These days, brands are clamoring to work with WNBA players. Increasingly, players are hiring stylists to help them look their best, and athletes such as Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, Skylar Diggins-Smith, and DiJonai Carrington are full-fledged fashion icons. But so too are players who rock more masculine or androgynous looks, such as Arike Ogunbowale, Courtney Williams, and Diamond DeShields, players whose looks don’t get nearly the attention or praise they deserve.

“Sometimes when we look at female athletes we assume fashionable means ‘feminine’ and a lot of the more masculine-presenting WNBA players really do have style about them,” said Amadi Brooks of Amadi B Styling, who works with Sydney Colson and A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces. “That’s the beautiful thing about the W — it’s such a wide range.”

Styling masculine-of-center women is an art in and of itself, and picking out fashionable looks that fall outside of traditionally feminine silhouettes takes thought and intention. Players such as Connecticut Sun star Alyssa Thomas are upping their fashion game this year by using stylists to help them get there, while others have been quietly doing so for years.

“It’s not so niche anymore to have a stylist and it doesn’t have to be a secret,” Brooks said.

“Before this year, we were just here for business, you know?” Thomas told Harper’s Bazaar. “We would come do our job … But now that we’re putting on the clothes and taking the time to stop for a picture, people are so fascinated by it, and, I mean, I’m super into it.”

The WNBA has the most gender-diverse fashion sense of almost any other professional sports league in the world, and it’s part of what makes the W special. “The WNBA fan subculture respects and celebrates masculine fashion choices while not stripping away womanhood from these players,” Lauren Hindman, Ajhanai Keaton, and Nefertiti Walker wrote in Sports Business Journal. But all too often, the players whose style gets highlighted by media coverage are the ones whose clothing tends to fit conventionally feminine standards and expression.

The WNBA athletes have fought hard to be their authentic selves on and off the court. As the WNBA goes mainstream, it’s even more important to ensure that the league’s visible queerness and gender diversity are not erased. Helping players find a style that feels true to who they are is important, not just for their own comfort but also for their on-court performance.

“I want to make sure I’m staying true to the athletes,” Brooks said of how she approaches dressing her clients, who include NBA and WNBA players. “It’s even more important when you work with an athlete, because their confidence going into a big moment like a game can have an impact on them, so you don’t want them to feel out of their body or not like themselves.”

Marisa Ripepi of Marisa Styled has been dressing the Connecticut Sun star Alyssa Thomas (along with her teammate and fiancée, DeWanna Bonner) since the beginning of this season. Ripepi stressed how important comfort is for someone like Thomas, and that is where selecting items for her begins.

“When we first started working together she told me she really looks up to Devin Booker’s style,” Ripepi said. “Alyssa’s style is comfortable and stylish but laid-back. We are always trying to step it up a notch.”

For Ripepi, that has meant slowly pushing Thomas to try new things. They style by the month, and Ripepi said Thomas’ outfits began to evolve throughout the season, like the denim ensemble she sported for the Sun’s game against the Los Angeles Sparks on June 18.

“When she first came to me and said she wants to look a certain way, I’m going to give her exactly that so she knows I understand her vision,” Ripepi said. “But once we are working together for a while and we build trust, that’s when I start to throw in more things. The goal is to elevate the look but for her style.”

Some players, such as the Washington Mystics guard Brittney “Slim” Sykes, have no problem pushing the envelope when it comes to what they wear but want to have some professional guidance about which direction to go. “She likes to expand her horizons and try new things,” Sykes’ stylist, Juwan Williams of Styled by Coz, said. “I love it when somebody likes to be open to new things.”

Williams, who has been working with Sykes for a few seasons, said that pushing her toward streetwear helped her find her voice. Her confidence has grown as she’s learned to dress her body and see the positive reception to her outfits, including being featured on GQ Sports last season. “Now that she is a bit more confident, she has been consulting fits with me,” Williams said. “She picks out her own outfits, and I will approve them.”

Another key to styling women in menswear is always to be conscious of fit — and to have a good tailor on speed dial. “Although we [may be] dressing Syd in menswear, we have to be particular about how the clothes fit on her waist,” Brooks said. “What might fit through the thigh for a man may not for a woman, so we might have to go up a size and alter their waist, for example.”

Brooks said that working with Colson is fun because her style is a mix of masculine and feminine. She cited a Sheila Rashid pantsuit that Colson wore for the Aces game May 25 against the Indiana Fever as an example of that duality. Colson had been previously wearing more androgynous looks on game day and decided she wanted to switch it up just to be unpredictable. So they decided to go topless under Colson’s cropped suit jacket, giving it a feminine edge.

Who Colson is wearing is just as important as what she is wearing. “For Syd, it’s important to rep both sides of masculine and feminine but also to shine a spotlight on underrepresented brands, Black-owned brands,” Brooks said. “She is intentional about that and would prefer to highlight those brands over typical big fashion brands.”

