Gold, as a color, as a metal, and ultimately, as an aspiration, has never been that attractive to me. On the occasion of my twelfth birthday, my mom finally let me get my ears pierced. When I chose silver studs instead of gold, I remember her asking if I had thought long and hard about it. It was likely at this exact moment she knew that my sister, who opted for gold, would be the Division One athlete, and I wouldn’t be.

I’ve long accepted that I’m a silver girl, but after this week’s Ballon d’Or ceremony, I’ve been forced to wonder whether that has subconsciously meant I’m content with being second best. Is my inclination towards silver an aesthetic Freudian slip? And if that’s the case, is there a single elite athlete that prefers silver jewelry to gold?

The Ballon d’Or, which translates to Golden Ball, is the most coveted individual award in football (although it’s decided on by the French, so do with that what you will). On Monday night, Bayern Munich/England’s Harry Kane and London City Lionesses/Spain’s Alexia Putellas took home the top honors, which saw them pose with their gilded, spherical trophies. The marketing teams for Kane’s sponsor, Skechers, and Putellas’ sponsor, Nike, had posts up on social media immediately following the announcement of their victories, featuring the footballers with a pair of custom, celebratory golden boots.

Look, I get it. They won the Ballon d’Or; the color is literally in the name. Ballon d’Argent doesn’t roll off the tongue in quite the same way. They’re the best in the world, and gold has visually symbolized this status since the first Olympic gold medal was awarded in 1904. But we can still be honest and admit that silver would at least complement London City’s home teal kits and Bayern’s white away kits far better than gold will.

Fashion and football have firmly established their inseparable bond, and as someone who has spent years exploring this relationship, I’m not surprised that I’ve put myself through a hypothetical exercise surrounding the aesthetics of the sport’s most revered individual trophy. I love thinking that one day a Ballon d’Or winner will tell their boot brand, “I’ll skip the gaudy golden shoes; I’m more partial to silver myself.” But is it even possible for the likes of Putellas, or her compatriot and co-three-time winner of the Ballon d’Or Aitana Bonmatí, to consider silver? Or is the pursuit of gold, and the extension of that to the accessories they wear, the innate mindset of a winner, an instinctive draw toward being the best, not settling for anything but the top prize?

Lamine Yamal, who has narrowly missed out on the Ballon d’Or for the last three years, like me, is a silver supporter. He flexes his gold chains and World Cup winner's medal, yes, but the phenom’s most recognizable accessory has always shown up in the form of silver – his braces. Who could forget the custom twojeys brackets he sported during 2024’s edition of El Clásico? If we’re following this “silver is for those who settle” line of thinking, would Lamine win football’s foremost individual honor if he swapped his silver braces for gold ones?

Since this piece has been both satire and psychoanalysis, I must point out that there is, of course, a flaw in my methodology. I still haven't established whether the golden boots reflect the footballer’s taste or their sponsor’s enthusiasm for a very literal interpretation of their accomplishments. I haven’t spoken to these top ballers, who also have top personal style. Would they tell me that wearing gold is a form of manifestation, a way of familiarizing themselves with something they intend to spend their careers collecting? Would one of them admit that they prefer silver, but feel a little strange choosing it when their entire professional existence is devoted to not coming in second? Or would they look at me, accessorized entirely in silver, and agree that they just like how the metal looks?

I suppose that what we want to win and what we want to wear are separate matters. A sartorial church and state, if you will. Whether athletes observe it is a question that I’m entirely unqualified to answer, but very clearly willing to overanalyze.

When Cossa New York launched in November 2025, the upcycled, one-of-one jersey brand joined a crowded fashion x football landscape. With a stateside World Cup on the horizon, the interest in the global game growing bigger than ever, and designers of all echelons having something to say about how to style the sport, what new could the girls of Cossa have to contribute?

I chatted with Co-Founder Aleksija Vujicic to find out, in her own words (and on behalf of her two other Co-Founders, Amelia Mehta and Lia Porcelli). All three have ties to both sports and brand-building; Vujicic played with FC Barcelona Feminí’s Juvenil team in high school and co-founded another fashion brand, Tata Bazaar; Porcelli was a varsity swimmer at Loyola Marymount University and co-founded Mutual Friends, a branding and creative agency; Mehta is a Director of Business Development at Condé Nast and grew up playing soccer in Northern California. The trio are all current runners, former soccer players, and very serious about their shared love of sport, style, and play.

Marketed for women who blend confidence with play, Cossa has joined a busy playing field, yes. But they’re building something authentic; reimagining jerseys for the sheer love of the game, with the brains behind it to back it up. Cossa was built to create “an opportunity for someone to represent both a memory and their style,” Vujicic tells me.

The brand is set to launch its second collection at a Valentine’s Day pop-up in New York City in collaboration with Saturdays Football (you know where to find me on the 14th). Below, Vujicic breaks down the origin, operation, and intention behind Cossa New York.

Zoe Allen: Tell me about yourself, what you do for work, and why the three of you decided to start Cossa New York.

Aleksija Vujicic: I’m also a founder on the other side, actually. I have a fashion tech startup called Tata Bazaar, and that’s my full-time life. Amelia, Lia, and I are super close friends, and we all happen to live in Nolita about three blocks from one another. I think the three of us all have really uniquely had sports be a defining theme in our lives, and also feel very strongly about our personal style, which often includes jerseys. Every morning that we’re all in the city, we meet up before work to get a coffee at Café Lyria, the guys who run it are good friends of ours, and it’s our favorite spot in the city. And these mornings when we would come together, we would chat about how the jersey was a crucial part of our daily style, but didn’t entirely reflect our identities exactly the way we would like them to, which led us to start thinking about how we could find a way to do that by redesigning jerseys ourselves. From there, we decided to turn it into a full brand.

ZA: I’d love to hear a little more about the jerseys you guys wear. What is your favorite jersey you own?

AV: I’ll send you a photo of Amelia and me showing up somewhere, both wearing a jersey. We’ll look at each other and say, “Not this again.” It happens a lot (laughs). My favorite jersey is the 2018/19 Serbia home shirt 一 I’m Serbian, and I style it with everything. It’s actually one of the first jerseys we ended up upcycling and reworking, which I think really affirms how genuine this brand is and how it comes from our own strong relationships with sports and style. This brand really was born from our realization that we love wearing jerseys, so let’s spice them up a little bit, because while they tell some of our personal style story, they don’t tell all of it. Cossa New York does.

Another one I love is an Australian Wallabies jersey from my dad, who actually used to play professional rugby. I wear it around the city, and the amount of comments I’ve received along the lines of “Who are you and why do you have this very niche jersey?” I love it because it always ends up being a really beautiful way to connect with people.

ZA: How much time did it take from having those concept chats in Café Lyria to fully launching Cossa?

AV: From the initial conversation and concept, it all snowballed very quickly, because we knew that there were definitely other people who felt the same way that we do. We also thought that it would be so fun for the three of us to work on something that would tie us together, but that we could really imbue with our own personalities. We executed very quickly 一 our initial conversation was in June of last year, and our first drop was in November.

ZA: How do you source the jerseys you make? Is it as simple as it being something you would want to wear, or are you considering bigger trends?

AV: For the most part, we source our jerseys from Napoli, Italy, which has been super fun. Napoli is known for their vintage, and specifically their vintage football jerseys, but also Lia’s younger brother, lives there and works freelance as a vintage sourcer and helps us find our pieces.

ZA: It seems like cool jobs run in their family!

AV: Totally, he moved out there right after we decided to start Cossa, so we never were banking on it as part of our decision to start the brand. We give Lia’s brother a very high-level directive of the types of club and national team jerseys that we think will perform well, and then he FaceTimes us from the warehouses, and we pick our favorite jerseys from the video call.

What I think makes it really fun is that with vintage, there’s this element of serendipity in the fact that you can only source what’s there. Whatever is at the warehouse that day is the selection we have, and that’s what we bring back to the United States, and then we go from there. To speak about vintage, and our decision to make a brand focused on upcycling and reworking vintage pieces more broadly, came down to two things. One, the world just does not need more stuff. We can get creative with what we already have. The second is that we feel that jerseys, and fashion in general, are the most incredible reflection of identity. They hold so many elements of how people present themselves to the world. So when you take a 1987 Napoli jersey that not only represents a place, but a moment in time that people feel really tied to, and then you upcycle it, you create a really cool opportunity for someone to represent both a memory and their style.

ZA: I would definitely consider Cossa to be maximalist, which is one of the things I love about it. How do you choose what appliques and trims you put on your jerseys?

AV: I agree with you that it’s maximalist. We stray away from the cutting and reworking to make a jersey more sexy, or smaller, and really focus on, in our opinion at least, pulling inspiration from classic fashion houses and brands that we really love. Our moodboards are filled with everything from Louis Vuitton and Loewe, archival Dior from the 90s, to contemporary brands like Gimagaus. We’re focused on adding those true design elements to the jerseys while simultaneously maintaining the structure of the jersey. We feel that a jersey is a certain shape for a reason.

We have design meetings where we just sit with every single jersey, and we try to think about not only aesthetically what would work best for that jersey based on all of the reference images that we’ve been pulling, but also about the jersey conceptually. For example, we have a Barcelona jersey in our upcoming drop, and our scope and design for that was pulled from Gimagaus, which is a Barcelona-based brand. We go through our jerseys one by one, and then we source all of the trim and accessories that we need to bring the designs to life. We use tailors both here in New York City and in Barcelona.

ZA: What’s been your favorite jersey to design so far?

AV: There’s one from our upcoming drop and one from our previous drop. From our upcoming launch, there’s a long-sleeve Roma Barilla jersey. I thought it was going to be this oversized, collared, huge jersey, and we loved it for that. But then I tried it on, and it was much tighter and smaller than expected, but the fit was so hot, and now we love it for that. I couldn’t believe how beautifully it fit, and I had a hard time deciding to actually give the jersey away, because it genuinely felt like it was made for me. The natural jersey itself is so special and unique, so to be able to add anything to it feels like a gift.

From our previous launch, I actually did keep my favorite. We put it up for sale, and a few days in to the drop, I just decided to buy it. We kind of recreated a Loewe design on a Bayern Munich jersey. I had wanted the original Loewe tailored shirt, but now I have this instead. Bayern’s not my team, but I’ll support them.

ZA: They’ve never done anything to anyone. Unless you’re Dortmund. So, the tagline for Cossa is “where sports meets style,” and you’ve talked about your Wallabies jersey. Do you have any plans to add other sports jerseys to your arsenal soon?

AV: I would say that we use the word “sport” for a reason. But we’re not planning on focusing on anything other than football for the immediate future. More broadly, there’s a big conversation to be had about how women are making their place in sports, and if we can, even in the smallest way ever, contribute to that, it’s an honor. It’s been happening in football and basketball, and I think we’re seeing the same thing start to happen in sports like Formula One and rugby. If we can bring Cossa to F1 or rugby, for example, that would be the coolest opportunity. Or eventually to rugby or whatever it might be.

ZA: What are Cossa’s plans for the immediate future, in that case?

AV: We’re planning for our second drop for this month, and to celebrate, we’ll be collaborating with Saturdays Football and having a pop-up at their New York City store on February 14th. The drop will go live online on Monday, February 16th. We also absolutely have plans for the World Cup; we want to throw a bunch of block viewing parties in not only New York but also in Barcelona and Paris. We’ll be doing them throughout the summer in collaboration with some of our favorite spots throughout those cities, whether they’re hospitality-based or brand partnerships. We will also be hosting a football tournament in April!

I was scrolling through Instagram when I stumbled upon a video set to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” It featured the most impressive choreography I’ve ever seen set to that song, which, if you’re familiar with the actual music video for the song, is saying a lot. It was the second half of American figure skater Alysa Liu’s free skate at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships held earlier this month in St. Louis, Missouri (and, if you were wondering, the first half, which is set to “Paparazzi,” is equally as impressive).

Lady Gaga didn’t just serve as the inspiration and backing track for her movement on the ice, but her costume as well. Her shimmery, silver leotard was a sartorial ode to the singer’s 2009 VMAs performance, and helped her on her way to taking home the same color medal. It’s no secret that silver is my favorite color, but when the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games roll around in less than a month (February 6th - February 22nd), I’ll certainly be cheering her on for gold.

There’s a certain Addison Rae-esque joie de vivre about this twenty-year-old Oakland native, whose style off the ice is just as cool as her style off of it. I could chalk the parallels up to a few different factors, starting with her Instagram presence. Her profile picture is simply a photo of Lucky Charms marshmallows. Her bio is “Digital memory lane of a girl in the world” (the phrase “girl in the world” feels very AR-coded). She shared that she would be going to the Olympics via a front cam selfie video, her face obscured by TikTok font. Every post is a little low-res, even though you know that she receives the original photos in incredibly high definition. They’ve both worn “Paparazzi” inspired costumes (Addison for Halloween in 2022). Alysa Liu is the Addison Rae of athletes.

