For WHO DECIDES WAR SS25, Ev Bravado and Tela D’Amore embrace the Victorian.
On Saturday afternoon, I was amidst a crowd of beautiful and stylish Black creatives to view the WHO DECIDES WAR livestream party hosted by Complex. Attendees sported their best looks — holding monogram bags from Dooney & Bourke and Coach, wearing Comme des Garçons trench coats — and lounged with small designers, who toted their own streetwear labels. This conglomeration of brands emphasized the impact WHO DECIDES WAR’s co-founders, Ev Bravado and Tela D’Amore, bring to the culture of New York City. It highlighted the grassroots, entrepreneurial spirit of these creatives who work hard, day in and day out, to carve a place for themselves in a city that can move at incredible speed — where the next trend can be as easily forgotten as just as quickly it rose.
A staple in the hip-hop community worn by the likes of Ice Spice and Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, WDW aims to redefine Americana through the lens of people of color. You can’t get more American than with denim, which is precisely the brand's couture of choice in previous collections.
But the Spring 2025 collection took quite a turn from that. The theme of this season’s show was to explore “various elements of fundamental 19th-century fabrications and utilizing humble textiles that have now become heritage Americana fabrics,” revealed the designers in their show notes. Aptly set in Hall des Lumières, supermodel Alton Mason opened the runway in a creamy ruffled Victorian-esque knit sweater with bits of lace embedded through each layer.
The iconic recurring cathedral motif made an appearance but in a new, ingenious way. Look 2 features a single-buttoned, vanilla cardigan fashioned in such a way as to make the arches fall naturally above the midriff. Similarly in Look 12, an opulent, gradient, and subtly bedazzled men’s suit, cathedral windows are tastefully tailored on either side of the jacket. But the real stars of the men’s collection were the bomber leather jackets in collaboration with Pelle Pelle. The back of the jackets displayed portraits of historical Black American figures such as Barack Obama, Malcolm X., and Frederick Douglass.
The women’s collection didn’t disappoint, either. The designers took a dynamic approach to denim this season by ripping, destroying, and bleaching the fabric to create an elegant maxi skirt with a matching one-shoulder draped top. Leather black belts were bandaged together to create a beautiful strapless gown.
It pleases me to see the highbrow textiles of Victorian-era elites conveyed through a Black lens. The style itself is revered and continuously replicated in fashion and pop culture, but usually errs on the side of Eurocentricity. To have Black designers create a show tacking such an era is a fusion of two histories that have left an everlasting mark on American culture. 🌀 7.7
Niya Doyle is a forever East Coast-based writer, beauty buff, and cat lover.