But for many players, having a stylist goes beyond just wanting to look good. Plenty of athletes have their own inherent fashion sense and can do an incredible job of dressing themselves, but it takes mental energy and time to prepare outfits. A pro athlete’s schedule is already exhausting and jam-packed, and having a stylist can allow players to delegate their clothing to someone else.

“A lot of players want to put their best foot forward and maybe that means using a stylist to take that off their plate but they still feel good about how they look,” Brooks said. “People don’t consider the time relief that having a stylist may have on players, for some of my clients it’s one less thing for them to think about on game day.”

Outside of a strenuous recovery, the Dream guard used the time to be strategic about showing off her style.

Canada’s interest in fashion has evolved significantly as her game has grown on the court. She now selects her footwear first and builds her outfits around it. Her shoe rotation for the sideline includes luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton trainers for style and Balenciaga Speed knits for comfort. She aims to let her statement pieces speak for themselves, often choosing oversized jackets or printed pants to make her outfits pop.

The two-time WNBA All-Defensive Team selection is eager to contribute to her new squad. After starting her career with the Seattle Storm and playing one season in her hometown of Los Angeles with the Sparks, she was traded (along with the eighth pick in the 2024 draft) to the Dream in exchange for Aari McDonald and the 12th pick. Last season, Canada led the league with 2.3 steals per game, averaging 13.3 points and 6 assists.

Canada enjoyed immediate success as the fifth overall pick in 2018, winning a championship with the Storm in her first season. During Canada’s early days, she learned directly from five-time Olympic gold medalist Sue Bird and emerged as the Storm’s starting point guard the following year.

In 2020, Canada signed an endorsement deal with Jordan Brand as part of “the next wave” of women athletes to represent the company on the hardwood. She has worn multiple models over the past few seasons, such as the flagship model, UCLA-themed colorways for her alma mater or even her own player exclusives to highlight initiatives she supports.

Andscape caught up with Canada as the guard prepared for her first game in a Dream uniform.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How has your dynamic with sneakers changed since you signed with Jordan?

I’ve always been versatile when it comes to sneakers. I’ve been blessed to have a lot of Jordan sneakers, other sports brands and luxury sneakers. Before I signed with Jordan, there were times when I couldn’t access a sneaker that I might want. I have always been a huge Jordan girl, and now getting them is super-smooth. I can get many exclusive sneakers that many people can’t get and even get an extra pair for a friend or family member. It’s a blessing to have this luxury, because not everyone gets the opportunity.

Growing up, what shoe was on your must-have list?

When I was younger, I used to hoop in Carmelo Anthony’s sneakers. I loved his retro shoes. When I got to high school, I was still wearing his shoes. In my senior year, we were sponsored by the Jordan Brand, and I used to wear Chris Paul’s PEs a lot. Those were the two I loved the most as a kid, but I wore Melos the most out of both. I got to meet both of them in passing at a Jordan event.

When did you realize you truly enjoy sneaker culture? 

I became a sneakerhead during my senior year of high school. When I went to college, I started paying attention to different brands and styles and noticing what I liked and didn’t like. At that point, it took off. Nike, Adidas, it didn’t matter, just anything that had a different look and allowed me to express myself, I was sold. Jordan has so many retro sneakers, too, and I enjoy using my partnership with Jordan now to dive into my style.

Adam Hagy/NBAE via Getty Images

Jordin Canada of the Atlanta Dream looks on during the game against the Minnesota Lynx on May 26 at Gateway Center Arena in College Park, Georgia.

Adam Hagy/NBAE via Getty Images

Atlanta Dream guard Jordin Canada before the game against the Las Vegas Aces on May 31 at Gateway Center Arena in College Park, Georgia.

Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty Images

Jordin Canada arrives to the arena before the game against the Indiana Fever on May 9 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

Adam Hagy/NBAE via Getty Images

Atlanta Dream guard Jordin Canada arrives to the arena before the game against the New York Liberty on June 6 at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.

How do you decide whether you want to adopt a classic look or follow the trends of the moment?

It’s about what I feel comfortable in and how I want to express myself that day. I always start with whatever sneaker I want to wear that day. Then, I decide if I want to dress it up or down. There will always be trends, but I like to get dressed based on how I feel and try not to pay attention to any of them.

With more emphasis on photographing WNBA walk-in outfits, has that caused you to think more about your outfits?

Fashion and the W have recently had more freelance or team photographers’ exposure. I think it’s great that people are invested in our fashion. Overall, as a league, people are starting to show up fashionably. It’s not just basketball players. It’s all women in sports. We have a lot of attention on us, and it’s really important to show our other side. Everyone has been doing a great job of showing their different personalities, their different styles and their creativity when it comes to clothing and dressing up.

Since you have not been able to play this season, how has putting effort into getting dressed helped your mental state?

