Hypebeast goes behind-the-scenes for the label’s new custom collection with Intuit TurboTax.
Is Culture Told Through Fragments
Art may dominate the runway, but strategy and numbers power the business.
Intuit TurboTax’s “Behind the Design” series captures the art of business, spotlighting how modern financial tools empower small business owners to harness their craft and creativity. Celebrating the grand opening of TurboTax’s SoHo flagship, the brand partnered with fashion label Who Decides War to create a limited-edition capsule. Hypebeast met up with designers Everard Best (Ev Bravado) and Téla D’Amore at their studio in the Garment District for a close look into the creative ideation behind their limited-edition collection.
Like its deconstructed denim, Who Decides War’s brand story is fragmented. Everard Best (known by his moniker Ev Bravado) and Téla D’Amore respectively developed a love for garment construction out of necessity, drawing from familial training and creative instincts to fill a hole in the market. Their circles would cross paths in the Lower East Side, with Best looking to establish a more solidified brand vision for his Ev Bravado line. Together, they founded Who Decides War in 2018, and their first collection, debuting their blueprint for elevated denim, in 2019.
Americana can mean many things.
In New York City, where D’Amore and Best have planted generational seeds, it’s the style that permeates through Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. It’s the electricity of the inner city and youth culture. “We take our POV from first-generation experiences, and take these themes of heavy leather and denim work, the iconography of Western culture, and create our version of it told through our experiences as Americans,” shares Best. “I’m from Boston and come from a military background, so Americana, when we think of these images of the flag, the eagle, the spirit of America, we are deconstructing its beauty,” adds D’Amore. “In a sense, the lack of refinement is not romanticizing someone being between a rock and a hard place. It’s celebrating how our stories can be fractured and yet inspirational artifacts that reflect our communities,” she says.
The TurboTax x Who Decides War fashion capsule includes a bespoke racer jacket in a water-resistant vinyl fabric with contrast watermelon graphic flame elements applied to the sleeve, a denim trucker jacket with distressed topstitching, an oversized hoodie and a stylized tote bag on the accessories front. To develop the pieces, the duo immediately hit the ground running with pattern drafts and image moodboards that unified both brands’ visions. Once designs were confirmed, D’amore and Best sourced fabrics working with local businesses in NYC to secure distinct hardware and materials that would amplify the garments.
With D’Amore’s expertise in sewing and embroidery and Best’s penchant for statement-making tailoring, the label has skyrocketed into a luxury project celebrated for intricate patchwork denim, deconstructed garments, and textured apparel. Piecing together POC, experiences and stories, the label remains forever in motion, attuned to the future. For this capsule, the duo landed on three hero products to demonstrate their bandwidth as designers, anchoring to the theme of Americana as a guiding point.
Evolving Who Decides War from a direct-to-consumer business model focused on one-of-one releases to developing full-fledged wholesale and retail revenue pipelines was a journey defined by trial and error. “We worked out of bedrooms, apartments, whatever was most convenient for us before we jumped into getting a proper art studio. We’d go without, if it meant we had just enough money to keep the lights on, pay vendors, and square up actual debts,” shares D’amore.
The designer recalls a time in her professional development when she’d sneak off between her shifts at American Apparel to read Mary Gehlhar’s The Fashion Designer Survival Guide (with a forward penned by the iconic Diane von Furstenberg) at McNally Jackson in SoHo. “I couldn’t afford to buy all the books I wanted, but this book had every last detail to set yourself up as a business: an escrow, to an LLC, to linesheets. The best thing you can do is research, so you know how to safeguard yourself. Safeguard your time, energy and resources — for me, it’s the biggest building block of financial literacy and freedom. Do your research. Dive into it with the mentality that you’re protecting what you’re building.”
“The best thing you can do is research”
“Best. It’s a matter of knowing a product’s lifespan and when an idea has spent its value.”
“when something becomes oversaturated, it’s time to reinvent and move forward”
With each collection, Who Decides War learned to scale its operations to accommodate consumer demand and the marketplace’s reflexive nature. “If a product isn’t performing well, if we see something not gaining traction, we react with common sense. We understand that so much of this business is knowing where you are on the bell curve. In fashion, when something becomes oversaturated, it’s time to reinvent and move forward,” shares Best. It’s a matter of knowing a product’s lifespan and when an idea has spent its value.
When it comes to the nitty-gritty of managing creativity and profit, D’amore mentions that it boils down to feeding the machine. “Pay attention to the product. Have you created the best product that you can put out? We call it live sampling when we put something out. People will tell you quickly if you’ve made something [substantial] and if it speaks to your community.” But for D’amore and Best, this output is rooted in authenticity. Who Decides War is a love letter to diaspora, a collective energy pouring back into the stories that stitch together a larger cultural tapestry.
In collaboration with TurboTax, Who Decides War joined Brooklyn-based designer Kody Phillips for a workshop and panel event, where the designers debuted their collections and shared their business acumen with young professionals also looking to make a mark in fashion.
Read more about the latest collection from Who Decides War and stay tuned on Hypebeast to see more highlights from the label’s unique collab with Intuit TurboTax.
