Oh and the peacock feathered suit was killer. See it, and our other favorite looks from backstage at the presentation, below.
Her SS24 collection consisted of a total 23 looks, all based on unique personality archetypes. From “the office flirt” to the “the publicist” to the “the podcaster” and everything in between, each model had a very important role to play whether at, or headed to, the office. Adorned with jewelry created by Martine Ali, each look exploded with a confidence that I’ve only ever seen New Yorkers bring.
Partnering with IMG and Salomon, Wade’s NYFW debut collection modified practicalities and turned them into trendsetting looks. The Commute was memorable and strong — another victory for Jane Wade.
You showed in February for the first time and just debuted your first show on the official NYFW line-up. How does it feel to see it come to fruition?
It feels amazing to know you can truly achieve anything you want if you dedicate yourself to it and work hard. All the hours I’ve dedicated to this craft and finally it’s paying off is a feeling I can’t quite describe, but it continues to inspire me to move forward. Truthfully what I’m most excited about is an opportunity to highlight all the collaborators that continue to contribute to my vision, like my Hair Artist, Skye Melena, who has developed all the key hair themes you've seen across my projects. We really push the envelope on POC hairstyles previously deemed unprofessional for the workplace; think braids with outlandish designs and Durags. Also Tre Crews who directs most of the visuals for my projects. All I can hope for is a pathway forward where this can continue to be financially sustainable for us all and I can continue to be in a position to lift people into these spaces with me.
You've nurtured such a beautiful community of talented people around you who are rooting for your accomplishments. Do you feel supported?
I often say our accomplishments lie in what we believe we’re capable of. Having people that push you and support you to try new and frightening endeavors is rare and essential to success. I’m lucky to have so many amazing mentors in my life cheering me on. Katie Simcox, who was a mentor of mine from my days at Wang through working at Danielle Frankel is a huge support and sounding board to me. She taught me everything I know about development and production. Ultimately her mentorship single handedly prepared me for this pathway to launching my own brand. Martine has also been a huge support to me across the entirety of my career from my time working in corporate design to launching the brand. It feels natural to work In collaboration with her every season in a moment to mutually leverage and establish our places in the New York market. Ultimately, working alongside her allows me to pay homage to my own professional development, & our love for handcraft and jewelry making backgrounds. How did the theme for this runway show come to you? I love the idea of juxtaposing your clothes with these timeless archetypes because it only heightens the appeal of the actual garments. A key theme in my work is dismantling what’s deemed professional in the workplace. “The Commute” was a kind of play on words of the transitions we have to make working in corporate structures to our personal identities when we clock in and out. This dichotomy of commuting your personality, and physically commuting to and from work lent a really fun foundation to build the collection theme and archetypes around. I’m always visiting my fantasy office within my work by dissecting who these people are and where they’re going. This also helps me stay focused in a commercial lens within the development timeline. We often link a character to someone in our tight circle because it immediately activates the attitude or energy of them. This season we had “The Publicist” who was an avatar of my own publicist Anthony Brooks. It’s a fun little inside joke we all get to share together while assigning this character a real personality. We also had “The Freelancer” cosplaying as me (holding a giant keychain with all the keys to the various studios I work within as a freelance designer) and “The Creative Hire” as the one and only Joe Van O, who came equipped with Joe's G-Shock and his own personal pair of Salomon Snowcross.
From the accessories to the art direction, all I can say is that you really know how to put on a show! Is there a movie that you think about when you look at your SS24 collection?
This season I built the concept from the ground up with my amazingly talented stylist, Joe Van O. We utilize fashion archive films a lot in our research and development process. We spent months developing the themes and character archetypes for this collection. At least once weekly we would order take-out and stay up until 3 am watching fashion films in preparation for this show, often including me sketching in the background and Joe compiling visual research for the lighting and creative treatments. Some of the films we watched were American Psycho, Kika, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover & Shanghai Express among many, many others.
I'm excited to see what you do next season. I know you'll be having a showroom in Paris at the end of the month as well right?
Yep, we’re going to be showing in Paris for Market at the end of September which will be my first time participating in a Paris Market for my own brand & a really exciting first step for me!! We have the calendar packed out so I’m hoping for a really successful 2nd wholesale season ahead.
How's all the prep going?
I believe well, yeah.
What's the creative process been like?
Typically I start with a larger concept and with this collection I probably got the idea of doing technicolor before the last one ended. So from there it's a lot of research and a lot of jotting down every idea that comes to mind, and then sort of weeding out the bad ones and developing the good ones. So I want to say around March or April is when I started actually sketching. Before it was just really rough sketches and I worked on that in New York, and then when I went to Paris, I developed the collection itself to kind of complete it and make it well-rounded and cohesive. So yeah, I guess that's been the design process. It's probably been the span of a year.
