What does the acronym AWGE—pronounced “awg”—really mean? Since founding this mysterious creative collective in 2014, A$AP Rocky has steadfastly refused to spill the beans. The AWGE website even lays out the ground rules thus: “#1 Never Reveal What AWGE Means. #2 When in doubt, always refer to rule #1.” “Don’t say!” he reportedly shouted out in court last year when a fellow member was asked to drop the info.

So of course when he met Vogue shortly before last night’s fourth AWGE fashion show at the Accor Arena in Paris, I had to try and weasel the truth out of him. My proposal was this: if I could guess the name in three attempts, would he confirm it? He agreed.

“I should use that,” he said to guess number one: ‘Avant-Garde Without Explanation.’ To guess number two—‘All We Generate Evolves’—he observed: “Damn, that’s fire.” The reactions were positive, but not conclusive, so for my final I pulled out the big gun: ‘Anna Wintour, Genius Extraordinaire.’ Rocky laughed, indicated I was off the money once again, then added: “Well, I’m mad at Anna. I really love her, but she’s missing the show.

My heart is broken. I really wanted her to see this because I knew she would have been proud of me.” He seemed slightly less heartbroken when I confessed I was skipping it too, in order to review Acne Studios: “So you’re going to see the Swedes,” he said, shaking his head in mock chagrin.

Then he offered an explanation for that acronym. AWGE, Rocky explained, works like the A$AP prefix: rather than having one prescribed meaning, its initials can signify something personal to each member of the group.

“These abbreviations are personal when you join the collective,” he said. What his own version stands for remains secret.

As for what AWGE stands for in spirit, he added: “We’re trying to express an art form, fashion, which is just another subgenre of what we do here at AWGE.”

The collective has been developing for over a decade across music, film, art and design, with Rocky’s longtime stylist and creative collaborator Matthew Henson a key presence on its fashion side. Before this interview we found Henson in the Accor Arena overseeing pre-show fittings among racks of new-season clothes, vintage military boots, and collaborations with partners including Puma.

Upstairs, Rocky was preparing to present the collection immediately before performing his Paris concert in the same space shortly after.

For this season’s show he temporarily repurposed those slippery initials as ‘Anti-War Global Economics,’ the title of a collection that uses military clothing and imagery, banknotes and the economics of antagonism as its raw material. We sat down to discuss that collection, the luxury-streetwear collision, AWGE’s future, and which role in fashion he would like to sign up for. Below, edited for length and clarity, is some of that chat.

Vogue: I remember J.W. Anderson x AWGE in 2016, and then the Bodega at Selfridges from 2017. This fashion aspect of AWGE has been gestating for a long time. How do you see its development? You call it a creative collective, but are you trying to build it into a fully fledged label?

A$AP Rocky: Well, I mean, it’s all of the above. It’s different endeavors—from fashion, film, art, expressionism, music, you name it, we do it. Even decor, furniture. You’re looking at a few of my pieces as we sit in my green room.

Art is such a broad form. There are so many subgenres involved.

Fashion, to me, is a way to express how you’re feeling on a certain day. When you see a police officer, they put on a uniform to show their authority.

I think it’s just like fashion: it’s a statement. And that’s what we’re trying to do today.

We’re trying to express an art form, which is fashion, which is just another part of what we do here at AWGE.

You’re in Paris performing on the tour at the same time that the collection is ready to go. There’s a nice synergy in showing the fashion audience and the musical audience different aspects of AWGE at the same time.

It’s a two-for-one kind of situation. A lot of the fans who bought general admission tickets were upset because they can’t have access to the show. But by law, the Paris government didn’t give us the opportunity or privilege of allowing those people to be on the floor with the production for the fashion show.

You’ve had two fashion shows in Paris, one in New York, and now you’re back here again. Does the idea of showing regularly in a fashion show context interest you—getting on the Paris fashion week schedule twice a year?