I’m intentional about the styles and the clothes that I wear. When I sit on the bench, I focus on different statement pieces. My style has always been keeping it simple but with statement pieces. I like being intentional with details, too. I always come up with different looks. These past few months, with my game outfits, I’ve been trying different styles while staying true to who I am. I also consider how big the game is and whether it’s a national television game. If it’s a national game, then it’s more than likely that I’ll be on camera. Naturally, you want to make sure you look good.

What other causes do you want to bring awareness to or stories you want to tell through your PEs?

Last year, I used my [Air Jordan 38] PE to show my partnership with the Ronald McDonald House of Los Angeles, and I’m truly passionate about that. This year, I want to show more of my personality, so for this year, I leaned into my spirit animal and my zodiac sign. I’m a Leo and show that through my on-court appearance and being a leader. I wouldn’t say I’m feisty, but I’m very passionate about how I play. I haven’t gotten the chance to wear them yet, but I will. Off the court, I’m like a dolphin. They are smart, caring, loving and helpful. Jordin off the court and Jordin on the court are opposites.

Kai Williamson, 37, of Los Angeles, is an interior designer for celebrities and owner of the all-female firm Studio 7 Design Group. The firm counts athletes, including Dallas Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons, Denver Broncos cornerback Patrick Surtain II, Denver Nuggets guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Philadelphia 76ers forward Robert Covington, as clients. Williamson describes using texture to create luxury in her home.

My journey into interiors started with a love of fashion. It’s where I began to understand the joy of composition, and I have been able to translate that joy at scale at this point in my career. 

Everything in your closet should make you feel amazing when you get dressed. When you have this idea, you don’t allow things that don’t quite meet the need, and it doesn’t mean it all has to be occasion-based. In terms of fit, quality, and feel, it should not occupy space if it doesn’t bring you joy. That’s true for me and interiors, as well. 

I enjoy the process of creating a style, and my style is a huge part of my signature and career. In the beginning stages of my career, people trusted my fashion style to guide their home decor, so ultimately, that aesthetic is where I build trust from my clientele.

I’ve done a bunch of sneaker closets and custom closet designs. That’s where we get to have a lot of fun. We have one project that inspired me. I went to Tokyo, went through the shopping districts, and went to all the sneaker stores to see how they displayed [items]. So I became a Japanese retail display student and brought some of those concepts back to projects here where we were working with our pro athletes who not only sometimes have 200 pairs of shoes and up. But, they’re also like size 13, size 15. It’s a different accommodation. You have to consider how you’ll take a retail display where you only have to display one shoe and make it functional because you need to display both of these pairs of size 13 and size 15s to fit and still feel clean.

One of our clients, an NBA player, has a secret door. So we had a door with an access panel that only he noticed, so the kids didn’t even know where it was for quite some time.

Sometimes, our clients are willing to spend a lot of money on what I call a high-profile piece, which lives in the foyer when you first enter the home or the dining room, even if they don’t use it a lot. They’re like, “I want this to be amazing,” because dining rooms are often one of the first focal points when you walk into the house, especially in more transitional architecture. When it’s in high use, I suggest investment pieces.

We customize for many of our clients, so custom fabric choices are called CLM, like the customer’s own materials. We want to customize items that are going to be high-use. For me, the family room section is super-important. For our pro athletes, we raise the height. So, the standard seating height is 18 inches. So we have some pieces made at 19 inches, some even as high as 20 because when you have, for example, a client who’s 6 feet 6 and the wife is 5 feet 11. They’re tall.

Recently, I designed a new sectional for my home. I talked about how important that family room sectional is, so I designed a large sectional made of mohair.

Mohair is a very luxurious material. It ranges [in price] at the lowest end, $190 per yard, and it can go up to $350 per yard. There are even some vendors who can exist above that. I needed 44 yards of material for my sectional. That fabric investment alone was significant. Then you have the labor cost. What a lot of people don’t know is that when you’re dealing in custom furniture, there’s a cost to construct the piece and then the cost for your furniture.

For example, when looking for more retail, they come with what they call graded-in fabrics. You’re going to get what they have, which is probably ivory or gray or something neutral, and then you can get that level of customization, sometimes even at retail. Still, I would rather get exactly what I want for that time, right? The piece also has an integrated marble table.

The mohair is a bluish color, and I’m really into color. Calming tones are amazing, but having something that feels more curated and collected for you is about the careful infusion of color. So it is a bluish-grayish tone mohair. As a designer, I’ve always just admired mohair. It’s a very soft fabric, but it has a higher pile [a process that locks individual fibers into a lightweight knit backing] and a bit of a sheen. It transforms in different lights.

I’ve specified it for projects but have never done anything for myself. And I remember even, you know, when you’re selecting for projects, sometimes you’re still like, ‘Hey, this is expensive. Like, I want to tell you all this is expensive, right?’ We have clients who can afford that, but it was a treat. I said the next piece I designed for myself would be exactly what I wanted.