And her hair! In a sport where athletes often opt for slicked-back and subtle, Liu’s hair is anything but. Her hair color alternates between brown and blond, creating a signature striped, halo-ring look that she said is refined and added upon every year. Naturally brunette, Liu said that when she attempted to change the rings from a redder color to a lighter color, she realized she needed salon-grade products (we’ve all been there). Right before the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, she made a pitstop at a salon in St. Louis to get her rings colored just right. It’s giving Rosalía’s viral halo hair, on steroids.

It’s athletes like Alysa Liu that draw people into more niche sports, such as figure skating, and athletes with big personalities in general that make people care about sports, period. When I sit down with my friends who are casuals, I try to find storylines that they would care about, which in turn makes them care about the on-field product. Usually, these storylines come in the form of athletes and their personal lives. For my friends who think that American football cannot be saved from toxic masculinity, I tell them about Caleb Williams and his painted nails, which are a tribute to his mother, who has worked as a nail technician for his entire life. For my friends who couldn’t care less about hockey, I regale them with the story of Dallas Stars forward Wyatt Johnston, who began his career in the Lone Star State by living with veteran player Joe Pavelski, who was twice his age at the time, because how goddamn cute is that. Alysa Liu and her larger-than-life personality have been added to my arsenal. I can’t wait to share her story with my friends this February, the Little Monster off the ice and the absolute monster on it.

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I may have no idea what I want my engagement ring to look like, but I certainly know what I don’t want it to look like. Now firmly in my mid-twenties, I’m inundated with proposal content; from influencers to genuine friends to old co-counselors from my Texas summer camp, it seems like everyone is getting engaged this summer. In recent months, this over saturation has forced me to consider the elements of a ring that I do and don’t appreciate. (To my boyfriend, who is hopefully reading this, please don’t read into this).

This post is dedicated entirely to a ring I don’t appreciate — a ring that I, in fact, despise. Its gaudiness is the stuff of legends. Its size is a monstrosity. It's hulking, it's humongous, it's horrifying. Its overall demeanor screams “look how much money I have, with no taste to match!” It, of course, belongs to footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and his fiancée, the model and businesswoman Georgina Rodríguez.

On Monday, the long time couple announced their engagement as only they could — with an Instagram post of the biggest ring you’ve ever seen in your entire life and a geotag of “Riyadh - Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” It’s a fitting flex for a man who just inked a deal $700 million contract with Saudi club Al-Nassr, but all I can think is how bad I feel for Georgina’s finger. It’s probably perpetually wilting, struggling to be on par with the rest of her hand.

I certainly have questions: do we think that she went with him to go pick the ring out? Do we even think he picked the ring out at all, or just told one of his employees to buy the biggest one imaginable? How much did it cost? Mostly importantly, is it returnable?

It seems like I’m not the only one wondering at least one of these questions. According to WWD, the center stone is a 25- to 30-carat diamond — and that’s just the one stone. (You’re forgiven if you didn’t notice the smaller side stones, blinded by the sheer size of the center diamond). Per the same article, the ring is estimated to be worth anywhere between $1.5 million to $5 million dollars.

I view the ring as symbolic of many aspects of Ronaldo’s life, and have several theories about why it is the way it is (including, but not limited to):

1. It’s a (misguided) physical apology to his fiancée that it took him nine years and four children to propose.

2. He’s been spending too much time with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and now, much like Saudi Arabia splashing cash on the 2034 FIFA World Cup and Saudi Pro League, Ronaldo believes that opulence at all costs outweighs all else.

3. Lionel Messi might have three more Ballon d’Or awards, but Ronaldo proposed with three times as big of a ring. Siuuuuuuuuuu!

4. He’s overcompensating for something else that’s lacking in size.

Mary Lo’s designs have always been dreamy, but with the help of Etsy and WNBA All-Star Skylar Diggins, they’re on cloud nine.

I’ve been a devoted fan of Mary’s for the last five years (and the proof is well documented on my Instagram). I could chalk my love of the Dallas born, London made designer up to the fact that we’re both alums of the same K through 12 school — go Hornets — but my excitement about her creations extends far beyond school pride. Her whimsical world has always brought me joy, and I’ve never sported a Mary Lo look that hasn’t received a combination of a compliment and a “where did you get that?.” She’s produced tulip shaped clocks, bags reminiscent of dumplings, and Tabis in all colors of the rainbow. Her latest look is an equally eclectic signature set for Seattle Storm guard Skylar Diggins for Etsy’s Icon Collection.

Launched on the eve of WNBA All-Star Weekend, Mary was one of four designers tapped to co-design exclusive items for some of basketball’s biggest names. Brooklyn’s Breanna Stewart linked with Etsy seller FromHadley for a charm necklace, Seattle’s Nneka Ogwumike showed of her star power with a pair of earrings with DEJASPARKSjewelry, and Los Angeles’ Cameron Brink — who is expected to make her return to the court after a 14 month absence following an ACL tear tonight — nailed a set of press ons with BlingItonNails.

For her partnership with Diggins, Mary reimagined The Edition 1 (a staple top with a sublime, asymmetric collar) and the Flower Power Trousers to be true to Skylar’s name and show love for her current team. I caught up with Mary last week to get lo-down on the whirlwind WNBA collab.

Zoe Allen: You just got back from Indianapolis, where you were one of the stars of WNBA All-Star Weekend. Tell us about your experience in Indy, and of course, the exciting reason why you were there.

Mary Lo: I had never been to Indy before, so I had no idea what to expect. The whole downtown was just so alive, and the city is actually completely walkable. I was in town for my Etsy event, and I asked my husband what we should do after that finished on Saturday. He said “why don’t we just go watch the All-Star game?” — thankfully, but also unfortunately, there were a lot of tickets up for sale because Caitlin Clark wasn’t playing.

I thought that was disheartening, because all of the women who were invited are amazing professional athletes. Just because one woman isn’t playing doesn’t mean there’s less of a value in going to watch the game.

ZA: I completely agree. I always find the “Caitlin Clark isn’t playing so I’m not watching” phenomenon insane, but especially this time around. The crowd in Indianapolis gets to see her play so often, and if you’ve come from out of town to watch the festivities, it seems crazy to sell your ticket over one injury. I just don’t understand the thought process of selling your ticket either way.

ML: I was so shocked by it. Another crazy thing was that Nike had these mini advertisement trucks just driving around all of downtown. I think there were six of the trucks and I thought “there’s no way that they’re just going to keep driving around,” but that’s seriously all those trucks did. They had nothing to do except drive. Aside from the trucks, there were so many free activations and events. The Etsy event — the reason I was in Indy — was also completely free, all you had to do was RSVP for it.

Etsy partnered with The Female Quotient on a lounge space that hosted The Icon Collection creators alongside panel talks. We couldn’t really leave our little booths, so I was unable to attend the talks, but they were about topics such as women in sports business and finances within the WNBA. Even though I couldn’t hear it very well, I thought the concepts was really interesting because of the current discourse surrounding women’s sports about needing to pay the players more. I ended up doing my own research after the fact, and I just think that the wrong people are pocketing money and it should be the players above anyone else who should be paid.

ZA: How was it working with Etsy throughout the collaborative process?

ML: It was really refreshing how they really supported me throughout the entire project. In the past, when I’ve worked with corporations or even other brands, they tell me “here, this is what we want. Can you get it done? Okay great, thanks, bye.” But the Etsy team was just really understanding throughout, starting with how it was a tight turnaround from when they originally contacted me (the end of May) until the launch.

ZA: Oh wow, you only had about a month and a half really.

ML: Yeah, it was about a month for me to turn out clothing and I was like, “holy fuck, I don't know if I can do this.” I told them straight up that I would be happy to adjust my designs to make it more personalized, but that I couldn’t make a whole outfit from scratch on that timeline. Thankfully, they were they were really receptive of that and it felt like they were really trying to work with me, and not against me. Even with the stressful turn around time, they weren’t the cause of the stress.

With the short timeline, I really had to get it together, alongside my team overseas. I don’t usually ask to rush things but we really had to rush this one. An issue that I’m running into a lot right now is delays as a result of the tariffs. On the day of the event, I was supposed to have five of the sets come in, so ten pieces in total. But of course, DHL held it up—earlier, when I shipped my samples, they actually slashed the bags open through to the packaging, which was awful, because they could have literally damaged the items themselves and I would’ve had nothing to work with. Even though I express overnight shipped these sets, DHL held it and told me they couldn’t deliver it until the Monday after All-Star Weekend.

Obviously, I was so disheartened, and I kept calling [DHL] and I told Etsy how sorry I was, but they were super understanding of how out of my control it was. It was a huge sigh of relief, because in other cases, the brand might have been upset and said something along the lines of “this is not what we agreed to.”

In Indianapolis, we just worked with what we had. Because of the shooting process, I had sent Etsy a sample beforehand and I had my own sample as well. They decided we would just bring the two sets to have on display and take preorders at the event itself.

ZA: What did you think when Etsy reached out to you about this project?

ML: When they reached out to me, I honestly thought it was spam mail [laughs]. I didn’t think it was someone from the actual Etsy team who had emailed me. But within the Etsy sellers app, they can message you directly, and they had let me know there that they had, in fact, sent me that email. When I realized it was a legit thing and reviewed it, they were sending out requests to the other creators who worked on the collection, and they forgot to change the item they were requesting from me. That initial email actually asked me to make a charm necklace, and I replied “I guess I can do this, but it’s not really what I do.” They immediately responded that it was a typo and asked me to work on my clothing instead, which was a no brainer.

ZA: How was Skylar as a collaborator?

ML: She is a very busy woman. Both Etsy and her manager acted as a middleman throughout the process, and I would share my ideas and get comments back from Skylar about what she enjoyed and what her own ideas were. It wasn’t until the event in Indy that I actually got to meet her in person. She not only showed up, but showed up in our outfit, and that was incredible.

ZA: That's amazing.

ML: It was actually incredible. I had sent her some other samples for sizing references or potential tweaks, and she told me that she wears those samples. She said “I love wearing them to practice or on the plane, and my teammates are like ‘where’d you get that?’ and I’m like, ‘I’m working with the designer.’”

ZA: Why did you go with the cloud motif for Skylar? What was it like taking one of your staple sets and reimagining it for her?

ML: Under the time constraints, I told her that we could do any shape or color and personalize it to her that way. She really likes sunsets, so it started off with me wanting to do something sunset colored, something fun and funky, but it got a little too crazy. I still gave her the options, and she looked at those and decided that because she now plays for the Seattle Storm and is named Skylar, she wanted it to be more branded and personalized to her name and the team that she plays for. She was like “what about clouds? Let’s do some clouds.”

It made so much sense to go in that direction, with the clouds taking on a duel meaning. It maintains a very fun, feminine energy, which I think is really Skylar. It’s her style on and off the court.

The original samples were black and white, and she suggested that we go with a buttery cream with black patches and keep it simple. From there, I gave her three iterations with different color tones we could work with. It’s funny—when it comes to design, I think a lot of people want the bright and the bold but then they realize classic is really what they want. It looks good on everybody, people find it more wearable and versatile at the end of the day. That was a big for her; she wanted it to be a piece that could be dressed up or dressed down. I would describe it as a silently bold statement piece.

ZA: That’s really what WNBA players have been proving to everyone over the last couple of years, that they’re more than just basketball players, and fashion has played such a large part in telling that story. What has the feedback on the collaboration been like so far?

ML: Etsy loved it as soon as they received the sample and gave me really positive feedback. I was nervous about small things, like if something got stitched or cut wrong, but at the same time, these are staple pieces in my collection and my team and I know what we’re doing.

Skylar also loved it. Her immediate reaction was about how much she loved the collar, how comfortable she felt in it, how she could dress it up and down. “It feels like I have pajamas on, but nobody can tell me that I look like I have pajamas on,” is what she told me.

As for the general public, I heard one person say “oh my god, if Skylar has it on, I definitely have to buy one.” I think her style is so laid back, so effortlessly chic, so people gravitate towards it. It’s something attainable that they can wear and look as good as Skylar. The sizing of both the pants and tops are really forgiving, which I also think people are enjoying.

ZA: I think it’s so important for people to know they’re not going to have to make a return when they order something. What are the production plans for this set?

ML: So what I do for most of these things, or even when I make a collection, is I buy the bolts of fabric. My tailors will get it cut and use a tool that helps them measure how many pieces they can make from the entire bolt of fabric, and that’s what I’m doing with this. Going about it this way is more economical and I can use the leftovers for other pieces. I think I have about 20 to 30 tops and bottoms of both the small/medium size and the large/extra large size. In terms of full sets, I have about 25 small/mediums and 10 to 15 large/extra larges.

ZA: So, about 50 lucky people will get to step into the style of Skylar Diggins. You said earlier that you were surprised to be asked to do this project, so my last question is did you ever think you’d be doing a sports collaboration or working with athletes?

ML: I definitely didn’t think I would be, but after working on this project, I’d like to do more. When Skylar and I were talking she told me that it was really amazing that we were able to collaborate on this because of how women’s basketball is gaining so much traction, and how it’s important that they always look good pre-game because of how many eyes are on them.

She also said that this is the kind of thing she wants to keep doing, and I’m hopeful that in the future she asks me to do something with her again. I have my fingers crossed!

You can shop The Icon Collection here, Mary’s designs here, and follow her on Instagram here.

