Who won the NBA Draft Fashion Game?
The fact that the NBA draft took place in the middle of the men’s fashion shows in Paris was kind of a cosmic fitting coincidence.
After all, design has increasingly become one of our most viewed catwalks, the heart of the convergence between fashion and sport that has spawned the tunnel walk and social media accounts describing players’ wardrobes – and leading to front row seats at shows like Louis Vuitton, recently attended by LeBron James, and Rick Owens, where Kyle Kuzma showed up. And it only gets more important.
ESPN added a one-hour “NBA Draft Red Carpet Special,” as did E! does for the Oscars and the Met Gala, including a 360-degree camera like the E! Glambot, the better to capture the looks in the round, as well as a reporter asking those in attendance, “What are you wearing?”
Yes, the question isn’t just for women anymore.
Perhaps because most athletes are not used to answering, they didn’t answer with a “what” – they didn’t name their brand – but with a “why”. Why they chose the look they chose. Which in turn reflects why all of this matters.
As Mitchell Jackson, the author of the forthcoming “Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion,” a coffee table book that elevates the subject to the same decorative status as a Dior or Gucci monograph, said, subject now, not an afterthought but part of the big show. It was always something the players cared about, but with more media attention on the design, with the advent of social media and the tunnel, it’s an important part, dare I say essential part, of the player’s star power.
It is the first opportunity for the players to create the brand of theirs and offer it for public consumption. This makes everything custom. Not just literally, but also conceptually.
Starting with Victor Wembanyama, the No. 1 overall pick and widely acclaimed “generational talent” from France, who wore a Louis Vuitton forest green suit with a kimono-style jacket wrapped around the waist and a matching forest green shirt, a large stone dangling from his neck. Vuitton is, of course, the world’s dominant luxury brand, a byword for French savoir-faire and one that recently hired a black American – Pharrell Williams – as a menswear designer, all values (inclusiveness, cross-border diplomacy, success) aligned with what Mr. Wembanyama promises to represent.
As for the color, he said he liked it because it was reminiscent of outer space (he reaches for the stars), while the stone around his neck is less flashy than some of the other ices worn by his soon-to-be competitors. , was an element that was said to help achieve goals.
His only high-fashion competitor came from Kobe Bufkin (picked 15th by the Atlanta Hawks), in a cream tweed double-breasted suit with no shirt, a choice that revealed a highly tuned trend antenna. It implicitly associated him with other famous proponents of the shirtless look, such as Timothée Chalamet (who popularized the trend when he went shirtless at the 2022 Oscars). Small miracle League Fits announced that “Atlanta will compete for a leaguefits championship, confirmed.”
Notably restrained were Brandon Miller, the No. 2 pick, in a three-piece plaid number, and Amen and Ausar Thompson, identical twins chosen fourth and fifth, who wore matching double-breasted suits by the tailor Waraire Boswell. One was white and the other was navy blue. “They went for subtlety,” Mr. Jackson said, a sign of how much design fashion has moved from the straightforward “look at me” to “think of me” or “invest in me.”
Obviously the look was part of a collaboration with Amex, and Mr. Boswell also designed a limited edition jacket inspired by the Thompson suits available only to Amex cardholders. Why not start influencing as soon as possible?
At the other end of the spectrum were Scoot Henderson (chosen third) and Gradey Dick (chosen 13th), who were the most enchanted athletes of the night. But even then, their bling wasn’t just bling for bling’s sake. It bling for a reason.
Mr. Henderson’s suit, of Indochino (a label that has something of a lock on draft clothing, this year in collaboration with nine athletes) was covered in more than 600 gems intended to represent his family tree, featuring the birthstones of his parents and siblings.
“I wanted to really think about how my design day look represents both my journey so far and what’s next,” said Mr. Henderson, who also sported a custom bedazzled grill, said in a press release. “This suit is a visual representation of what brought me here.”
This is the next iteration of the personal-story-in-a-liner approach that has become familiar to many players, who plaster the inside of their jackets with photos and memorabilia printed on silk. See, for example, Taylor Hendricks (elected ninth), whose sugar-pink suit hid an entire biography.
As for Mr. Dick, he wore a turtleneck and suit jacket, both covered in red sequins. The look led to him being compared to Zoolander and Siegfried and Roy on social media, but was a nod, he said, to Dorothy’s ruby slippers and his own journey from Kansas to the supposedly magical world of the Toronto Raptors (a team whose color also happens to be red). Not to mention the suggestion that he also has courage and heart.
As choice were the sequins mocked and praised in equal measure, but they were impossible to ignore either way. In the attention economy, that’s profit.