“We’ve known that we’re dope,” Wallace said. “But we’re glad the rest of the world is catching up. This collection pays homage to those who built this — the players, the creators — everyone who knew we were dope and did the work to get us here.”

The summer 2024 collection features a creme hoodie and T-shirt with the phrase “If You’re Just Now Tuning Into Women’s Basketball, We Told You So” in the WNBA orange colorway. The pieces will be available on the brand’s website Friday. The tagline describes Wallace’s work with Playa Society and her commitment to elevating the players.

This is the latest WNBA collaboration in a month for Wallace, who also designed the new apparel line for the Golden State Valkyries. The Valkyries are the Golden State Warriors’ WNBA affiliate team and the first of the two new expansion teams introduced into the league since 2008. Named after a host of female warriors in Norse mythology, the team will play its first season in 2025. The apparel has already sold out twice since it was first released.

Wallace told Andscape there are no words to describe the opportunity to work so closely with the WNBA, but it was a long time coming.

“I don’t even think flattered is the word,” Wallace told Andscape. “I don’t know what words to use. To [initially] get the email from Golden State Warriors” — both teams share a front office — “to be in on those early conversations like ‘we don’t have a name yet, we don’t know what it’s going to look like yet, but we know we want some Playa Society merch,’ that was cool.”

Wallace wasn’t stressed about how everything came together for her Valkyries apparel collection. Yes, she created pieces before the team had a name, but these are her favorite projects. Everything she’s been doing with Playa Society prepared her for this.

“It’s like you’re playing in the clutch, right?” Wallace said. “Fourth quarter and have to get this design done, then just to see everybody’s response and how much everybody loves the product that was cool because it’s like, OK, I did it in the fourth quarter and came away with the win. It was special.”

Wallace knew as a child she wanted to design apparel. “I was that kid walking around with a sketchbook,” she remembered. “I took it everywhere. It was my whole childhood.” She began to make outfits for herself and even assumed she would go to the Fashion Institute of Technology for college. 

“However,” Wallace said, “I happened to be very tall.” While people around her pushed her to play basketball, she insisted she would be a designer. “I was very stubborn.”

It wasn’t until she dropped out of the performing arts high school, where she was enrolled to learn costume design that she began to consider what life on the court could look like for her.

“All of my friends went to the regular public school, and I dropped out after like, three days, and ended up going there,” Wallace said. “I didn’t realize that school had the No. 1 girls’ basketball team in the state and some of the top-ranked basketball players in the country. Of course, I didn’t know that because I didn’t care about basketball at all.”

She was convinced to start playing basketball during her sophomore year and attended a basketball game at the University of Massachusetts (Wallace is from nearby Springfield). UMass was playing against Temple, which was a life-changing experience for her.

“This is Temple when Dawn Staley is coaching,” Wallace explained. “So I see Dawn Staley on the sidelines, Candace Dupree, who was playing at the time, and all these Black girls. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is what I want to do with the rest of my life.’ ” All it took was seeing Staley and her team for Wallace to forget about design.

Wallace thought she would play basketball as long as possible and then coach. She played overseas while she was getting her master’s degree. “I did my master’s thesis on the misrepresentation and the underrepresentation of women’s sport when it comes to sports advertising.”

Though Wallace maintains that she wasn’t thinking about starting a business at the time, “someone at some point was like ‘why don’t you solve this problem?’ ”

From there, she started to imagine what it would be like if she could design and impact women’s basketball instead of coaching. Wallace returned to the United States in 2014 and got to work. 

“I started playing around with my own screen designs, I tried to build my own printing press, but that was a disaster,” she said.

Instead, Wallace designed the pieces and took them to be printed. In 2017, she developed a simple but direct T-shirt. The word “Female” was crossed out over “Athlete” on a separate line. Business took off.

“When I designed it, I had a feeling this could probably be big,” she said. “So at first I was nervous to put it out because I wasn’t sure, but I finally put it out and all of a sudden I was selling hundreds of this T-shirt.”

Initially, she printed the shirts in batches of 40 to 50, and when those sold out, she increased the number of shirts to 100 at a time. The shirts just kept selling out. “When I started selling them, it was at the farmers market tables. That kind of thing, but when I put it online, I was selling hundreds of them.”

This was when it became clear to Wallace what she wanted to build a brand around. She gave herself two months to develop Playa Society as a concept, name, and branding. 

Wallace said she knew she needed a deadline. Otherwise, she would never have decided to put anything out. “I was like wherever you’re at, it’s going to be good enough. That’s what I kept telling myself,” she said. “I’m such a perfectionist and I just could pick things apart forever.”

Playa Society was launched in January 2018. The company’s name was inspired by a scene in the movie Love & Basketball.