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Football players have historically been defined by the jerseys on their backs and their performance on the field. As the first-ever NFL fashion editor, Kyle Smith has made it his mission to change that notion through the power of personal style.

Smith grew up a fan of fashion, not sports — worlds that, until recently, have appeared disparate. But in the six years that he has been at the League in various capacities, he has come to recognize sports and style are not mutually exclusive, but mutually beneficial.

He originally sought the path of a “traditional” stylist; he wrote for FLAUNT Magazine and interned with fashion designer Amiri and celebrity stylist Karla Welch. When Smith took a job as a wardrobe assistant for NFL Network in 2019, it was for both noble and practical reasons; yes, it was a paying job as a stylist, but there was also an opportunity to introduce fashion to a world it had mostly shied away from. Fashion is all the better for it — just ask Anna Wintour, who went to bat advocating for the inclusion of two NFL players in last summer’s Vogue World extravaganza.

The fashion editor title is as full of day-to-day responsibilities as it is committed to the bigger picture. Smith oversees the official NFL and NFL Style Instagram accounts, coordinates getting-ready content in players’ homes, and works closely with their agents to establish and maintain relationships between the athletes and fashion media and houses.

I emailed Smith three days before Super Bowl LIX and received an unforgettable auto-reply message as a response: “Thank you for reaching out. However the Super Bowl is our Super Bowl, and I may be slow to respond.” This was the first (and most likely, the only) OOO message in history that elicited an audible laugh. To me, this charming reference to the chronically online colloquialism of referring to something as “my Super Bowl” encapsulates the fresh perspective and dynamism that he brings to this unprecedented and important position.

Zoe Allen: How did the fashion editor role come to life? Did you push for it, or did someone come to you with the idea?

Kyle Smith: It was more the latter. When I started at the league, I had the responsibilities I have now, just more unofficially. I was hired as a stylist in 2019, really just to be someone on social, but I knew there was a lot of opportunity in other areas of the business, at the League, and in culture. Anything from working with our consumer products department, going to Fashion Week, or leveraging fashion and big events like Fashion Week and the Met Gala to broaden both the league's and our players’ reach.

I decided on the title of fashion editor just because the League is pushing to attract a fashion-forward audience, and so we have to meet fashion people where they’re at. “Fashion editor” is a title that resonates with people who work in fashion, and if you can speak their language, it helps get the point across.

ZA: Where do you hope to see this job and title evolve towards?

KS: Doing what I already do, just at a larger scale. There's still a lot of work to do for European brands, for example, to understand the impact that American sports, and particularly American football have, because it doesn't really exist internationally. Expanding internationally is also one of the League's initiatives — we have our international games in London and Berlin, and we just announced one in Australia. I think international exposure is big for us in growing all of our fashion initiatives.

ZA: What is your favorite part of the job currently?

KS: Working with our players to tell the stories that aren’t told as much — the ones beyond the football field. Our players love space and dinosaurs and other things besides sports, which I think is so fun to see and have others see. I also appreciate my role in helping people realize that sports are for everybody, which, in turn, grows our reach, our fandom, and our audience. But I would say that my favorite part is truly helping to tell the players’ stories.

ZA: That reminds me of a quote from Ogbo Okoronkwo - and I just butchered that pronunciation, I'm so sorry.

KS: Just call him Obeezy.

ZA: [Laughs]. Thank you, okay. He had this quote in your New York Times profile that deeply resonated with me. He said that he felt that because of you, he finally had a space to express interest beyond — in his own words — “grass, football, and dirt.” Expressing those other interests was something that hadn't been allowed, or there had been a perception that nothing else mattered for a very long time. How does it feel to be such a big part of that reason that it's finally "normal" for football players to like fashion or express interest in things beyond the gridiron?

KS: I think it's an honor to be around people who are at the top of what they do, and then allowing them to be even bigger than they already are is such a privilege. I feel honored to be a part of this space and to get to know these amazing guys who are so interesting and inspire me every day.

ZA: What draws you to work with certain players?

KS: It’s not necessarily this "picking out" process. Of course, there are players that I recognize as dressing well and having an interest in fashion. This sounds silly, but it's like Harry Potter — you don't pick the wand, the wand picks you. Whoever meets me at this intersection is who I want to be working with; players who have a good energy and a genuine interest in being a part of fashion. It's one thing to be interested in looking good and dressing well, and it's another to want to be a part of the business of fashion. Every business needs to have people who want to be there, who want to do the work, who are nice to be around, and who aren't a headache whenever you think about them. It's the players who show up on time when I send them a call sheet for a photo shoot, the players who put effort into the content that I'm asking them to make or become the face of a brand because I said that they should be — these are the players I want to work with over and over again.

ZA: Is there anyone that’s surprised you to work with? Do you have a favorite project that you've worked on?

KS: Surprising, no. Once players realize fashion is a great way to get any of their interests or stories across, they're just "surprisingly" great to work with. So, in this way, I think I'm just more “surprised” every time because of the perception that an athlete only cares about sports. When I was growing up, I thought that athletes couldn't possibly be interested in the same things that I'm interested in, like fashion or pop music or something. But now, I'm listening to Lady Gaga with a player in a car on the way to go shopping somewhere. It's just a real treat to be around these guys and see that they're so multifaceted.

In terms of a favorite project, Vogue World was so major for me. On a smaller scale, I love going into players’ closets and filming them getting ready for a game.

ZA: Tell me about how the Vogue World moment came to life with Joe Burrow and Justin Jefferson.

KS: Joe Burrow's team came to me expressing interest in going to Fashion Week. He was already speaking at a conference in Cannes and decided he also wanted to go to Paris; it was his first time leaving the country, so it was a very big, fun, exciting moment for him. Justin was also speaking at the same conference, so we decided to plan this huge Fashion Week trip and looked into all of the opportunities while we were there, which included this Vogue moment. Originally, the Vogue Paris and Vogue teams didn't understand the point of American football players being a part of this specific story because its narrative was centered around the 2024 Olympics, which did not include American football. But Anna Wintour is obviously a genius, and she just told them that this would capture the American market — and it did. The story of them both going to LSU was strong; they're close friends and hang out off the field. It all just came together really organically, and the pieces fell where they were supposed to.

ZA: That's incredible. This is a bit more subjective, but I have to ask your opinion on this: What do you think makes a good pre-game fit?

KS: I ask the players, "Who told you to wear this?” If it's coming from a sincere and personal place, then it makes a good tunnel fit. I think sometimes [laughs], actually, always, it's incredibly important to make sure you're expressing yourself through your clothing. When I'm styling a player, I start with questions like "What was the first concert you went to?" followed by "Do you have a T-shirt from that concert?." Sometimes, players will feel that they have to wear suits to look a certain way. But do they really? Is that actually what they want to wear? So I ask them, "Does this feel like a good reflection of who you are?" And if it does, then it's a good tunnel fit.

ZA: Do you hope to that other professional sports leagues expand to have roles such as yours?

KS: I want everybody to be able to express themselves through fashion, and I think there's a lot of opportunity for other leagues to do the same thing that we're doing. I do this so that the players can tell their stories. I obviously can't tell every single story, so I hope other people out there feel like they can help athletes do the same thing.

ZA: What made you apply to the social media/styling team at the NFL after feeling like sports weren’t welcoming for so long? Did you always have this plan of making this role at the League, even way back in 2019?

KS: Everything kind of happened at the same time. When I was working for Karla Welch and Justin Bieber, no brand considered gifting products to players the way they did for Justin. Now, I feel like players are just as welcomed by brands and are as desired in their seeding and gifting lists. When I started at the NFL in 2019, it was mostly about finding a job as a stylist and making money. But when I did enter into sports, I realized that there was this massive opportunity and that the world wasn't so different than the world of celebrity styling I came from. The longer I stayed at the League, the bigger this feeling got, and the more the role made sense.

ZA: Where do you see the future of fashion and football heading?

KS: Bringing Fashion Week to the Super Bowl this February was a glimpse into the future. We brought Bode, who typically shows on the New York Fashion Week calendar, to New Orleans for the Super Bowl. I’m asking myself “How can we do that next year with more designers? Can we have a cool creative director for an important fashion house partner with us? How can the NFL also show up at Fashion Week?” I don't know if the world is ready for an NFL brand fashion show between Louis Vuitton and Hermes, but it's a question that’s worth asking.

This past weekend, I received an outpouring of sympathy from friends who know nothing about basketball. I also received texts that mocked me from men I used to date and haven’t spoken to in years. They were all about one thing — the loss of Luka Dončić.

On Saturday, February 2nd, a deal was finalized in the shadows. It sent the Slovenian superstar to Los Angeles (the city I happened to be visiting when the news broke) and devastated the entire city of Dallas. It was unthinkable, a betrayal to both him and the fans; a move that was not just a shock to my system, but to the entire ecosystem of sports in the United States. The 2023-2024 NBA scoring champion was traded behind his back in the midst of purchasing a 15 million dollar house in the city that loved him, and that he loved right back.

Luka Dončić, the once-in-a-generation basketball player that Dallas was lucky to land seven years ago, traded in his prime to a Western Conference rival. The same Luka Dončić who has an entire day dedicated to him (July 6th) in that very city. The 26-year-old player who dropped 73 points in one game only a year ago, who averages 28.6 points per game (third best all-time), has recorded 80 triple-doubles (seventh best all-time), and was named to the All-NBA first team five times in his first six seasons. He was magic, and he was a Maverick.

The mastermind behind this monumental mishap is Nico Harrison, the General Manager of the Dallas Mavericks. Over the last week, he has been accused of tampering, working for the Lakers, being paid off by Commissioner Adam Silver in the hopes of boosting ratings, and being the world’s biggest idiot. I am inclined to believe all of these accusations. Before last Saturday, he was most famous for botching the meeting that was supposed to see Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry sign with Nike in 2013. With this disaster of a Dončić deal, he’s made himself public enemy number one in Dallas and the most ridiculed executive in sports. It’s quite the resumé.

Harrison seemed prepared in his attempts to justify the move, deploying empty catchphrases like “defense wins championships” and voicing his hesitation to move forward with Dončić’s upcoming supermax contract extension coupled with critiques of his conditioning. What he didn’t prepare himself for was the response of Mavericks fans, who feel blindsided, betrayed, and brokenhearted by his callousness.

What happened Saturday feels so difficult to process because of how unprecedented it is — sure, superstars like his new teammate LeBron James have made seismic moves despite the pleas of their devoted fanbases. While a hard pill to swallow, these moves have always been at the request of the players. But a prodigal player universally adored by the fanbase and the team, and who reciprocated that adoration, shipped off without seemingly a second thought? It’s new, and it’s nauseating.

I often joke about how I wish I didn’t love sports as much as I do so I wouldn’t have to experience the pain of my teams losing and my favorite players leaving. Up until this week, I’ve never once actually meant it. I’ve said it with a wry smile, knowing that the broad range of emotions I experience through sports is what makes me so invested in following them. But Laker Luka Dončić has made me truly reevaluate my attachment to my teams for the first time in my life; apathy seems far preferable to this inescapable anger.

Outside of the American Airlines Center in Dallas, there’s a 23-foot white bronze statue of Dirk Nowitzki shooting his signature one-legged fadeaway shot. The legendary player spent all 21 of his seasons in the NBA with the Mavericks, leading the franchise to their first—and only—championship in 2011. From the moment he was drafted, Dončić was his heir apparent, playing his first season in Dallas the same year that Nowitzki played his last. Inscribed on the bottom of the statue, as chosen by the Hall of Famer himself, is the phrase “loyalty never fades away” — an homage to both his iconic shot and his time spent with the team; the most of any NBA player with a single franchise. For the last seven years, Dončić was following in Nowitzki’s footsteps, loyal to a city that was so lucky to have him. A week ago, all of that shattered.

Dončić was known for driving his flashy cars around Dallas; during last year’s playoffs, a video of him stuck in traffic on the tollway went viral. I’ll never forget when I locked eyes with him a few years ago, turning down a street a few blocks away from my house (which is about a ten-minute drive to the AAC and Mavs practice facility). He was behind the wheel of this beautiful blue first-generation Chevrolet Camaro, and when he looked at me as I drove past him, I was so overwhelmed that I had to pull over. Oh my god, I just made eye contact with Luka Dončić. It was my own personal moment of Luka magic among the many he gave Dallas in his seven spectacular years here — I’ll forever mourn what I feel should’ve been his entire career in this city.

The New York Yankees are embracing two fall classics this October: the turtleneck and the World Series. The likes of center fielder Aaron Judge and shortstop Anthony Volpe are evoking their naughties predecessors in the hopes of repeating their success story, and so far, it’s working—The Bronx Bombers are back in their first championship clash since 2009 thanks to the power of breathable cotton.

In a baseball season marred by fashion faux pas (see: this entire Wikipedia page), the throwback turtleneck has been a sight for sore eyes. This summer was marked by sweat stains, but this October is all about superstitious style. They’re learning a lesson from the team that won three straight titles from 1998-2000, that lesson being that the turtleneck is the truth.

According to reporter Justin Shackil, this year’s Yanks aren’t just faking the feeling of the turtlenecks that kept closer Mariano Rivera comfortable in the clutch and Hall of Famer Derek Jeter energized in extra innings; they’ve pulled the very same ones out of storage.

