entrepreneurship within Amazonian communities while contributing to goals connected with education, gender equality, economic opportunity, reduced inequality and responsible production.
The organisation’s work aligns with several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, including quality education, gender equality, decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities, and responsible consumption and production.
The New York showcase consequently represents more than another experiment with AI-generated fashion imagery.
It brings together two major questions facing the future of fashion: how global platforms can give Indigenous creators greater visibility, and how artificial intelligence can be used without separating cultural expression from its authorship.
As fashion increasingly moves between physical collections, virtual environments and AI-generated media, the industry will need clearer answers to both.
For the Amazonian designers participating in the Best of Fashion Awards, the New York presentation offers one possible direction: technology not as the creator of culture, but as a platform through which its creators can reach new audiences.
The Best of Fashion Awards takes place on 11 September 2026 in New York during New York Fashion Week.