“Like many young Black girls, I was obsessed with Love & Basketball,” said Wallace. “There’s that scene where Monica is hyped-up in the car, she’s like, ‘I’m a ball playa.’ That conversation was always the essence of what I wanted to create — just her standing up for herself in that moment, that was the energy I wanted. The ‘ball playa’ part really stood out. I wanted [my brand] to be rooted in community, so I played around with what that language could look like, eventually landing on Playa Society.”

Wallace launched her brand, and WNBA players embraced it almost immediately. In April 2018, WNBA All-Star Candace Parker wore the “Female Athlete” shirt on former NBA player Kevin Garnett’s Area 21 show on TNT. It was a big moment for Wallace, personally and professionally.

“The message connected with her for some reason. It gave me a little bit of energy and more momentum to keep pushing,” she said. “I was giving shirts to all the players in the NBA during a time when no other brand was giving any thought to the WNBA or women’s basketball, so I was building these connections.”

At one point during the summer of 2018, all the WNBA players were wearing Wallace’s apparel because the Women’s National Basketball Players Association purchased them from her, and it meant a lot to earn the players’ support. “Sue Bird was one of my first customers. Sylvia Fowles. Natasha Cloud is always purchasing,” Wallace said, naming a few of her earliest supporters.

For Wallace, having that support just made her want to go harder for her girls. In 2020 (pre-COVID-19 lockdown), she left her job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she worked in marketing. It was the biggest risk she’d ever taken, but that summer, she was selling “thousands and thousands” of the “Female Athlete” T-shirt, which was still her primary product at the time.

The following summer, Wallace had the chance to speak to someone at the WNBA and pitched the idea of a Playa Society collaboration. Wallace said she approached the conversation as practice for what could come in the future, but the WNBA liked her ideas. “They were like, ‘yes!’ and I was like ‘really?’ ”

Her first WNBA collection was launched in September 2021. It included a hoodie, a pair of sweatpants with the corresponding team logos on the pants leg, and a T-shirt with the WNBA logo.

“I remember it selling out,” Wallace recalled. “This is back when I used [e-commerce platform] Shopify, and the Shopify notifications would make the cash sound. I just remember it going off, and off, and then it started to die down.” That’s when Wallace checked and noticed her first release had sold out in the first hour.

She said that was a big day, and she has continued to respond to the demand. “It’s just been a matter of building this whole thing, as the community was growing, as women’s basketball was growing. Responding to the need and desire for better merch, but also exploring new designs.” It’s been a challenge as Wallace mainly has operated as a one-woman team.

While the designer is excited that the WNBA is shining under a new spotlight, she wants to be clear that the attention shouldn’t be fleeting. “The WNBA, the product has been good. It has been great, and it will only get better,” Wallace said. “That needs to be at the forefront of everybody’s mind here, so it’s not like we suddenly have a good product. There’s a lot that has gone overlooked and underrepresented.

“Hopefully, I can do a lot more of that because I know a lot of people are going to focus on what’s happening right now. I just want to celebrate the game and women as a whole beyond just like the moment.”

Naomi Schiff, 30, a former racing driver turned on-air personality and Formula One ambassador based in Paris, on the bag she was gifted, exchanged, and is still toting.

Growing up as a racing driver, my dad always inspired me because he used to race. But in this case, this is the perfect [opportunity to talk about] my mother because she was just always perfection, always dressed to the nines. She was always just really well put together and very stylish and my mom did model in the past. She cared a lot about, you know, presenting very well in that way.

In the past, I didn’t think I could maintain my own sense of style while driving. There was a sense of needing to conform, needing to fit in, and that’s thankfully really evolved. [Formula One driver] Lewis Hamilton’s been the pioneer of that change because he’s made his entrance into the Formula One paddock essentially a runway show. This is the area behind the pit lane and garages where the teams set up their motorhomes (or bespoke hospitality units for non-European events) and is the focus of F1 life for the weekend. Generally, it’s the place to see and be seen.

As with everything, change always comes through resistance. There was a lot of criticism, a lot of question marks and people saying that he needed to focus on driving, not what he was wearing. So that can make an environment like this intimidating to do your own thing over time, but thankfully, he’s persisted.  Now, it’s an environment where you can wear whatever you want, and I wish I could go back to being a racing driver in this era so that I could, you know, still evoke my sense of self and express myself in the way I wanted via fashion. But back in the day, that wasn’t possible. I think the only thing I had creative license over was my helmets, my fashion item to express myself in that sense. 

So today [as an on-air analyst], I can wear what I love within reason, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot. I wouldn’t call it pressure, but it’s a lot of work if you consider how many Grand Prix I go to over a season and how many times I’m on-air, and that’s a lot of outfits. I always wanted to deliver. As much as the most important thing that I do is what I say on TV and the analysis of the racing, I still want to represent myself in a way that I can connect with a part of the audience who maybe see some of themselves in me. I need to show up looking on point. That’s in the eye of the beholder, and it depends on whoever’s watching and identifies with my style.