While some baseball fans (most of them more knowledgeable than me) are saying that the Yankees' recent success is because they were handed a walk-in-the-park postseason path thus far, I offer an alternative explanation: they’re riding on the backs of magical-Jeter era turtlenecks, simple as that.

The team with the second-highest payroll in baseball is just like the rest of us—they turn to the storage closet when in need of a wardrobe overhaul and a seasonal identity refresh. Every October, I pull my clear, rectangular Container Store bins out from underneath my bed and my black cotton turtleneck becomes the most important item of clothing I own through the end of winter. This beautiful tradition is now one that I share with the American League single-season home run record holder.

It remains to be seen if the Yankees will win this year’s World Series, but no matter the outcome on the field, they’ve struck a merchandising gold mine with the simplest of garments. It’s sent fans into a frenzy, as best summarized by Twitter user @yankeesmobb, who is asking “CAN SOMEONE ANYONE EVEN FREAKING FASHIONOVA MAKE THE FREAKING YANKEES TURTLENECK.”

Don’t worry, New York fans—if the team’s marketing division doesn’t get on it, there’s a nonzero chance that the Yankees logo-obsessed boys down at Aimé Leon Dore are already sitting in Café Lyria scheming up some cotton-ribbed jacquard turtleneck with drop needle logo stitching to satisfy this very need.

Naomi Osaka’s performances at this year’s US Open will soon be forgotten, but her performance wear most certainly will not be. The four-time Grand Slam winner was unfortunately knocked out of the tournament in the second round, allowing spectators only two opportunities to view her custom look, made by Nike and designer Yoon Ahn. Adorned with bows, ribbons, frills, and tulle, Ahn—the founder and creative director of AMBUSH—described it as “Lolita goth” (“Lolita,” in this case, references the Japanese subculture inspired by Victorian fashion, not the 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov) in an interview with The New York Times.

“I wouldn’t automatically associate myself with being girlish when I’m on the court,” Osaka said. “But I tend to gravitate toward really beautiful and cute things. I think there’s something quite cool in making that an emphasis, especially here in New York. In New York, the tennis court is more like a stage.”

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The bows are at the center of the couture look—her shoes feature two tiny bows, ruffles on her dress are adorned with bows, as well as her custom headphones, and her warm up jacket is a vessel for an unmissable, massive satin bow. Two versions of the outfit were made; a lime green iteration for daytime matches, and a black one for nighttime matches. Each version was worn only once, as Osaka bowed out of the tournament earlier than she had hoped.

According to Ahn, the process of designing the viral looks began with a very simple question: “What are you into right now?” Osaka responded with references to several Japanese subcultures and characters, including the iconic (and also bow-adorned) Sailor Moon. She heavily emphasized the Lolita goth aesthetic—a cutesy, anime-inspired style of dressing that was popularized in 1990s Japan but has maintained a dedicated contingent of dressers today. “They go out and wear pink, frills, bows, lace,” Ahn told The New York Times. “It’s really about owning the cutesy-ness and the girly-hood.”

Her night-and-day looks are an unashamedly feminine take on tennis-core, and one that is true to Osaka’s wholistic presence as a tennis player, female athlete, and new mother. It brought the coquette trend to the courts of Arthur Ashe Stadium; a venue that has largely placed an emphasis on function over form when it comes to apparel.

“Tennis clothes don’t have to just look like tennis clothes,” said Osaka.

While many are quick to reduce the coquette aesthetic to only the color pink, bows, pearls, and daintiness (which isn’t wrong, per se), Osaka embodies an oft-forgotten, yet crucial, facet of the trend—the power of womanhood and the reclamation of autonomy from the male gaze. Bows are a but a symbol of the coquette aesthetic, a simplistic summary of the trend’s emphasis on femininity and beauty. In this vacuum—which is often affirmed on social media—the aesthetic can often appear as shallow and exclusionary.

But Naomi Osaka is the best version of coquette-ness. In her case, all of the seemingly “frou-frou” accessories are really a stylistic reminder that she is more than just an athlete, and her on-court outfits don’t have to reduce her to that alone. To Osaka, her US Open look is best described by a term other than “coquette” or “Lolita goth.”

“The inspiration that fueled the look for me — and this might be a Japanese term — is feeling like a ‘magical girl’ on the court,” Osaka said in a press release. “There’s a moment of transformation for me when I walk onto the court, and I have a lot of fun playing, so wanting everyone who sees the outfit to connect with that feeling is a really big motivation for me.”

The Paris Olympic & Paralympic Games are nearly upon us, bringing with them the sweet summer promise of nonstop sporting storylines, new household names, and an allegedly sewage-less River Seine. But the Games don’t only guarantee world-class feats of athleticism, they also assure us of a bonus Paris Fashion Week—and with luxury titan LVMH as the Games’ premium partner, this statement is hardly hyperbole.

Since the conglomerate announced its role in this year’s Games more than a year ago, they have made it their mission to turn the sporting festivities into a style spectacle. Its most iconic Maisons have snatched up the symbolism of the Olympics via sponsorship; Berluti is outfitting Team France for Friday’s opening ceremonies, Chaumet’s jewelry is saying au dieu to the Place Vendôme in favor of outfitting those on the winner’s podium, and Louis Vuitton is producing the very uniforms, medal trays, and trunks to deliver those aforementioned Chaumet medals.

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And while LVMH’s legacy houses might be the primary patrons of what has been dubbed the “Luxury Olympics,” they are certainly not the only big names in fashion to capitalize on this cultural moment. Simon Porte Jacquemus teamed up with Nike for his directorial debut, lensing a dual celebration of the Olympics arriving in his beloved Paris and his latest collection in collaboration with the athletic brand. Beauty brands such as Fenty, Glossier, and Clinique are all set to have a presence at the Games, and of course, Kim Kardashian can’t stay away from an opportunity to strip sports stars down to their skivvies.

Luxury fashion’s mark on this year’s Games is unprecedented, but certainly not unpredictable. “Athletes and sports today convey values ​​of excellence, passion, and high standards, which echo those of our craftsmen,” LVMH’s Antoine Arnault told Women’s Wear Daily. He also emphasized the sociocultural capital of sports’ biggest stars and how any branding strategy would be remiss to ignore their impact— “Just look at Instagram, where the two top accounts belong to Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi. Between them, they have more than a billion followers.”

Considering that the last iteration of the Summer Olympics amassed a global audience of approximately 3.05 billion, it’s not a stretch to say that this year’s Games might just be this year’s most talked about runway show. As we all turn our eyes to Paris, here’s a look at some of the Olympic uniforms that are certain to stand out against the backdrop of the Seine.

Czechia
Opening ceremony uniform designed by JAN SOCIÉTÉ

France
Village uniforms designed by Stéphane Ashpool

Haiti
Opening ceremony uniform designed by Stella Jean

Ireland
Opening ceremony uniform designed by LW Pearl

Mongolia
Opening and closing ceremony uniforms designed by Michel & Amazonka

Netherlands
Breakdancing uniform by The New Originals

Sierra Leone
Olympic uniform designed by LABRUM and adidas

Taiwan
Opening ceremony uniform designed by JUST IN XX

Türkiye
Opening and closing ceremony uniforms by Vakko

United States of America
Closing ceremony uniform designed by Ralph Lauren

I, for one, am a huge proponent of method-dressing. Described by André Wheeler as “a chance to extend a project’s cinematic universe onto the red carpet before the movie even premieres,” method-dressing is a phenomenon that no celebrity-stylist duo has successfully capitalized on more than Law Roach and Zendaya Coleman. The duo are coming off of what I can only call back-to-back championship runs from their performances on the press tours for Dune: Part Two and Challengers this spring.

The Emmy-winner stars as Tashi Duncan in the tennis drama (a niche, but burgeoning film genre) directed by detail-oriented mastermind Luca Guadadigno. Tashi is a tennis prodigy whose highly anticipated career is cut short by injury; she turns to coaching and to two male tennis stars (Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor) to fill the void that the abrupt ending of her career has left. That’s all I’ll say about the plot because, for the purposes of this piece, all you need to know is that the movie is about tennis (but I think Guadadigno would tell you that tennis is about everything).

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Like any competitive sport, there are winners and losers in tennis—this is also true of outfits. While the doubles partnership of Zendaya and Law rarely faults, last month’s Challengers press tour, saw the actress in mostly tennis-themed looks ranging from custom Loewe (Creative Director Jonathan Anderson was in charge of costuming for the movie) to understated activewear by On Running certainly featured moments that were more trophy-worthy than others.

I’ve divided the promotional looks, worn throughout a monthlong span of late March through late April, into three categories: 1) The explicitly tennis-themed - looks that reference the sport’s icons, and symbols. 2) The subtly tennis-themed - outfits that paid homage to the sport’s emblematic greens, associated brands, and style codes. 3) The not-at-all-tennis-themed - as the name suggests, the moments that deviated from tennis entirely. I think that makes sense, right? If it doesn’t now, hopefully it will when I go category by category to discuss what resonated with me and what didn’t.

The explicitly tennis-themed

In my opinion, “the explicitly tennis-themed” largely accounted for the press tour’s best style moments, starting with an absolute ace at the film’s Australia premiere. Zendaya sparkled in a custom Loewe gown depicting a tennis serve; a garment that was clearly a labor of love from Jonathan Anderson and set the tone early on.

There’s never too much Loewe (the same can’t be said about another luxury brand that starts with the letter L); this time, a pleated, glimmering dress a la Ted Tinling. I don’t want to talk about the shoes, because I think the dress is perfect—the heels, not so much. The tennis ball pumps drew the praise of many, but they’re a bit literal, don’t you think? Two tennis balls skewered onto a pair of pumps is cheeky, but let’s not act like this is some feat of creativity and innovation.

This tennis ball-hued (and adorned) Celia Kritharioti haute couture gown felt similarly uninteresting. Sewing or skewering a tennis ball onto something is not praise-worthy, it’s just unnuanced.

The decision to incorporate not only recognizable tennis iconography, but recognizable tennis icons into the Challengers press tour wardrobe was perhaps the best of the entire enterprise. In Monaco, Zendaya paid tribute to Althea Gibson, who made history in 1956 as the first African-American to win a Grand Slam. She sported custom On Running threads, designed to recreate the “ICONIC tennis white of Althea Gibson.”

The pair recreated another iconic look at the tail end of the press tour, this time paying homage to Venus and Serena Williams. “They are my entry point to understanding anything tennis,” Zendaya said. “They are iconic, and I admire both of them so much, not just for what they've accomplished in the sport, but I think beyond: their impact and their significance for so many people, specifically Black women.” When verbal praise proved insufficient, she recreated the Williams’ May 1998 Vogue photoshoot. It was poignant and powerful in all aspects, from the white beads to the sweeping Carolina Herrera ballgown to the choice to be photographed on a couch. “While some of Zendaya’s other press tour looks have been more on-the-nose in terms of their tennis inspirations, this thoughtful approach is perhaps her very best yet,” wrote Vogue’s Christian Allaire. (I was crossing my fingers that the Serena tribute would be in the form of that denim US Open outfit, but that’s the type of greed they talk about in the bible).

At the film’s London premiere, the actress donned custom Thom Browne and for all we know those aforementioned Loewe pumps sans the tennis balls (I’m joking—we do, in fact, know that they’re Christian Louboutins). This look is unequivocally Thom Browne, and while it stays true to several brand codes, the dress’ collar, open back, thigh slit, tennis racquet adornments, and mesh skirting made it also unequivocally Zendaya, Law, and this movie.

The subtly tennis-themed

Overall, I thought that “the subtly tennis-themed” played a critical, though ultimately less buzzy role in executing Roach and Zendaya’s vision for this press run. With these looks, the duo continued to pay homage to the sport while also preventing an oversaturation of “the explicitly tennis-themed.”

In Paris, Zendaya made an appearance in one of the most coveted looks from Marc Jacob’s time as creative director of Louis Vuitton. The very chic checkered mini dress was first seen on the Louis Vuitton Spring 2013 Ready-to-Wear runway with no ties to tennis, but worn in the context of the Challengers cinematic universe, is clearly reminiscent of the green of a tennis court. Zendaya and Law aren’t telling us to think this, but know that we will because they have created a moment in time in which all we were thinking about was tennis.

Towards the end of the tour, Zendaya appeared on Good Morning America in a Thierry Mugler tennis ball-hued skirt suit because everyone knows that no Zendaya press tour is complete without a Mugler moment. According to Vogue, the suit likely was first seen in Mugler’s fall 1996 “Les Amazones” collection.

The age of this one-of-a-kind midi dress and ruffled short-sleeve jacket makes vintage Mugler seem quite contemporary—the set is from the 1930s, making it nearly 100 years old. The duo went outside of their comfort zone with the hand-dyed look, which was sourced from the luxury consignment store Sweet Disorder Vintage.

Tennis is one of the sports that has been shaping style trends and silhouettes for decades, as evidenced by this vintage Ralph Lauren number. Okay, maybe this one isn’t so subtle, but it also isn’t embossed with tennis racquets. It would be in the middle of the Venn diagram.