Was there a reason you did that finalization in Paris rather than New York?
Paris is really cool and fun (laughs).
Enough said. Were there any songs or albums you had on repeat during the design process?
Yeah, definitely. So there's a playlist that I'm doing with Spotify that coincides with this collection release, and within that it has a lot of the songs that inspired the process of not only this collection, but kind of just the road to getting here. There's a specific song called ‘Technicolor’ by Sunni Colón that I really liked a few years ago. It was one of my favorite songs, but one of the bases of the collection was that song. And that was one I always knew I wanted to include in the collection somehow. But yeah, other than that was listening to a lot of Snail Mail, anything by the Neptunes all the time. Yeah.
What's a typical day in the studio been looking like lately? If there is a typical day?
Oh, there's no typical day. I would say the most typical thing, I try to go to the cinema every day and there's this ice cream place called Morgenstern’s in the West Village, and I've been trying every single flavor and there's 55 flavors, so I try my best to go to Morgenstern's every single day. But other than that, it's just literally being on call and ready to go. I just got to my friend's place right now, and then my seamstress texted me like, “oh, you got to go to do a fitting now.” And then I thought I was doing casting. So it is just kind of bouncing around, being responsive and being able to be adaptable in the day because it's so unpredictable.
Is going to the cinema for inspiration or to relax and have time away from the design stuff?
A little bit of both. I try my best to not put on the filmmaker lens when I'm watching the movies, it might ruin the experience if I'm thinking too hard about the craft of it. But it's a little bit of both. It depends on what I'm watching. Yesterday I did a double feature with ‘Space Jam’ and ‘The Incredibles’, so that was just a really fun day. And then sometimes it's like I'm watching a film that requires much more attention and, I guess, thoughts.
You're a lot younger than a lot of the designers at Fashion Week. Do you feel that's a disadvantage or do you think maybe you're more tapped into the culture than a lot of these older designers?
I would say it is really interesting because the demographic that I come from or the community that I try to serve, they're not necessarily at the point where they're able to buy or really take part in fashion because of the monetary barrier. So it's a weird thing where I would love to appeal to my audience, but it's not that easy because that audience isn't necessarily the people who can sustain my business presently. So I would say that's a large disadvantage if that's who you want to cater to. But the advantage is that's exactly what all of these older brands are going for, and it's just something that comes very naturally to me because it's real. I’m actually 23, so I understand that consumer.
Another disadvantage is a lot of the gatekeepers of fashion, they're not sure if I'm going to continue my brand or quit in a year or something like that, even though I'm very dedicated. But that's just the way the business goes. So it takes a really long time to get regarded in the way that you would want regardless of what you're doing, because I'm so young and they see a lot of young designers end up not continuing what they're doing. So I would say that another disadvantage is time. Fashion is definitely an industry that values longevity.
What things do you think will be important for Advisry to maintain longevity in the industry?
Consistency, community. Just maintaining and fostering the energy we have around the brand and the community that we've built, and continuing to champion other artists and other people adjacent to us.
Do you think Black designers have a responsibility to push for change in the fashion industry? Or is that an unfair expectation?
I would say it's definitely unfair. However, I don't think anyone, if you're being creative, should be responsible to have a specific message. I think it should always just be whatever your personal expression is. And I feel like the people who feel that they have to say something, even when they don't necessarily have something to say, it feels a little forced. And I don't necessarily think that's what the community even needs is people discussing things that they don't have ideas on. So I would say it's unfair for that to be considered a responsibility.
I think the only thing artists should be responsible for is creating art that they love and want to actually create. But I understand that because it's such a big platform and it's a minority within that platform, it feels like that's what you should be doing. But I think it should always just be authentic expression. So if that's what you want to be doing, then awesome. And if not, then also awesome.
You've referred to this upcoming show as your ‘Graduate Collection’. How do you think it compares to previous seasons?
Over the past few collections I've been kind of developing a specific silhouette that I have for my man, and then my woman has been developing as the last collection was my first womenswear, and that was kind of an exploration in itself. So I think with this one, I'm continuing a lot of the design language that I had started, but also evolving it into a new realm that it hasn't yet been seen by anyone else. So I guess that's how the conversation connects is through silhouettes and then obviously specific motifs that I've done throughout my design career. So yeah, I guess it's just a continuation of the conversation, but trying to elevate the conversation itself.