I’ve had many stylists who are keen to work with me because of the strong correlation between sports and fashion today. Many brands sponsor Formula One, so it’s an exciting time to be in this space. The Formula One audience is 40% female, so we have to cater to that, and I’m happy to be one of the few young women in the sport in a forward-facing role.

The team I used to race for in the past had a tradition of buying a gift for a driver who won a championship, so that particular year, I won the championship. And so they were buying a gift for a woman for the first time. I remember my team’s boss asking his wife for advice, and they got me a stunning Louis Vuitton bag, but at the time, the Neverfull was like the bag. It was like the bag everyone wanted, so I politely exchanged what they had given me for a Neverfull. It was less expensive than the one they bought me. So, I managed to get a wallet out of that as well.

I don’t know what the original gifted bag was called, but it wasn’t my style. It was a little bit too mature for me. It was 2018, so I was 24. It wasn’t young and fun enough for me. So that’s why I changed it. And I still use the Neverfull today. It’s just like a staple piece that never gets old. It’s timeless. That was one of my travel go-to’s for the F1 weekends, but now I always bring my whole life. So it’s too small, and I’m looking for a bigger tote, like the Dior one.

Designers dress guests (handpicked by Vogue magazine’s longtime editor Anna Wintour) in a theme that corresponds to an exhibit at the museum’s Costume Institute for fashion’s biggest night. This year’s was “The Garden of Time,” a nod to the exhibition “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” and based on a short story by English writer J.G. Ballard, written in 1962.

As you’d expect, florals were a huge trend on the off-white carpet and, in some cases, perhaps groundbreaking. 

Here’s a look at our favorites from the night. 

The LaFrancé features a chunky outline, fat laces, and exaggerated proportions, taking inspiration from skate shoe footwear of the 1990s and 2000s. The upper ovals have designs inspired by the butterfly, which symbolizes Ball’s “1 of 1” motto. The shoe also includes many of Ball’s tattoos, such as “Heem,” and the flames embroidered on the toe box. The LF logo appears on the soles and tongues.

Puma

The LaMelo Ball x Puma LaFrancé will be launched in the red "Amour" colorway.

Puma

The soles feature the names of each brand in the collaboration: "Puma" and "LaFrancé."

Puma

The LaFrancé uses a cup sole with floating ovals on the midsole.

Puma

The LaFrancé showcases the numbers "1-1-1" and embroidered flames, which are borrowed from Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo Ball's tattoos.

Puma

The insoles of the LaFrancé feature the LF logo and butterflies, which Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo Ball has tattooed on his hands.

Puma

The LaFrancé takes inspiration from the chunky silhouettes of 1990s and early 2000s skate footwear.

While the lifestyle section of the shoe store may be a new frontier for Ball, the LaFrancé, specifically the “Amour” colorway, isn’t anything new for the Charlotte guard. His previous on-court footwear, from the MB .01 to the MB .03, all embrace Ball’s individuality. For the new lifestyle shoe, Ball and the brand used color the same way his basketball kicks do, and took on his personality.

“If you know Melo, you know he does everything large. From the chain to the logos to the car, dude’s living large! So, we had to come through with a silhouette to fit that profile,” Noah Bice, the Puma Hoops designer who worked on the LaFrancé, said in a news release.

In a way, that made him and Puma a perfect match. The storied brand once ran the hardwood. Players such as Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Isiah Thomas wore Pumas with great success. Then, the company stepped away and returned in 2018. Puma signed Ball as a rookie in 2020 and made him its first athlete to receive a signature sneaker since its hiatus. Their history called for something big and the former Rookie of the Year delivered, beginning in his first game in the NBA. “Melo definitely helped a lot,” Puma’s head of design for basketball Jeremy Sallee said in 2022. “And his personality is perfect for being the lead dude at a brand. It was a godsend for real.”

The “Amour” fits that pattern of someone who believes he’s from another world. It’s draped in fire red and is impossible to miss. More importantly, mistaking it for another shoe seems impossible. “Amour” is the first of many colorways set for release.

“Swaggy. Crazy. Colorful. Rare.” That’s how the former All-Star described his latest shoe. The LaFrancé sneaker is part of a collection that includes apparel — graphic tees, a mesh tank, shorts, and track pants.

The initial Puma LaFrancé release will be available at Puma.com, the Puma NYC Flagship store, Foot Locker, Kids Foot Locker, Champs and select retailers worldwide.

Jordan Emanuel, 31, a cast member on Bravo’s Summer House: Martha’s Vineyard and 2019 Playboy Playmate of the Year, recalls what she wore her first time appearing on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.

I’ve always been into fashion. It’s so funny because my parents were very masculine people — both my mom and my dad. My mom was a tomboy, so I was the girliest girl, and my mom used to joke around. She was like, ‘Where did you come from?’ I always loved hair, makeup, fluffy dresses, all of it. My favorite thing to do when I was younger was shop. I mean, it still is, let’s be serious.