The not-at-all-tennis-themed

I’m aware that it’s not realistic for every outfit on a global, highly publicized press tour to stay true to the theme. That being said, I do think that Zendaya and Roach’s weakest looks of the Challengers run were the ones that deviated. As part of what was among the most talked about press tours in recent memory, “the non-tennis-themed” didn’t provide anything worth talking about.

There was always going to be a lot of Louis Vuitton—unfortunately. With Zendaya’s brand ambassadorship comes contractual duties, which is the only explanation for this custom white gown. It’s a glorified prom dress but worse because it features a chunky belt.

If you know me, you know I love Vivienne Westwood, so I want to love this set from her spring 1994 Café Society collection, I really do. It’s with a heavy heart but a firm mind that I say that I do not, in fact, love it. The look was referred to as a “playfully ingenious” take on tenniscore, but I’m struggling to understand how it relates to the sport at all. Not everything that’s patriotically pinstriped can fall under that label, actually!

After weeks of serving sartorial excellence across the globe, I really expected to be blown away by what Zendaya and Roach were reserving for Challengers’ Los Angeles premiere. This custom Vera Wang is a complete miss in the eyes of many, including myself. There’s no cohesion, and its lack of construction is distracting (even if it was said to be intentional). In the words of one Reddit user, “This dress looks bad. Zendaya is beautiful. That's all.”

Thus concludes the Challengers press tour, a true feat of fashion. I write this on the eve of the first Monday in May, knowing that come tomorrow’s Met Gala, the achievements of the Challengers press tour will be old news. The Met Gala is one night, while this press tour was 30 nights. 30 nights of turning out look after look after look, mainly adhering to a theme—and doing so excellently. Make no mistake, this was an all-time run by Zendaya and Law Roach, who are riding a winning streak that has set the standard.

Angel Reese has had quite a week. On Monday night, she played a starring role in the most-watched women’s college basketball game of all time, when she and the Louisiana State University Tigers took on Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes. Iowa bested LSU in what was a rematch of last year’s national championship game; but perhaps more importantly, was a women’s sporting event that drew 12.3 million eyes—a number that surpasses the viewership of every MLB game last season, every NHL game last season, every MLS game last season, and every NBA game last season except for one.

Both she and Clark have played a critical role in drawing these numbers and elevating the exposure of the women’s game. The on-court adversaries are purveyors in box-office basketball, elite trash-talking, and championing the women’s game to new heights. Their impact can be best explained in a few words: Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are household names. I’m not sure that any current men’s collegiate basketball player is. ESPN can back me up on this one; Monday night’s matchup was also the most-watched college basketball game, men’s or women’s, to ever air on any of their platforms.

Angel Reese has received far more criticism than the record-smashing Clark; and while some of this can be chalked up to a viral trash-talking gesture in last year’s tournament, one only has to look as far as the Los Angeles Times to know that it’s much deeper and far more sinister (prior to LSU’s matchup against UCLA, “journalist” Ben Bolch described Reese’s side as the “dirty debutantes” in a showdown of “good versus evil,” in a story that has since been scrubbed). Reese, who has served as the face of LSU’s team the past two seasons, admitted after Monday’s loss that she hasn’t been happy since winning the championship due to the overwhelming scrutiny she has received.

“I’ve been through so much,” Reese said. “I’ve seen so much. I’ve been attacked so many times, death threats, I’ve been sexualized, I’ve been threatened, I’ve been so many things, and I’ve stood strong every single time…I'm still human. All this has happened since I won the national championship, and I said the other day, I haven't been happy since then.”

When Vogue published an exclusive detailing her decision to go pro on Wednesday, I hope Angel Reese was happy.

The move was an homage to Serena Williams, who famously announced her retirement via an editorial spread in the same publication in 2022. It feels perfect for Reese, whose love of fashion and ever-impressive game-day looks earned her the nickname the Bayou Barbie. There would be no poorly-made Canva graphics posted to Instagram that led with a heartfelt “[insert name of school] nation,” and no under-the-radar press conference announcement. Or, in her own words, “Of course, I like to do everything big. I didn’t want anything to be basic.”

In the exclusive, Reese dons the likes of Christian Louboutin, Diesel, Swarovski, Wales Bonner, Valentino and more. The portraits were captured by Myles Loftin, the high-fashion photographer whose work centers on both Black subjects and the designs of Black creatives. It is an editorial worthy of the moment and all that Reese has accomplished to get her to this point; efforts that have made her, in the opinion of Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal, “probably the greatest athlete to come out of LSU sports,” male or female.

Angel Reese is a 2023 National Champion, two-time All-American, 2024 SEC Player of the Year, 2023 winner of the ESPY for the Best Breakthrough Athlete, 2023 BET Sportswoman of the Year and the 2023 Sporting News Athlete of the Year. She’s collected not only accolades but brand deals from the likes of Beats by Dre, Amazon, and Goldman Sachs, making her one of the highest-earning athletes of the NIL era.

She racks up rebounds with the help of her eye-catching manicures and stares down her opponents with her signature long lashes. She simultaneously describes herself as a “girly girl” and “killer on the court,” because she is. “I don’t have to be in a box,” she told writer Leah Faye Cooper.

Announcing her aspirations to be a professional athlete via Vogue as opposed to ESPN is just the latest example of the multidimensionality of Angel Reese. By being unapologetically herself and expressing her style both on and off the court, she’s shown girls everywhere that they can do the same. It’s an accomplishment that can’t necessarily be quantified or labeled like setting the NCAA single-season record in double-doubles can, but will undoubtedly be the most important legacy that the Bayou Barbie will leave behind.

There are plenty of stars shown in the photo above—from those that adorn the official Champions League knockout stage match balls strewn in front of the mirror to the French professional footballer that’s looking in it. And then there’s the star whose status in sportswear and sustainability is rising, deservedly; the London-based designer Sophie Hird, who is pictured here altering the custom jacket that Adidas has commissioned her to make to celebrate the return of the Champions League. To me, the project is really a celebration of Sophie; her success has been strutted through stadiums, reposted all over social media, and seen across the globe. If anyone asked about this year’s Champions League Round of 16, I would tell them that there were nine winners—Sophie Hird and the eight teams that advanced to next month’s quarterfinals.

Sophie’s work is serious in its ethos of sustainable production, but cheeky and joyful in its execution (think neckties made with Celtic F.C. scraps, or my personal favorite the WAG Bag, which allows you to carry your favorite footballers with you everywhere you go). What began as her 2019 graduate collection has become her namesake brand, exploring sportswear and sustainability in ever-evolving contexts and styles. On a personal level, her story and designs embody the essence of Laced Up, her journey inspiring mine, and the progression of this platform. It’s been a joy to see Sophie shine on the biggest of stages and speak with her about it all.

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Zoe Allen: Hi, Sophie! I’m so excited to finally be able to pick your brain about your design work, which is something I’ve wanted to do since I bought one of your WAG Bag’s last year. Fun little first question for you. I’ve been wondering how you collect the football cards you incorporate into the bag–which players are you drawn to? If you were making a WAG Bag for yourself, what would be your lineup of players?

Sophie Hird: I collect all of my football cards on eBay! I bought a huge job lot and didn’t know which ones were going to be in there which was quite exciting as it was a mixed bag. It sounds cheesy but I think if I were making my own WAG Bag it would be made up of my teammates from Whippets FC. We actually got some stickers of our team made up for our kit launch with Umbro so I should probably get onto that...

ZA: You interned at a sports brand, where you were inspired to create your own brand because of the number of product samples you saw going to waste. I think a lot of us, including myself, see the problems with fashion waste and still do too little to combat it. There’s a bit of cognitive dissonance there. How did you decide to pick up those scraps you saw and make these beautiful, upcycled garments? It’s one thing to want to do something, and it’s another thing in its entirety to actually do it.

SH: Well, it kind of went hand in hand with also being extremely intimidated by fabric shops. I find them so overwhelming and was dreading having to go to them for my final collection at Uni. Sourcing football shirts at my local car boot felt so much more natural and inspiring to me; working with what was there and the challenge of making it work that I enjoyed at the beginning. I find the designs of old football shirts a lot more inspiring than rolls of fabric, so it kind of just snowballed from there, really!

ZA: You recently designed an official kit for your aforementioned and beloved Whippets FC in collaboration with Umbro. Tell me about the process you underwent bringing these pieces to life and what it meant to you to design the official uniform of the club you’re a part of. 

SH: Umbro were really great throughout the whole process, they gave me complete freedom to design whatever I wanted which was so exciting. I have never had any of my designs made by a manufacturer so it was a bit surreal when it all came out and we received the kits. I joined Whippets after lockdown, not knowing anyone, and now it’s truly like a second family to me—so to make it for those guys and see them play in the kits is something special.

ZA: Even more recently–Sophie Hird is on fire (sung like the Beth Mead chant)–you were commissioned by Adidas to create custom bespoke leather jackets for both Jules Koundé and Rodrigo de Paul. These players have worn some sick outfits in the past, but I think your pieces top the list of the coolest individual pieces they have worn. How did these commissions come together? What was important to you when designing for Jules versus designing for Rodrigo?

SH: I loved making these pieces so much. Adidas was quite flexible with how I went about this, I just had to make the UCL ball the main focus. 

To begin with, I deconstructed the iconic Champions League final ball into individual panels. As the ball design is celebrating the final being held in London, I wanted to emphasize this and allow the lions within it to hold center stage.

The base of each jacket is made from locally sourced, second-hand leather jackets. Each jacket was cut, cleaned then re-sewn into a new bomber-style. Influenced by 80s bomber jackets, I added elasticated waistbands, cuffs, and large collars.

In the design process, I became heavily influenced by a sport called Speedway. Similar to Motocross, riders would wear these incredibly loud leather two-pieces with stripes and stars across them. After seeing these and the Champions League ball, I wanted to bring these two worlds together.

Each jacket is a completely unique take on these references, encapsulating the Adidas stripes, Champions League stars, and nostalgic sportswear worn in the 80s.

ZA: Clearly, you’ve had some insane collaborations already. What would your dream collab be, or has it already happened? 

SH: Honestly my dream collab was always Adidas. I couldn’t believe it when I received a message from them. In the grand scheme of the fashion world, I'm still a very small designer so it was the hugest pinch me moment to have them recognise me and commission those pieces.

ZA: Where do you see the future of sportswear heading? Do you see the rise in mainstream attention to sportswear as a positive or negative?

SH: It seems like sportswear brands are innovating their garments. A lot of brands use sustainable or recycled materials and as they’re the giants in the fashion industry, this is really great to see. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword though because there will always be a new football jersey released every year, for every team, along with other garments, so there will sadly always be a lot of waste happening.

You can shop Sophie’s designs here, and follow her on Instagram here.

Showing up to a party in the wrong outfit is one of the most humbling experiences a human being can have. Maybe you’re overdressed, underdressed, off-theme, taking the theme a little too seriously, wearing the same thing as someone else, or wearing something that looked good in the mirror in your room but now you’re not so sure about it…the list goes on. Another one of these humbling experiences is forgetting something obvious at home, and then having to buy a replacement for the short time you’re out. How much money has Duane Reade collectively taken from desperate New Yorkers forced to buy a $7 umbrella for a one-off deluge to then toss into a pile of umbrellas lying in the closet, bought earlier for the very same reason?

The ladies of Arsenal FC were humbled in every regard this evening at Stamford Bridge, where fashion faux pas’ were served alongside a 3-1 loss to the league leaders Chelsea. In front of a record crowd in West London, buzzing for one of the biggest games of the season, the teams took the pitch to warm up for a 19:00 GMT kick-off. They were promptly turned right around and the match was delayed by 30 minutes when it was realized that both teams were wearing white socks. Arsenal had shown up to the party in the wrong outfit.

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Every house has its own rules, whether it be for a party or a football match. In the case of Stamford Bridge, the mandate is simple: visiting sides are forbidden from wearing white socks. This has been the case since the 1964/1965 season when the team’s coach Tommy Docherty decided to revolutionize his side’s look by going from white shorts with dark blue or black socks to shorts of the same blue shape of the jersey combined with white socks. This rule has continued to be upheld due to broadcasting deals that forbid opposing teams from wearing the same color in any part of the outfield kit. And it has long been respected, even by Real Madrid, whose nickname “Los Blancos” is derived from their historic commitment to an all-white uniform.

Arsenal were forced to do what all of us have been forced to do before—buy something that you forgot at home. The intern walked the corporate credit card over to the Chelsea Megastore and bought 20 pairs of Chelsea’s away socks. With the power of some good, old-fashioned innovative thinking, arts and crafts supplies, and brand loyalty, the Arsenal XI took the pitch 30 minutes later. Tape had been wrapped around the Nike logo, because while the Gunners might have been a bit embarrassed, they would not be embarrassed and getting a call from their sponsor, Adidas.

By my calculations, that bulk sock purchase cost The Arsenal about £260 (336 USD), and that’s if the 30% off sale that’s being run is available in-store, as well as online. To qualify for that discount, some poor Arsenal employee would have had to give the code “blues30” at checkout. The game was over before it started.