Do you think Advisry would look different than it does now if you’d had a formal education in fashion design?
Oh yeah, definitely. I don't know if I would be doing this if I had a formal education when I first started. Obviously I came from a streetwear background, so I was designing t-shirts and hoodies and stuff like that.
If I had a formal education and I go to class and they're like, “okay guys, I want you guys to make a dress”, even though I'm making dresses today I feel like that would've dissuaded me from the fashion industry at large if I was forced to work on something that I didn't necessarily want to work on, or hadn’t gotten to the point of even being curious about by myself independently.
So I think formal education would not have served me well. Also, I do notice a lot of fashion students are more so working towards working for a larger company and building a portfolio to exist within another ecosystem. And I think one of the larger reasons why I've been able to take this leap is because I had no professors dissuading me saying, “It's impossible” or pretty much being like, “well, this is the easiest way to have a career in fashion.”
I feel you. I always had to make things I didn't want to and I think that's a big part of why I ended up moving away from design. I feel like it’s discouraging in a way.
Yeah, definitely. I couldn't imagine that. I had no idea I would ever want to make dresses until two or three years ago.
Until the idea comes freely and comes to you naturally.
Yeah.
Is there something you want to say with this show and collection? Is there a message you want to get across?
So the collection motif is technicolor, and within the collection it's kind of going through the history of cinema, of moving image through aesthetic technology. So when it starts, it's like black and white, and then technicolor is a very specific period within that canon. And that collection theme is epitomizing the growth of the brand itself. So I guess the message that I really want to say with it is, ‘this is Advisry and it's going to be here for a lot longer. It's going to be here for a very long time and this is what it'll look like.’
Is there anything you've learned about yourself through the design process?
I'm sure that answer will continue to unravel as this process goes along and as I'm able to take myself out of the equation and take a step back and look at the collection overall. So I can't name anything off the top of my head. I've been so in it, but I think the moment I'm able to step back and really analyze it or hear other opinions and things like that, I think there will be some revealing things. Or even maybe years down the line, I'll notice something and I'll be like, oh wait, that came from this.
Is film something you'll go into more in the future?
Oh, definitely. Definitely. That's one of my biggest goals is to start making feature films.
Is that something you’d take time off fashion to do?
Yeah, definitely. For sure.
What do you think the future holds for Advisry?
The overall goal is to exist within the fabric of culture. That makes up everything that we get inspired and influenced by. I just always wanted to contribute to that. So I guess the future of Advisry is just being able to directly impact and tap into culture.
Throughout this collection, Bravado and D’Amore touched on multiple themes in addition to their consistent luxury apparel – one being the Victorian era. The trademark arches made their debut on lace corsets and bell-shaped dresses with gloves and arm sleeves.
In addition to their iconic Bullet Bag, they debuted sleek bags that were cohesive with the corsets – with arches being connected by string and lace. ALTERATIONS CONSULTANTS also included a subtle, yet already very much talked-about cowboy boot. From the ankle-up, the boots are black leather embossed with the original WHO DECIDES WAR arch on the side. From the ankle down is a python skin-like pattern.
Paparazzi came in hot as the star-studded show saw attendees like Ice Spice, Central Cee, Teyana Taylor, the Woods family, Quavo, Swae Lee, Dave East, PJ Tucker, Fabolous, Lala Anthony, Jalen Green, Draya Michele, KidSuper, and many more.
As the brand continues to evolve, expect to continue to see the same maximalist motifs – but pay more attention to the little details like buttons, embellishments, dyes, laces, and finishings. While the brand has taken off on an insane scale since 2019, WHO DECIDES WAR is not stopping anytime soon.
What can we expect from SS24: ALTERATIONS CONSULTANTS?
Ev – I think the main thing for this season has been refinement for us. There’s a lot more emphasis on tailoring and subtle aspects, whereas a lot of people expect us to be extremely maximalist all the time. We’re trying to find a balance between the subtle details and our over-the-top embroidery, distressing, and so on.
Do you have any favorite pieces or looks from the new collection?
Téla – We’re showing a full offering of womenswear matching the men’s looks. I’m really excited about the nuanced corsetry that we’ve put together I guess is slightly trending but very different from what’s out there currently.
What’s your creative process and how do you guys work together?
Ev – For us, we always start with soul searching, which normally begins right at the end of every show. You always have some zany ideas right after, but we take a minute, recalibrate, connect with the world around us, and find the story that we’re trying to channel through the next couple of months through the medium of clothing. It’s just a lot of soul searching and finding a story that resonates with everyone that we can draw from organically and tell that story to everyone else.
How long did it take to make this collection?