I go in when it comes to packing what I will wear on the show. I pull inspo photos and hop on Canva because it’s my favorite thing besides Pinterest. I will start pulling different things I already have in my closet, or I’ll [have a stylist] pull for filming. And then I’ll figure out how I can mix and match it. So I’m not packing 35,000 pieces of luggage, right? Yeah, which I do anyway, but I try. This year, I feel like a lot of us stood out as a cast. We stepped it up, fashionwise. I cannot wait to see a couple of Lapointe dresses on camera.

My weakness is shoes. Most of my fashion dollars go to my shoes. For Watch What Happens Live, I bought these maroon, almost wedge, asymmetrical-like, cool geometric heels from Attico. That was my first big purchase after the show premiered.

I already knew what I wanted to wear: this dark blue vest pants suit from Dana Foley. I wanted the shoes to stand out because you can see everything when you’re sitting on Watch What Happens Live. Being such a shoe person, I didn’t want to wear a normal platform or something that’s been done before. I wanted to like you to see it, and you’re like, ‘OK, that’s cool.’ I saw them immediately, and they’re like this patent leather, so they’ve got that shine on top of the color and shape. I was like, yeah, this is a moment.

I was talking to my dad the other day, and I was like, ‘I wish there were something that I loved as much as men love sports.’ They eat, breathe, talk about it to their friends, and have group chats about it. My dad was like, ‘You do: shopping.’

He saw me after Christmas, and I was like, ‘Watch me spend $1,000, but watch me get everything,’ and he was like, ‘No, that’s not possible. It’s just not possible.’ The way I looked for discount codes and coupons, every little coupon I could find, My dad was like, ‘This is a sport. This is you studying the stats.’

The National Football League is now licensing logos to designer Kristin Juszczyk, the wife of San Francisco 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk, to use on her now-viral reworked pieces — like the jersey-to-puffer coat transformation worn by Taylor Swift, using the jersey of Swift’s boyfriend, Kansas Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — but this, reworked, upcycled jerseys, was popularized by innovative Black designers.

“It’s [upcycling] about creating a lineage and a narrative. It’s very much a part of understanding the Black experience and community in terms of not discarding fabrics and reusing them for new things. That’s just a part of the community,” said Darnell Lisby, fashion historian and assistant curator of fashion at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Lisby explained that upcycling is a need that often turns into a brand or lifestyle. And it’s often a driving factor for Black designers in the space: creativity, innovation, necessity, and financial constraints.

The essence of upcycling is evident in designer Willi Smith’s WilliWear, an early “street couture” brand that mixed the relaxed fit of sportswear with high-end elements of tailoring, as well as Patrick Kelly, whose brand was founded based on his grandmother’s refashioning his damaged clothes with buttons when he was growing up, a practice he later incorporated it into his design aesthetic as an homage, though their practice predates the term coined in 1994.

Like Smith and Kelly, couturier and streetwear icon Dapper Dan’s upcycled designs were born out of innovation, creativity, and necessity; in exploring the creative reuse of leather goods from Gucci, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, and MCM, his designs, known as “knock-ups,” became popular amongst rappers and athletes looking for custom-made garments that ventured beyond the offerings from luxury fashion houses.

In 1988, his longtime customer, boxer Mike Tyson, stopped by his Harlem boutique at 4 am to pick up a custom piece when his lifelong rival Mitch Green approached him, leading to a fight. The altercation, in which Tyson wore a custom Fendi coat, put Dapper Dan and his designs under a microscope, eventually leading to a raid and the closing of his boutique after Fendi reported his unlawful use of their trademarked logos to authorities. Consequently, the media named the Harlem couturier a fashion counterfeiter, and legal fees financially drained him.

Despite being forced to start over 30 years ago, Dapper Dan has become one of the most notable upcycle designers, even having his pieces referenced on the runways of brands he previously knocked off. But even though Dapper Dan found redemption in his career, Black designers still struggle to attain the same success, access, and resources as their white counterparts, afforded access based on race, class, and status as opposed to merit.

According to Lisby, the resurfacing and repurposing of jerseys is due to a general nostalgia trend that permeates the entire fashion cycle, which is inherently a part of the Black community’s history. “When I think about that period and the repurposing of jerseys, it was finding something within your closet that you can refresh and restyle,” he said.

In the early aughts, Black women and designers gave new life to traditional sports jerseys, altering the loose-fitting menswear staple to a more fitted silhouette, the jersey dress. One of the first documented sightings of the form-fitted sports dress was in August 2000, when singer Mya wore a matching University of North Carolina version alongside Jay-Z in the music video for their collaborative track “Best Part of Me, Part 2.” The video, styled by June Ambrose, a renowned stylist, costume designer, and creative director, created memorable moments in fashion and hip-hop.