Within 32 minutes, the home side had scored 3 on the out-of-sorts visitors. It was a game that saw Arsenal not only wearing the merchandise of one of their biggest rivals but outclassed by them as well. The 3-1 win saw Chelsea go three points clear at the top of the WSL table and simultaneously put Arsenal’s title hopes almost entirely out of reach.

This is a lesson in dress codes and packing lists. If you look good, you feel good, and in this case, you play good. It’s also a reminder of the understated importance of the sock; an often overlooked element of your outfit. One day, you, like Arsenal, might wear the wrong socks and suffer devastating consequences.

Last weekend, the National Basketball Association set women up for failure. It was a well-meaning, unintentional setup, but a setup nonetheless. In a half-hearted attempt to champion women’s sports—but with no real understanding of what men are like in comment sections—the NBA announced “Stephen vs. Sabrina,” which saw two of the game’s greatest shooters compete head-to-head in a 3-Point Contest at NBA All-Star Weekend. On February 18th, Stephen Curry, the NBA’s all-time leader in three-pointers, would take on Sabrina Ionescu, whose 37-point final-round performance at last summer’s WNBA All-Star Weekend set a record for a 3-Point Contest — NBA or WNBA.

It was originally Ionescu herself who challenged Curry to a one-on-one following her historic performance in 2023. Curry again raised the challenge when he was mic’d up during Golden State’s game against the Sacramento Kings on January 25th, and Ionescu responded on social media officially accepting the challenge. The NBA ran with it, advertising the sharpshooting contest as if it were a marquee boxing match—even presenting a heavyweight belt to the eventual winner, which, spoiler alert, was Curry. It would be a contemporary “Battle of the Sexes,” the 1973 tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King, which King won in three sets (however, unlike Riggs, Steph Curry does not hate women).

The frustrating reality is that female athletes can’t do anything without it being a reflection of all female athletes. So “Steph vs. Sabrina” was never just going to be about Steph and Sabrina—it was going to be about the legitimacy of women’s sports.

My best friend Maya told me her thoughts on the matchup when I was with her the weekend before in simple terms: “It makes me sick to my stomach thinking about it.” I was relieved that someone else was also aware of how much was (unjustly) being placed on Ionescu’s shoulders—it was more than just her reputation. In my eyes, “Steph vs. Sabrina” would gift the opportunity for men to invalidate women’s talent for years to come should she fail. And if she won? Well, it wouldn’t be a “legitimate” win because she would be shooting with a WNBA ball (smaller than the NBA ball) and from the WNBA three-point line (closer to the basket than the NBA line). If she won, it would be because Steph went “easy on her,” or to prove “he wasn’t a misogynist.” I had done the mental math and it looked like Sabrina Ionescu would be playing a zero-sum game.

The day before the competition, Ionescu announced that she would be shooting from the NBA three-point line (23 feet and nine inches) after having been originally slated to shoot from the WNBA line (22 feet and 1.75 inches). In doing this, Ionescu effectively took away an “excuse” should she win—it was a gamble, but one that would yield a greater return should she capitalize. If her decision was in anticipation of invalidation should she win from the WNBA line, I have no idea; but even this decision proved to be ammunition for those looking for it.

Ionescu opened by making seven straight shots before finishing with a total score of 26, tying the highest score by any NBA player in the 3-Point Contest held earlier Saturday night and won by the Milwaukee Bucks' Damian Lillard. Only her direct competitor, Stephen Curry—the greatest shooter in the game’s history—put up a higher total (29), ultimately giving him the edge in their one-on-one showdown.

“I think a night like tonight shows a lot of young girls and young boys that, if you can shoot, you can shoot,” Ionescu said after the contest. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a girl or boy, I think it just matters the heart that you have and wanting to be the best you can be.”

It didn’t feel like she had lost, it felt like she had put on a show. She had gone toe-to-toe with Steph Curry from the NBA line, and in 15 minutes had cemented herself on the pantheon of the world’s greatest shooters, male or female. It would have been a pure show of skills and sportsmanship if you watched it all unfold without audio. But on the mic, one man was intent on detracting from Ionescu and what she had conveyed on the court.

The league’s All-Star Game audience peaked with 5.4 million viewers between 10:00 PM EST and 10:15 PM EST, which, you guessed it—was during the Steph vs. Sabrina 3-Point Challenge. 5.4 million people watched a display of individual brilliance as Ionescu proved she could shoot alongside the very best. 5.4 million people were also subjected to the misogynistic ramblings of Kenny “The Jet” Smith as he provided the shootout’s on-air commentary for TNT. Yes, the same Kenny “The Jet” Smith whom Timothée Chalamet recently called his style inspiration, which is starting to make more and more sense with each one of Chalamet’s eyesore-inducing red carpet looks on the Dune: Part Two press tour. While calling the action alongside Reggie Miller, Smith continuously insisted that Ionescu should have shot from the WNBA line, despite her stellar performance from a longer range.

“She should have shot it from the women’s line,” Smith insisted. “That would have been a fair contest. I still root for Sabrina … But she should have shot from the three-point line that the women shoot from.”

Miller responded, asking his broadcasting partner why he was “putting those boundaries on her.” Smith doubled down on his take, comparing the situation to golf where “there’s a women’s tee in golf, and there’s a men’s tee.” Miller—who won plenty of respect from me in this exchange—fired back and said “Sabrina, don’t let any man put boundaries on you like Kenny.” When Smith continued complaining about Ionescu’s decision, Miller replied “According to you, you want her just playing with dolls.”

His belittling musings did not go unnoticed by the game’s superstars—reigning MVP Joel Embiid tweeted “Kenny Smith been drinking lmao,” while former WNBA-great Sue Bird called for more women in sports broadcasting. “We needed a woman on the headsets, too. So much nuance & storytelling missed.” When Smith appeared on the Stephen A. Smith Show on Monday, he called his shambolic storytelling “much ado about nothing,” and argued that it was taken out of context. Well, Mr. Smith, the context of your commentary was the competition you were calling in real-time, an event whose viewing experience was marred by your half-baked thoughts that were ultimately about what you think women can and cannot do. No Monday morning talk-show “explanation” will ever change that.

While we’re on the topic of context—a word that is actually being used correctly in this case—the context of the above photo of Chalamet is that he showed up looking like that on the same carpet as Zendaya who arrived in the archival pull of the century: Mugler's iconic FW95 naked armor ensemble, which I never thought I would see somebody wear in my lifetime. If I was Timmy, I would be hanging my head in shame.

Once upon a time (earlier this month), a knight (in the modern sense of the term) declared (it was leaked) that he would be leaving his noble steed (Mercedes) in favor of The Prancing Horse (Ferrari). Or, in non-children’s story vernacular—Sir Lewis Hamilton, MBE, announced that after 11 years and seven world titles with the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 team, this upcoming season would be his last racing for the Silver Arrows. He’s 39 years old, but he isn’t retiring—he’ll be racing for Scuderia Ferrari come 2025. From a team color palette perspective, I am devastated; silver and black to red and yellow is objectively a downgrade. But given Lewis’ track record as one of the most fashionable people in the world, I believe that he must have considered this as well and still decided it was the right thing to do. Therefore, I give my blessing.

If I had any foresight, I would have already written about Formula 1. But I haven’t, so here’s a little background: F1 is defined by Wikipedia as the “highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile,” but to me, it is really the European version of NASCAR (meaning that it is sexier, sleeker, but still just cars driving in circles at the end of the day). Each Grand Prix (race) takes place in a different location across the globe, making the sport a true spectacle. There’s a guy named Max Verstappen who grinds my gears (haha) because he wins every race. It’s not his fault that he’s exponentially better than the rest of the grid (which is the F1 term for the lineup of racers) but god I would probably be way more into the sport if there wasn’t an 86% chance of him winning any given race. Because that’s what he did last season—the Dutchman won 19 out of 22 races and you can do the math. There are 10 F1 “constructors” (teams) with two drivers, and so many technicians and behind-the-scenes engineers. I am hesitant to call it a sport because in most ways it is a feat of science and a few hundred mechanical engineering degrees.

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F1’s popularity stateside rose exponentially following the premiere of Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive to Survive, a documentary-style series that chronicles the lives of drivers, managers, and team owners on and off the track. The first season aired in 2019 to massive success, making superstars out of the sport’s most personable participants. All of a sudden, American women wanted to date Daniel Ricciardo, and American men wanted to be him. Charles Leclerc’s gorgeous green eyes became universally adored, and the subject of several TikTok fan cams. Turns out, all Formula 1 needed was to be marketed to American audiences; watching cars go vroom on television was no longer Dayton, Ohio coded—it was chic.

Drive to Survive has remade F1 in the United States; the show is said to have provided a halo effect that’s boosted live race viewership on ABC and ESPN. A poll by Morning Consult in March 2022 of nearly 1,900 self-identified adult U.S. F1 fans showed that 53 percent credited Drive to Survive as a reason they became viewers of F1 races. Per a Nielsen study, F1’s U.S. fan growth has increased by about 10 percent since the Netflix series debut, from an estimated 44.9 million American F1 fans in 2019 to 49.2 million in 2022.

One driver, however, needed no introduction; Sir Lewis Hamilton has served as a global ambassador of the sport for nearly two decades. Hamilton’s name is synonymous with F1—a larger-than-life, LeBron James-esque presence whose historic wins on the grid only tell a fraction of the story. When Hamilton joined McLaren-Mercedes in 2007, he became the first Black driver to ever race in the series. In his inaugural season, he finished runner-up by one point. In 2008, he dramatically won his first title—on the last lap of the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix, the last race of the season—to become the then-youngest-ever Formula 1 World Champion. In 2013, Hamilton signed with Mercedes and has gone on to champion another six world titles, as well as diversity in F1 and beyond. In 2020, Hamilton was named among Time’s 100 most influential people, and at the end of 2021, was knighted in recognition of his achievements, influence, and service in motorsports and beyond.

Hamilton remains the only Black F1 driver, 16 years later. He’s suffered innumerable counts of racist abuse throughout his career, now using his platform to call on governing bodies across the globe to protect Black athletes. In 2020, Hamilton kneeled before every race and donned a Black Lives Matter helmet behind the wheel. His doctrine of outspokenness, especially in situations where he has everything to lose from doing so, has put the world on notice time and time again. His presence has corraled Formula 1 into being on the right side of history, his influence seemingly greater than that of everyone else in the sport. The same year, he established The Hamilton Commission with the Royal Academy of Engineering, a program dedicated to “finding ways in which motorsport can engage more young people from Black backgrounds with science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects.”

“His activism has also moved the world. Lewis has brought international attention to the Black Lives Matter movement, through his advocacy on social media and at F1 events. Lewis’ mental preparation, his aura, his ability to capitalize on every opportunity to use his platform to drive out racism are more than just a model for race-car drivers and other athletes. He’s an inspiration for everyone,” wrote NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace in his Time profile.

Formula 1, much like soccer (and increasingly other sports globally), has been tainted by corruption; countries with dismal human rights records have paid massive sums to play host to a Grand Prix and benefit from the tourism and publicity this brings. A phenomenon called “sportwashing,” this practice generally describes nations, individuals, groups, corporations, or governments that use sports to improve reputations tarnished by wrongdoing. In F1, the more egregious examples of this can be found at the Bahrain Grand Prix, Hungarian Grand Prix, Qatar Grand Prix, and the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Prior to 2020’s race in Bahrain, an 11-year-old boy, Ahmed Ramadhan, wrote a letter to Hamilton, asking him to save his father, who was facing the death penalty, after a confession was allegedly extracted through torture for the death of a policeman. In the wake of this, Hamilton spent several months speaking to legal and human rights experts and Bahranian officials. “There are issues all around the world but I do not think we should be going to these countries and just ignoring what is happening in those places, arriving, having a great time and then leave,” Hamilton said at the press conference before the race.

All of that is just the tip of the iceberg. He’s an environmentalist, donated millions to charity, and is an outspoken advocate of LGBTQIA+ rights; he has always understood the power his position holds and the unique opportunity he has to create something better. Hamilton strongly criticized the Hungarian government before the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix, while also calling out the "terrifying" Saudi Arabian LGBTQIA+ laws before that Grand Prix.

Long associated with Mercedes, the announcement of his switch to Ferrari put the world on pause. Ferrari are the Dallas Cowboys of Formula 1—a winning history that has yet to be replicated in the present. Does the Scuderia believe that Hamilton can infuse some championship DNA back into the team, even at 39? How long will Hamilton continue racing (both Ferrari and Hamilton have stated the contract is multi-year)? Is it looking past 2025, and what Hamilton can contribute to Ferrari when he does announce his retirement? And does his future off the grid now rest in Maranello, the small Italian town that Scuderia Ferrari calls home? I can speculate all I want, but what is certain as of now is that Carlos Sainz will be unemployed at the end of 2024—Buena suerte, Smooth Operator!

Another certainty is that Lewis Hamilton will continue pulling up to the track in the flyest possible fits, no matter how hard the sport tries to stop him. FIA dress code that bans the display of political, religious, and personal statements? Hertfordshire’s finest says "f that.” How about the embargo on earrings? Hamilton shows up with piercings on both ears and his nose, an act of solidarity with all of the girls whose high school coaches wouldn’t let them get their ears pierced during field hockey season. Everything Hamilton does, he does big—especially his style. A sartorial maximalist, Hamilton has spent his career redefining what a Formula 1 driver can be with accessories alone.