Ev – We started ideating in March, which was right after our last show. Then we started sampling in late May.
Many athletes and celebrities wear WHO DECIDES WAR. How are you able to cater to luxury and everyday looks at the same time?
Ev – The whole motif of our brand is Americana seen through the lens of a person of color. That being said, that message is very multifaceted. We have super highly distressed, detailed garments and then there are more simple things like screen-printed garments.
Téla – Where we began, we were creating from a place that didn’t have any kind of foundation. We were creating from a place that would be considered the most raw version. I don’t want to say streetwear, I don’t feel like we’re streetwear, but we kind of started the same way that any streetwear would. It started out as ideas and putting one foot in front of the other, then refusing to compromise on our vision and making sure that it was something that was really succinct, though people were trying to get us to cater to these other things. We catered to our vision, which ended up being a culmination of everything that we’ve been seeing, which has been this high luxury perspective. Being able to be mentored by Virgil and being ushered into these crazy spaces like prepping for a Louis show…It’s creating from that and those experiences where it’s exactly how we cater to that wide spectrum because that’s what we are.
When you’re sketching out looks and ideas with your team, what does that collaboration mean to you when you’re all able to complete these collections?
Téla – It’s everything. Without our team, we wouldn’t be able to do this. Both of us know how to do almost everything, but there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team.’ We can’t act like we have the time for everything at all. So to be able to partner with people and trust what other people want to see this thing through just like us is an incredible feeling. It’s really something that you can’t thank people enough for. That kind of collaboration to be able to do that; It started with us just trusting in each other and knowing that we had something special and if it could be developed, really honed in on, and focused on. To have people come in and be just as excited about it as you is really something that’s indescribable.
You’re known for the stained glass arches. How do you maintain your themes while also being able to be more versatile every season?
Ev – I think it’s just finding new mediums to translate the stained glass window into. You’ll see in the collection that there’s a lot of hardware that utilizes the stained glass. It’s the same logo but presented in a different format. Every season we ask how we can take this to the next level. Certain things have been an ideation from last season. The rivets were something we really wanted to use last season, but we didn’t have time to really make it come to fruition. This season we were able to really hone in on it and fully use it across a wide array of garments. Also, if you go anywhere in the world, you’ll see stained glass in any type of building and the art always varies. So for us, what is the imagery or the feeling we’re trying to emit this season and how do we channel that through the stained glass?
Do you usually get most of your inspiration from experiences, creativity just coming to your head, or both?
Ev – It’s both. Traveling is a major source of inspiration and also music, film, whatever it may be, can just spark an interest. A lot of times it’s conversation as well with friends and their ideas or feedback that they would have for us. We take that and put it into action, but I think life is the biggest motivator for us for sure.
Do you ever get direct inspiration or feedback from certain artists or athletes?
Téla – When we started, rest in peace his soul, Pop Smoke, we were working with him a lot. He was a genuine family friend and to be able to talk to him about what he wanted as he was developing and growing at such an astronomical rate. It was so sick to connect with him about pieces that he would be excited to wear and then start creating those. The whole reason why we started creating more leisure wear, sweatpants, and terry; Developing those really heavily was because he really wanted things to travel in and have cool, chill things. They still had the same motifs and still were WHO DECIDES WAR. He was really where we started taking direction from. From there we are always so serious about it not being one person dictating everything. We love to have people offer feedback. We have a friend who’s a jeweler. It’s a totally different industry, but he comes in and still offers certain notes of refinement and looks at the overall just as another artist…I feel like it’s so much about artists connecting. It’s a real release of ego to grow this thing, and for us, it doesn’t matter where it comes from. If you have a good idea, it might go into play for real.
What do you think makes WHO DECIDES WAR unique compared to other brands?
Ev – It really started from a place where we were creating to fill a void in what we were seeing in the marketplace. Every season as we inspire more and more brands, we try to one-up that outdo ourselves. We never want to be predictable. I think this season, people are going to be maybe a bit surprised to see the amount of tailoring or refinement whereas they used to see a lot of maximalism. Of course, those details are still there, but how do we translate this in a space where we are growing up and not always looking to be wearing the loudest thing in the room? But still, we have to stay true to our customer who expects that from us. It’s really just outdoing ourselves every season.
What does the future of WHO DECIDES WAR look like?
Ev – We have a major collaboration slated for the end of this year or early 2024, so that should be fun when that rolls out. But I think it’s sustaining growth, doing things the right way, not oversaturating the brand, and still having it be something that is very unique and special. People feel a piece of home, and that they have something they felt we spent a lot of time on so they could appreciate it.