However, to Reuben Harley’s account, in November 2001, the then-Vice President of Mitchell & Ness took his overload of small jersey sizes to his grandmother and had her transform them into dresses. Harley later gave one of the dresses to his friend, singer Faith Evans, who wore it on an episode of BET’s 106 & Park. Despite the varied chronicling of the jersey dress, it became a marker of the times and a status symbol alongside the jersey. 

“In terms of personal style and self-styling within the Black community, even separating it [the jersey] from its direct relation to sports or the celebration of an athlete, the wearing of the jersey represents a certain level of pride. Whether it be pride about self-styling or the cost because jerseys are expensive,” said Lisby. As the trend evolved, so did the stylistic choices of women, who further pushed the DIY nature of the jersey dress, creating one-shoulder dresses, two-piece sets, and crop tops with the addition of laces and rhinestones, though often seen as “ghetto” or “cheaply made.”

Nevertheless, Black designers continue innovating in the upcycling space, showcasing designs that are direct descendants of designers like Smith, Kelly, and Dapper Dan. Cierra Boyd, better known as Friskmegood, deconstructs sneakers and transforms them into sustainable, avant-garde corsets. Her innovative designs have landed her celebrity clients, including Cardi B. and Ciara, and a spot on season 2 of HBO’s The Hype, a streetwear fashion competition. Another designer innovating in the space is Tega Akinola, upcycling fleece jackets to vibrant mini handbags and futuristically adorning footwear and bags with USB cords. Last December, Akinola released her debut mini handbag collection, an evolution of her repurposed signature fleece handbags, but this time with namesake branding.

Despite designers like Boyd and Akinola, who are thriving, the odds remain stacked against them. Lisby said that non-Black designers get a lot more shine and are seen as more “serious” regarding upcycling because they have great marketing. “Black and brown designers don’t get the same marketing push as non-Black designers, even with notoriety, so there will always be an imbalance.” But when the fashion industry actively mobilizes Black designers, upcycling will get the support, access, and opportunities to rise, rightfully.

Tia Williams, 48, a bestselling writer based in New York, whose new novel, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, is out this month, recalls a formative experience working at a fashion magazine.

From the youngest age, I was obsessed with fashion magazines. That was going to be my job. I knew it was. I had two dreams: to be an editor at a fashion magazine and to be a novelist. That was it from the very beginning. I had all of the subscriptions — Vogue, Bazaar, Mademoiselle, Seventeen, Cosmo, Elle — and I would rip the pages out and have them all over my room. I understood who all the designers were, I understood who the people behind them were. I knew the photographers, the makeup artists. I’m 14 on a U.S. Army base in Germany, and I’m looking forward to the September issue of American Vogue to see what was on the runways.

It was this whole wonderland of a world in places like New York, Milan, Paris, and London. And living in Germany and at home [in Northern Virginia], it just wasn’t like that. And so the second I graduated from University of Virginia. I moved to Brooklyn, New York, and I started working in fashion magazines.

I was a beauty assistant at Elle in the late ’90s. You know, it’s funny. Everyone is talking about quiet luxury now and it’s being picked apart — ‘What even is that?’ ‘All it means is boring.’ I grew up middle-class to hardworking parents, we had everything we needed but designer anything was never a priority. Looking nice was in your Casual Corner finery, but nothing designer. My first brush with designer in real life was working at Elle surrounded by rich girls and the kind of wealth that was always there and you’re never worrying about it going anywhere. That kind of comfort it just really didn’t yell. It was just like, ‘Oh, I have this piece and, I don’t know, I guess it came from my grandma.’ But in pop culture, it’s late ’90s so it’s minimalism. It’s Calvin Klein. It’s Prada.

And at the same time you have Lil’ Kim on the cover of Interview magazine with her Louis Vuitton logo-stamped body, which was everything to me. I have friends at Vibe and The Source, and there’s all this loud designer fashion happening which I also loved so much, but I had to get by at work every day. So what I am seeing is a very different, understated luxury and understatement of a statement which is an oxymoron.

I saved all my money to get this suede Gucci hobo bag. It was pretty flat, like, you could barely even get a wallet into it. The bag was under an inch thick, it had the green and red stripe on only one side. It was very delicate; if you wore the bag on the other side you didn’t have to know it was even Gucci.

And when I tell you, it set the world on fire in those offices because it was like you had to squint to understand what it was unless you really knew Gucci inside and out and knew that it was from the fall 1998 collection or whatever. But you didn’t have to know it was Gucci and something about that just made me tingle, like I had the secret. Also, no one needed to know that I was eating popcorn for dinner and living in a one-bedroom apartment with my best friend in Fort Greene (that was where you would live when you were poor in those days).

Ever since then, because of that experience, seeing the red and green stripe anywhere is Pavlovian for me. I immediately start feeling like, ah, look how fancy that is. I like the idea of no one really knowing what designer or label or whatever it is I have on, just that it looks good.