“I didn’t feel like I was welcome,” he told Vanity Fair. “I didn’t feel like I was accepted. God knows how many of these drivers say: ‘This is not what a Formula 1 driver is. That’s not how you behave. This is not how you do it. Tattoos? No! A Formula 1 driver doesn’t have tattoos! A Formula 1 driver doesn’t have a personality—and piercings!”

His fashion week foray with Tommy Hilfiger raised several eyebrows in 2020, but his performance later that week in Singapore silenced the critics. Lewis Hamilton has made it abundantly clear—he can and will do it all. He’s looked powerful in pink for Valentino campaigns, is a fashion show front-row regular, and loves his Zegna sweaters. If I had as much Tiffany & Co. jewelry as Sir Lewis, I’d be hard-pressed to take it off for a race too. He has been the saving grace of menswear and morality on Met Gala red carpets, most recently buying a table specifically to host Black designers who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford a ticket at the event, who in turn brought and dressed Black VIP guests.

With the icon all set to switch to Ferrari in 2025, it’s only fitting to pay homage to his best fits—Scuderia-style. Expect to see Sir Lewis Hamilton in a lot more red in the near future, because he sure looks good in it.

Shoutout to Harun Sinanović, who fact-checked this story as my resident F1-obsessed friend.

I want to make it abundantly clear that this post is not laced with cynicism in any shape or form; just warmth and fuzziness. Because this is a heartwarming story—or, in the case of Taylor Swift and Brittany Mahomes, an extremities-warming one. Despite my unshakeable belief that Swift is not a fashion girl (she can’t be everything), she is, undoubtedly, a girls girl. Nothing reflected that more than her choice of apparel in Saturday’s sub-zero temperatures.

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Much to the dismay of the worst men you know, the pop-star made her regular suite appearance at last weekend’s playoff showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins at what has seemingly become her second home: the scenic GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. At the time of kickoff, the outside temperature in Kansas City was -4 degrees Fahrenheit (but felt like -27 degrees), which for those requiring a visual representation of just how cold that is, froze this superior light beer mid-tab pull:

It’s no secret that Swift’s style thrives in the Fall/Winter seasons; she’s a scarf-swathed siren, a cable-knit ride or die, one of the most recognizable faces of Christian Girl Autumn; only to be rivaled by Caitlin Covington herself. This fall, however, her cozy signature style has been less of a story than her venture into game-day outfits—which, conveniently enough, have been perfectly complimentary to her trademark red lip. She’s worn Santa hats and plaid skirts, varsity jackets and custom crewnecks, windbreakers with white tanks. Reputation era this, Lover era that—anyone who knows anything recognizes that Swift is in her WAG era. On Saturday, she clocked in to her shift at the supportive girlfriend factory wearing a puffer jacket that managed to sartorially embody all those nights she’s stepped out for dinners on Bond Street with her girl group. Designed by fellow WAG Kristin Juszczyk, the puffer was truly Taylor-made as a show of support for her beau Travis Kelce. His name might have been embroidered on the back of the viral custom piece, but it became an afterthought in comparison to Juszczyk’s.

A bit of back story for the jacket—because honestly, most jackets deserve to have their stories told regardless of how widely photographed and circulated they are. According to journalist Kate Rooney, Brittany Mahomes has commissioned Juszczyk in the past and did so again for Saturday’s first-round playoff game. Juszczyk shot her shot and made a second jacket for Mahomes to give Swift in the hopes that she would wear it. The rest is history. With a little foresight, some middle man magic from Mahomes, and some luck, she managed to have Taylor Swift promoting her brand like Bottega Veneta had Kendall Jenner promoting theirs.

Per FOX Sports, Juszczyk has been customizing clothing for several years, starting with Halloween costumes and growing to game-day outfits to represent her husband, San Francisco 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk. During the regular season, she designed a Brock Purdy-themed puffer vest that was worn by none other than Deebo Samuel before San Francisco's Week 17 game against the Washington Commanders.

"She's the truth," Samuel told Kay Adams.

This isn’t the first time a woman of note has worn a Juszczyk original—Record-breaking gymnast Simone Biles was seen sporting another of Juszczyk's puffer vests in late 2023 to show support for her husband Jonathan Owens of the Green Bay Packers. And here’s where Owens, who infamously said that he was the catch (???) in their relationship around the same time, should take notes. Or, in the words of Lilly Moscovitz from The Princess Diaries —

Kyle Juszczyk, the eight-time Pro-Bowler—but more importantly, the husband of DIYer Kristin Juszczyk—sat down for an extensive social media sesh on Saturday to ensure everyone knew just who had designed Swift’s game day jacket. The below screenshot might be the only time an Adam Schefter quote-tweet has said something positive about a woman:

His thoroughness and dedication to giving credit where credit is due are admirable; I just know this man loved inserting footnotes into his research papers during his time at Harvard. Sexy!

“Just happiness,” were Kyle’s words of choice to describe his wife’s well-deserved time in the spotlight.“Just appreciation. Just so stoked for her because I know how hard she’s worked, how hard she grinded. To see Taylor wearing it and it looked incredible. It was just awesome. We were just so happy in our house.”

According to data compiled by the sports social media agency bknown, Kristin has gained over 400,000 new followers on Instagram since Friday, when she had around 113,000 followers. Her NFL player-themed designs are a bigger deal than the NFL players themselves—no one in the league has gained over 75,000 Instagram followers since last Wednesday.

Love it or hate it, that’s the Taylor Swift effect. While I certainly recommend against basing all of your interests around that of your idol, Swift’s foray into football has been pretty magical to witness from a publicity perspective—especially for women in sports and adjacent to them. It’s a telling tale of what celebrities with platforms like hers are capable of and just how influential they can be, for better or for worse. But this is a tale of the good; so cheers to you, Kristin Juszczyk, as well as everyone out there who is experiencing the joy of sports fandom for the first time because their favorite singer happens to be dating an NFL player.

Well, as everyone who subscribes to the Gregorian calendar is already acutely aware of, 2023 is over! It was certainly a year, and I’m not sure I can describe it as much more than that. In sports, the highs were high (the Texas Rangers won their first World Series) and the lows were low (Chelsea Football Club was a nightmare to watch on a consistent basis). In fashion, I had to update my wardrobe to include office-appropriate attire because I got my first full-time job. In my personal life, I remained going on silly little dates, officially entered my mid-twenties, and started this here Substack, Laced Up.

One theme that underscored this past year was the continuing convergence of sports and style in a way that felt impossible to ignore, which served as a major influence in my creation of Laced Up. Everyone wanted in on it, from internet favorite brands such as Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS and Marc Jacobs’ Heaven to luxury fashion labels such as Prada and Louis Vuitton. The importance of athletes to our culture, as well as the appreciation of the communal value of sports as a whole was represented in editorial campaigns, seasonal collections, and in the front row of Paris Fashion Week.

The overlap between sports and style should not be interpreted as a “trend;” This is the real deal, an overdue homage to the value of intersectionality and the significance of both fashion and sport around the globe. A reminder that none of us are confined to one field, one title, or one calling; we are a far cry from 2018’s infamous “shut up and dribble” comment.

So, without further ado, I present Laced Up’s “Top Scorers of 2023,” a collection of people, moments, and happenings that served as ambassadors to the ever-merging worlds of sports and style over the past year. A snapshot of the personas whose tunnel walks were as stylish as runway shows, whose box seat appearances resulted in a whole new demographic of fans (and likely DIY merch), and The Only Girl in the World who could flawlessly use the Super Bowl as a backdrop for a pregnancy announcement.

Rihanna’s Custom Super Bowl Performance

The most-watched Super Bowl Halftime Show did not fail to deliver big hits, big looks, and a big announcement—Rihanna used America’s biggest stage to announce that she and partner A$AP Rocky were expecting their second child. Styled by Jahleel Weaver, Ri Ri wore a custom Loewe jumpsuit, as well as scarlet MM6 Maison Margiela x Salomon sneakers. During her finale, in which she performed “Diamonds,” she donned a dramatic red Alaïa coat with matching gloves; a tribute to the late André Leon Talley. While I continued watching a riveting battle between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles following the performance, there’s no doubt in my mind the NFL would rather not publicize how many of the program’s 118 million viewers turned off their televisions as soon as Rihanna’s set ended.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Hits the Met Gala Red Carpet

My Met Gala viewing experience was certainly atypical this past May—I was 13 hours ahead of fashion’s biggest night exploring Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market and shopping in Ginza, refreshing my socials minimally (everyone say yay Zoe for living in the moment). I was largely unimpressed by the red carpet happenings—Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty more like Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Boring. The Met Gala consistently suffers from monotonous men’s looks, and with a theme that encouraged monochromatic tailoring, 2023 was largely dull on the menswear front. While NBA phenom Shai Gilgeous-Alexander opted for an on-theme monochromatic Thom Browne ensemble, it was anything but trite. Every layer was pulled by Gilgeous-Alexander himself and custom-tailored to fit his 7-foot wingspan and “really skinny waist” in Thom Browne’s Garment District offices. On the first Monday in May, Gilgeous-Alexander graduated from being just the bonafide face of stylishness in the NBA, to among the fashion industry’s vanguard.

Jude Bellingham, Golden Boy on and Off the Pitch

Europe’s domestic football leagues might have concluded their on-field activities in the middle of May, but everyone knows the real drama always happens in the off-season transfer windows. In June, England international Jude Bellingham, who was coveted by top leagues across the continent, put pen to paper to sign a contract with the famed Real Madrid in a deal worth upwards of €100 million. Not even a week after his transfer announcement, the 2023 Golden Boy recipient took soccer style to Paris Fashion Week, sitting front row at Louis Vuitton’s Menswear Spring/Summer 2024 show. Donning a flocked jacket, matching monogrammed trousers, heavyweight loafers and accessorized with V 1.1 Millionaires Infinity Dots sunglasses, Bellingham certainly looked worth as much as his exorbitant transfer fee. The then 19-year-old was joined by fellow footballer Marcus Rashford, brother Jobe, Boston Celtic’s guard Jaylen Brown, alongside front row regulars such as Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and Naomi Campbell.

Nike x Martine Rose for the USWNT

Despite already spending 1,264 words praising Martine Ali x Nike’s custom suiting collection for the United States Women’s National Team’s (extremely disappointing) World Cup run, it nonetheless deserves a spot in the 2023 highlight reel. The team might have had a dispirited performance Down Under, but this link-up was a clear winner.

Sporting Events, featuring Some Notable Hard Launches…

No matter what your opinion is of Taylor Swift, the reality is that all she touches turns to gold. In 2023, that location was Kansas City, Missouri, the venue was Arrowhead Stadium, and the man was Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. While I don’t find her to be particularly fashion-forward (and I firmly believe that we can’t all be fashion-forward, and that’s okay), her various Kansas City-themed outfits were…cute? In a very I just got into college and now I’m going to custom order a sweatshirt with my school’s mascot and collegiate lettering on it kind of way. The appearances, as well as her outfits, were discussed at length by not just Vogue but also FOX Sports, as was every single detail of her life throughout the entire year. But who cares if Dads, Brads, and Chads are pissed at the pop star’s surprising foray into the politics of the gridiron; she just wants to watch Travis rock Arrowhead after he watched her rock Arrowhead! And her supportive girlfriend efforts have paid off in dividends for the NFL—her newfound football fandom resulted in a huge boost in ratings this past fall. October 1st’s matchup between the Chiefs and the New York Jets—Swift was in attendance—drew 27 million viewers, making it the most-watched Sunday TV show since the last Super Bowl, according to NBC Sports. For whatever it’s worth, I loved watching Swifties scramble to learn the rules and who’s who of the game with the same frightening obsession that they infamously bring to everything they do (pictured below):

One of the worst takes of the year was that Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet’s hard launch at the US Open was…fashionable? It was setting appropriate, sure, as the environs can best be described as a WASP heaven. Wealth is the name of the game on the tournament grounds, often more so than tennis itself. This brings me to the concept of “stealth wealth,” which is described by writer Amanda Mull as a “particular mode of dressing said to be favored not by the rich, but by the genuinely, generationally wealthy…The textiles and cuts are impeccable, the colors are neutral, and the finishes are subtle and logo-free…These, supposedly, are clothes for people without anything to prove.” I will never forgive this trend—which I thought was a joke centered around the final season of Succession but turned out was taken seriously by some—for several 2023 crimes, but especially the one of convincing us that what these two were wearing is aspirational and worthy of conversation. 2023 was the year we were brainwashed into thinking that no matter how basic a garment or accessory is, if it’s designed by the likes of Bottega Veneta or Celine, we should hold it in high regard. I’m hoping that 2024 is when we remember that having money does not necessarily equate to having style.

…But Coco Gauff is the Main Event

The only positive about the aforementioned hard launch was that it took place at the Men’s Singles Final match, not the Women’s. On Saturday, September 9th, it was all about Coco Gauff, the 19-year-old American who took home her first Major singles title on home clay. She won in dominant fashion in head-to-toe New Balance—the sportswear company that signed her when she turned pro at 14. In 2022, Gauff extended her New Balance contract after becoming the only active player in pro women’s tennis to have a signature sneaker. And, at this year’s US Open, she laced up those shoes—her shoes, the New Balance CG1—en route to winning her first career Grand Slam title.

