Growing up in the birthplace of basketball with a bunch of older male cousins, I was bound to encounter the evolving sport. But it was the early 2000s eye-candy like Chris Webber and Andre Iguodala and the surplus of star players like Lebron James and Lisa Leslie that made me fall in love with basketball at an early age.
It’s with a lifelong love of basketball and the art of fashion that I sat down to watch the historic 2024 WNBA draft.
Pulling in 2.4 million viewers, the most views in the league’s 27-year history, fans old and new gathered to watch Iowa’s breakout star Caitlin Clark, South Carolina’s national champion Kamilla Cardoso, and LSU’s national champion Angel Reese be drafted into the league. All three, along with their draft mates, played a vital role in bringing an unprecedented amount of press and acclaim to women’s NCAA basketball and now to the WNBA.
But it’s not the draft night outfits I want to discuss in this blog post.
Even though Rickea Jackson wow’d with a wardrobe change from carpet to ceremony, Angel Reese was fabulously styled by Vogue editor Naomi Elizee, and Dyaisha Fair looked dapper in her tailored suit — I was chiefly inundated with thoughts of how fashion bestows exceptional players with cultural acclaim and monetary gains.
Basketball has a prominent and permanent foothold in Black American culture. It was only a matter of time before Black American style, a long-established form of personal expression and dignity reclamation in the culture, bled into each league seeing as over 70% of the athletes in both the NBA and WNBA are Black, with African American being the ethnic majority.
From Michael Jordan in the ’80s and ’90s to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in 2024, players with notable star power have also been known to stun with their style.
The incomparable Allen Iverson with his cornrows, hip-hop swagger, and circumvention of the league’s “professional dress” code is who we have to thank for the modern emphasis of style in sports, as well as the “tunnel fit” pictures that have enraptured those in both sports and fashion circles.
For athletes, tunnel fits are a means of taking agency of their narrative and a tool to market themselves as multifaceted business professionals. They use their style to receive more publicity, brand deals, and business connections.
For example, Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum is one player who often goes viral for his relaxed style, arriving to games in matching sets with a minor quirk in color or cut.
Just last month, Tatum was announced as Coach’s newest ambassador. Did anyone associate him with the Coach brand before that announcement? No, but Coach put the all-star in a simple campaign anyway, to endorse two of their most masculine accessories — sunglasses and watches. This campaign effectively targets Tatum’s fanbase as consumers and furthered the player’s personal narrative as an anti-flashy but always classy young star.
I hope this significant increase in interest in the WNBA results in the lady ballers receiving similar fashion (and beauty) endorsements to raise their star and supplement their income.
Of course, I’d love for the ladies to wear Black designers such as Theophilio or LaQuan Smith, but I’m realistic. The initial budget necessary to bag celebrity endorsements often isn’t there for Black independent designers. A symbiotic relationship between lady ballers and Black designers is certainly possible, growing in tandem with the help of the other — the star wears the brand to their basketball games at a reduced cost, giving the brand publicity and the brand ensures that the star is always well styled, directly increasing the star’s visibility.
Arranging such relationships between lady ballers and fashion brands would be a dream come true…
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