For the record, Who Decides War is making a return to Paris with its fall 2024 menswear collection, not a debut. Ev Bravado and Téla D’Amore’s history in the City of Light is related to their friendship with Heron Preston and Virgil Abloh and dates back to 2018 when WDW did rhinestone workshops with Preston—predating all the bedazzled menswear this season. Paris is also where the first WDW designs walked down the runway as part of a collaboration with Off-White for spring 2019 and where the New Yorkers, heeding Abloh’s advice to “go where you want to be and see if it works out,” presented their Garden of Eden collection.
Having a star turn in Paris made it possible “to go back to New York and show so strongly from the start and have the support of the CFDA and everyone,” D’Amore said on a call. “It was cool that we were kids in fashion creating something cool in New York, but how crazy was it at that time to go [to Paris] and still get the same notoriety?”
You’ll notice that the models are a bit bruised and banged up in these look-book photos. D’Amore explained that she wanted to create a “luxury detention” vibe with this treatment; Bravado noted that it’s also tied to the Gianthood theme introduced with the first look. “The word to me has several meanings—one of them is the story of David and Goliath, which is a very special story that was taught to me as a child,” he said. “With us shifting to Paris, we kind of feel like we’re the underdog in the midst of all these giants, but we can still puff up our chest and fight with the greats.”
This is indeed a winning collection. It’s tighter in terms of point of view and aesthetics, and the craftsmanship is even further developed and elevated, as in Look 17, a leather jacket and leather pants with an intricate over-weave treatment, or the mummy-like pants in Look 11, which took about five hours to make. The distressed and burned jacket shown with them was overdyed and bleached about six times, which took even longer.
Bravado and D’Amore are among the many designers who have eliminated the noise of fashion shows to double down on their strengths. Bravado pointed out that the bondage looks, particularly the leather- and cloth-strap jacket in Look 14 that marries Mad Max with Holbein via punk, are where the duo started. “We had a separate line, and Téla had this crazy bondage jacket that we always wanted to revisit and reference, but we never really had the time to figure out the intricacies of doing it.” They put in the hours this season, and it shows.
It’s no secret that fashion has a time problem. It’s not just that things move fast; it’s the expectation of constant change. WDW made a smart decision to revisit and further themes introduced last season. The steel-grate technique used on a tailored suit for spring looks even more impactful in slim denim. You could say that controlled chaos defines a lot of what WDW does: all the carefully distressed pieces, the ripped and reconstructed jeans. The designers, who were introduced to working with technical gear through a collaboration with Add, came up with their own version of ski pants for fall, featuring tone-on-tone embroidery; they have punkish zip-front legs. Look 24 is a new, more refined take on the brand’s popular varsity jacket; the embroidery is inspired by cathedrals all over the world.
As New Yorkers abroad, the designers included a nod to America with a red, white, and blue finale look. The fabric, explained Bravado, was “painstakingly” developed in-house; each yard of the material took about four hours to make, and you’re looking at about four yards here. Coming from Paris, the salute is meant to connote “see you later for now” and “we’re still here with you.”