Everyone’s October Obsession: Young David Beckham

In early October, Netflix’s Beckham reintroduced the world to a young, floppy-haired David Beckham, and I was made acutely aware of the fact that if someone as good-looking as him was still playing for Manchester United, I would likely be a Manchester United fan. I received a few “I now understand what you see in soccer guys” from my friends, who, like Victoria Beckham, were willing to watch the sport because of Becks, and not for anything else. The four-part series is a testament to David’s mentality and personality on and off the pitch, from the effects of effigies to a move to the MLS. I watched Man United’s 1999 Champions League campaign on the edge of my seat as if I didn’t already know what happened. 2001 buzzcut Becks is my phone screensaver, because if you have a buzzcut and are still hot that is the surest proof of being hot. And in the late 90s and early 2000s, he knew it. He and Victoria were known for their impeccable, and often carefully coordinated style on both red carpets and day-to-day life, gracing Old Trafford with Y2K drip that was meticulously documented in tabloids and by the paparazzi. What’s the difference between a young Posh and Becks and the two other couples in this article, you might ask. The difference is that those outfits deserved discourse (as evidenced by this Pinterest board). In the last episode of the series, viewers are allowed a glimpse inside a now 48-year-old David Beckham’s dressing room; described by GQ as an organized, “ivory-hued oak mecca of his menswear finds.” And get this—he’s an outfit prepper, laying out outfits for an entire week. “His style may not be as experimental as it once was—there are no sarongs or baggy cargos in sight—but he's no less deeply involved with his wardrobe, the desire to look good undimmed. If Beckham is about the most written-about athlete in British history looking back with maturity on a storied career—the highs and the lows—then this shows how his wardrobe has evolved to match that.”

Sir Lewis Hamilton at the Brazilian Grand Prix

I would be hard-pressed to find an athlete more stylish than Formula One driver Sir Lewis Hamilton, who can accurately be described as a true legend who is laps ahead of his peers when it comes to personal style. Forget the fast cars, Hamilton’s Instagram is your dream menswear mood board. He started this year’s F1 season in Bahrain in a Dior kilt and ended it in a brown and orange jumpsuit in Abu Dhabi. He’s skirting FIA dress code rules in the classiest way possible—by donning Tiffany & Co. diamonds. This year, Hamilton was selected for the Business of Fashion 500, cited as “a record-breaking British racing driver in Formula One. Beyond his success on the track, where he remains the sport’s first and only Black driver, he has been instrumental in raising his sport’s global profile and deepening its ties to fashion.” In early November, he demonstrated his ability to dress to theme when he arrived at the Brazilian Grand Prix in a green, black, and blue co-ord that served as an homage to both Brazil and Sao Paulo racing icon Ayrton Senna.

NBA Tunnel Fashion

As I said early on in this piece, professional basketball players are thankfully not just “shut[ting] up and dribbl[ing].” In fact, the league has become all the more personal due to the nascent tunnel walk, a pregame moment—about 15 seconds, to be exact—that has evolved into the opportunity to showcase a player’s style identity. @leaguefits, an Instagram account dedicated to showcasing the best fits in the NBA, has amassed 1,000,000 followers, all looking forward to what not just their favorite baller, but maybe their style inspiration, will be wearing next. “Style icon is the perfect way to describe these guys,” vintage specialist Tom DeCeglie told Business of Fashion. “It’s crazy how the tunnel walk has gotten to this level because I remember guys used to just come in wearing sweats, and that was it.” Watch creative director and tunnel fit stylist Allen Onyia break down some of 2023’s best tunnel fits here.

And that’s a wrap on 2023, which was just practice, NOT the game that we go out there and die for. Here’s to hoping your sports team wins a championship and your favorite designer doesn’t become the creative director of Givenchy in 2024.

Bears, bongs, babies, and blokettes seem to be the underlying inspiration for Heaven by Marc Jacobs’ latest campaign, created in collaboration with New York fashion label BARRAGÁN. The whole thing originally felt so nonsensical, so obscenely random that it was good. If you’re wondering what the connection is there, you’re not alone—read on to witness some light investigative journalism (that has not been fact-checked in any way but is fun to believe regardless).

It’s important to note that not just any baby came to mind when mood-boarding for this collab, but Bhad Babie’s babie. The campaign served not only as a collection reveal; it also functioned as a gender reveal via pink motorcycle exhaust and metallic Kiki boots. “💗ITS🎀A💓GIRL💖,” wrote the social media sensation in her Instagram post that unveiled the news. Congratulations to Bhad Babie on having a girl, and congratulations to the two designers on having conjured up such a Frankensteinian concept.

Bhad Babie’s presence in a Heaven campaign is so on brand for the label, having previously tapped the likes of Liv Tyler, Bella Hadid, Lil Uzi Vert, Ethel Cain, Ice Spice, Bladee, and Charli XCX to front product launches. It’s the presence of her on a soccer turf, under floodlights, in a locker room, standing holding her belly on the sideline as models/players in jerseys dribble behind her, that is so outlandishly interesting to me. (Those jerseys are gorgeous, collared and paneled, and the perfect shades of green and blue mesh but $250. Might I suggest the purchase of Extra Time Magazine’s sexy two-toned limited edition top for those in search of a good-looking jersey for a very reasonable $75).

The garments themselves are a fresh take on the tired Heaven lineup—an array of mildly soccer-inspired tops, knit dresses, star hoodies, foil pants, short skirts, bong and ball-adorned earrings, and heavily branded goods. It’s colorful, nostalgic, and evocative in a way that speaks far more to the ethos of BARRAGÁN—who grew up in the prismatic and soccer-obsessed Mexico City—than Marc Jacobs. But it’s extortionate in a way that few things that borrow from the beautiful game should be—a qualm I have about all designer sportswear and not limited to this collaboration.

“Marc Jacobs’ team reached out to have me shoot for Heaven and it was right before the pregnancy had leaked so they didn’t know,” said Ms. Babie in a statement. “When they found out they really wanted to do it still and I did too so we made it happen. It was a quick turnaround but I love how it came out. We thought it would be cool to try and do a gender reveal with the images so we had some fun with it. I’m really just enjoying this whole experience and grateful I have these amazing pictures to share with my daughter one day.”

I wonder what her daughter will think. She, like me, might be wondering if soccer is important to Bad Bhabie, whose government name is Danielle Bregoli. Well, per this running discourse thread, it might have been. “So the Cashmeousside girl, Danielle Bregoli lives near me in Boynton Beach, FL. My daughter played soccer with her. The girl dropped out of school in 7th grade but she was one of the most talented athletes I had ever seen at that age. Both her parents ran mid-D in college and I have seen her crush some 400 and 800s on the track,” wrote a user.

This is amazing, and there’s no way that either Marc Jacobs or Victor Barragán considered this in any way when they asked her to be their campaign star. But it matters to me. Danielle Bregoli, the athlete that could have been. Maybe her unborn daughter will don a USWNT jersey one day, and this is all by design. An easter egg of sorts. But that’s all speculation. One thing I can (somewhat confidently) say is that as it turns out, Marc Jacobs x BARRAGÁN is a soccer-inspired collection fronted by a middle school soccer star. How ‘bout that?

Disclaimer: I make a lot of assumptions in this post.

I was on a date last week at a bar near McCarren Park that is to that park what a concessions stand is to an American sports stadium; overpriced, unexciting, some fleeting glimpses of sporting action. It was bitterly cold that night, but the floodlights were on and the Brooklyn footballers were out, presumably in layers of Uniqlo Heattech™ under flimsy colorful pennies. Despite there being a man sitting right in front of me who had fully paid for my drink, I—in the words of Carrie Bradshaw—couldn’t help but wonder what underwear men prefer to wear when they engage in sporting activities.

It seems that one SHEo mogul capitalist exec by the name of Kim Kardashian has also been pondering this. And with a $1.7 billion dollar net worth, she has taken matters into her own meticulously manicured hands (by contrast, I did a cost-benefit analysis of going up to rec players in Williamsburg and just asking them).

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While I imagine there was a certain amount of demographic surveying that went into the SKIMS Mens product design, it certainly wasn’t among the five-a-siders. But I do think there’s a chance that Kim K texted the likes of Neymar, Nick Bosa, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander about their undie preferences before they starred as the overly-masculine faces of her first-ever men’s drop.

I’d like to believe in a world in which she sent boxers to a sample of the world’s most elite male athletes in the form of an influencer care package (“To LeBron — you know SKIMS has you covered and comfortable on and off the court, x Kim” etc etc) and maybe Neymar, Bosa and Gilgeous-Alexander had glowing reviews about the product and were not only incentivized by a fat fee to strip for SKIMS. On that note, I wonder what the SKIMS finance team’s valuation of the trio for their time and image was. Their objectified value, per se. And what that value is compared to the market-value estimation of their respective on-field talent.

Considering that men’s underwear is a $5.7 billion market and growing every year, the simple foray into the world of menswear is an unsurprising move for SKIMS. It was a nearly inevitable destination, but even though some of global sport’s most influential figures were tapped to be the public faces (bodies) of SKIMS Mens, I was certainly not expecting any major sports league to announce a quote-unquote official underwear partner. Enter: SKIMS x NBA, WNBA and USA Basketball.

In this Forbes article that is less a work of journalism and more a paid promotional post, the writer argues that the collaboration is a “true game-changer” and a “top-tier" partnership. The reasons for this are the alleged alignment of core values (“championing inclusivity, diversity, and body positivity”), the distinctiveness of the two brands, and the win-win nature of it all. Okay…like…maybe? I know very little about the realities of running a business or a successful large-scale brand partnership. Still, I did think we were past the point of trying to spin Kardashian-led endeavors as anything other than privileged “passion” projects and cash grabs. The collaboration is smart, as are many of the family’s business ventures and decisions. They have people on the payroll for that. Again, the expansion into menswear—notably through sports—is a no-brainer from a business perspective, but I’m reluctant to call it anything more than a mutually beneficial venture. Or what could be a mutually beneficial venture? The jury’s out. The origins of the project were likely as simple as her team holding a two-minute conference call and giving her a brief pitch encouraging her to capitalize on the major sports moment currently occurring in fashion as a whole.

I love to preach about the important cultural impact both the sports world and the fashion industry are capable of. But sometimes, what I love about both disciplines are the objectively frou-frou ventures like this. The idea of an “official underwear partner” is silly and frivolous and kinda fun! It’s slightly camp. And I truly have no idea what it means. Partnerships and sponsorships have become an integral part of sporting aesthetics; whether on a jersey or in an arena. It’s plastered across jumbotrons and on your souvenir cups and is the reason why Staples Center is now called Crypto.com Arena. Historically, the advertising has been impossible to ignore, which is where I fail to understand how the “official underwear partner” tag goes from concept to execution—just how visible will this underwear partnership be? Am I now supposed to assume that every NBA player is wearing SKIMS underwear? How can I be certain of this, and are the Calvin Klein-inclined doing okay with this transition? And perhaps the most important question of all—boxers or briefs?

These questions are all for research purposes. I only know of one employee of the National Basketball Association who has confirmed their SKIMS wearing habits, and I honestly didn’t want to know that it’s NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. Did every NBA player receive free SKIMS underwear, or were they just encouraged to buy them? Do any of them know about this at all? I’m giggling and kicking my feet back and forth thinking about Giannis Antetokounmpo putting in a discount code along the lines of “NBAPlayer60” at checkout. I know for certain that there’s no way back-to-back league MVP Nikola Jokić would ever put SKIMS on. He acts like he doesn’t even want to be in America (full stop) and treats the NBA like it’s his silly day job (real).

I am dying to know the percentage of players that are wearing SKIMS Mens. Realistically, I will never be privy to this information (devastating). In the partnership press release, Silver said “We look forward to bringing NBA fans and SKIMS users unique experiences, new offerings, and premium products through our partnership. Together, SKIMS, the NBA, WNBA, and USA Basketball will leverage the power of basketball to generate excitement and demand, by showing up in unexpected ways.  Fans will see the partnership come to life at future marquee events, including NBA All-Star and the NBA In-Season Tournament.” The statement also said that SKIMS is set to receive media exposure across a variety of league platforms, including through on-court virtual signage during NBA and WNBA national broadcasts as well as the leagues’ official social and digital platforms.

The above describes exactly what a standard sports sponsorship looks like, suggesting that this could be no different. A sign here and there, a tagged post or two, a merch drop every quarter. But I remain flummoxed by the decision to actively call SKIMS the league’s “official underwear partner.” This implies underwear, not tee shirts and socks! Any and all answers or theories are appreciated. I’m curious to see how this project plays out—perhaps it will set a precedent for underwear partnerships across leagues around the world. At the very least, it’s vindication for former Chelsea midfielder Mateo Kovačić who was way ahead of everyone on this when he stripped down to his briefs in front of thousands at Stamford Bridge post-match last season. So, I’ll leave you with this food for thought— which NBA player is most likely to recreate this scenario in SKIMS?