I mean, I live here, so for me, I kind of bridge the gap. Everybody knows I’m born and raised in Harlem, New York City, between Harlem and the Bronx.

And if you think about the heritage that we have, it’s the Harlem Renaissance. When you think about the Harlem Renaissance and the connection between Paris and New York—the jazz musicians, authors, poets, people like Langston Hughes, Josephine Baker—the list goes on, right?

I think now it’s no different from then. I just kind of want to reconnect that, carry on tradition, so to speak.

And it’s important for me to display what we do because we always deliver at such a high level, in my opinion.

I’m the godfather of bridging streetwear and high-end luxury fashion together. When we came out, you would never see a person wear, I guess, Louis Vuitton with a pair of Vans, or Prada with a pair of sneakers. It just wasn’t common like that. Or Rick Owens with Jeremy Scott with Adidas: the list goes on.

To the point where: Do you consider Rick Owens to be high-end fashion, or streetwear? Was Hood By Air high-end, or was it streetwear? What Demna did at Balenciaga: was that streetwear, or was that high-end luxury? I know the price point was high-end luxury, but the aesthetic and the execution would remind people of streetwear.

So what we do here at AWGE is precisely that… The fabrics are all made in Italy and, for the most part, every partner that we choose is a strategic partnership—Ray-Ban, Puma, Christian Louboutin. It’s different brands that are of my ethos.

And today we’re taking the acronym and the title of the collection is ‘Anti-War Global Economics.’ It dates back to the 1940s, when there was the war going on, and New York fashion week [originally called “Press Week”] derived from not being able to go to Paris for fashion week. So me being a New Yorker, I thought that was appropriate and very on-brand for me.

I noticed downstairs in the fitting area that alongside your pieces and brand collaborators there are genuine military surplus pieces mixed into the show.

Yeah, those are real military boots. We wanted to avoid certain eras and precisely try to go for World War I and II with this, and not try to glorify war.

Wars are caused over different affairs like oil or territory or differences in religion. Encompassing all of that, we didn’t want to look like we were glorifying war.

That’s why it’s ‘Anti-War Global Economics.’ And you’re going to see a lot of money references.

You have this mixed relationship with money in the collections: obviously success manifests money and money becomes a route to self-determination, but there also seems to be a semi-critical approach to its glorification.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, the first one was about political satire, right? It was ‘American Sabotage.’ I’m not trying to display treason or nothing, but at the same time I do think that we have a responsibility to try to at least be informative if we’re aware of certain things. You think about what’s happening now, such as ICE in my country, or then you think about the Russian-Ukrainian war, and then Palestine…

It’s important for us to talk about this. I just want to promote peace and love.

And nobody likes a person that plays both sides or doesn’t take a stance on anything. So I really wanted to display my discernment, or just the way that I see the tragedy that’s happened in my country, outside of my country, history for my culture, outside of my culture, and I wanted to twist that and convey it into some type of art form, essentially.

Earlier on, you mentioned those times when people started wearing Vuitton pieces with items from less elevated corners of the apparel universe. And now you’re living in Paris. So if you look at Vuitton now, you have Pharrell, who’s come from the U.S and come from music, and is acting very prominently as a creative director here. Is being a creative director for another label something you would ever be interested in doing?

At the moment, no. They wouldn’t pay me enough, respectfully. But I would love the experience of learning. So technically, I would prefer an internship job at one of these places as opposed to a creative director position, because there’s less accountability, responsibility and pressure to deliver.

So if the right house offered you an internship, you’d do it?

I would love the experience of learning.

Break a leg tonight.

Thank you. And pardon my tardiness as well.

Well, you know, we’re getting used to it. And your missus…

Yo, she’s worse than me!

I remember there was a Balmain show that she arrived at after the show was finished…

I remember—I saw that. Her and Olivier were just hugging backstage. It happened to me one time too, at Dior. I was pretty pissed. Kris was mad at me, but, you know…

What can you do?

What can you do?