“What does DeIon Sanders say?” Chris Paul asks, somewhat rhetorically. “When you look good you feel good? When you feel good you play good? For me, fashion is a representation of who I am. It makes me feel good to wear nice clothes.” The Phoenix Suns point guard is on the phone from his home in Arizona, checking off a list of his favorite labels: Fear of God, Paul Smith, and the Swag Shop merch by his good friend, rapper turned barber shop owner Killer Mike. “A lot of the stuff that I wear is cozy—sweatsuits and stuff like that,” he says, adding that some aspects of his style, like his signature slouch socks, were influenced by what was popular when he was growing up in North Carolina. After a trade last November that sent him from the Oklahoma City Thunder to Phoenix, he’s on the fifth team of his career and playing his 16th season. Throughout most of that time, though, he’s been working with stylist Courtney Mays.
The two met when Mays was living in New York, assisting stylist Rachel Johnson, and Paul was playing for the New Orleans Hornets. (Johnson, who has worked with Paul, LeBron James, Amar’e Stoudemire, and numerous other athletes, is widely credited with bridging the gap between luxury fashion and sports.) After Paul was traded to the Los Angeles Clippers in 2011, Mays moved to L.A. to work with him full-time.
“For Chris, I do 99.9 percent of his shopping,” says Mays, who now also works with Brooklyn Nets center DeAndre Jordan, and Kevin Love, who plays center and power forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers. The job, she says, is year-round, entailing lots of travel, strategy, and organization. “I’m pulling clothes throughout the year and getting them ready not only for games, but for their day-to-day lives. I travel to whatever city they’re playing in once a month and put 30 days’ worth of looks together. Then I create a shared photo album with flats of each look and include notes that say, ‘Don’t forget to roll your cuff,’ or ‘Push up your sleeve,’ or ‘Wear this outfit with those glasses.’ ”
It was Mays who orchestrated Paul’s viral HBCU looks last summer. A few years ago, just before the 2018–2019 season, she bought him a Texas Southern University hoodie while shopping at the school for her father, who’s an alum. When Paul wore it with a Stefan Grant outfit, fans and the press reacted with high praise. “After that game we thought, How many of these schools can he wear…and how can we amplify these institutions that ordinarily wouldn’t get this much shine?” Mays says. The outfits were among the most prominent looks worn in the 2020 NBA Bubble in Florida, where, despite limited closet space, rules that barred stylists from visiting, and the absence of the pomp and circumstance that usually surrounds NBA games, players still brandished impressive wardrobes.
“Our equipment manager was great,” says P.J. Tucker, who plays for the Houston Rockets. “He knows how crazy I am about my stuff, so he set it up so that my assistant could ship everything to me, especially shoe-wise. I knew the 90 pairs of sneakers I took with me weren’t going to last.” (For context, he owns upwards of 5,000 pairs.) Mays sent Paul to Orlando with 10 duffels filled with pre-styled outfits. When he needed more clothes, she had pieces sent to an off-site location where they were sanitized, then picked up by Paul’s security and delivered to his hotel room. “It was definitely a labor of love,” she says.
Bubble aside, one of the most laborious parts of shopping as an NBA player or player’s stylist is finding clothes that fit. “These guys are not easy to shop for,” says Vick Michel, the L.A.-based stylist who works with Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum. “Jayson is six-eight. You can’t just walk into a department store and think everything is going to fit him.” Both Mays and Michel work with a number of brands and tailors to have looks customized for their clients, Mays especially having to do this when styling Jordan, who’s 6 feet 11. “If I see something online or in a store that doesn’t fit me, I’ll show it to her to see if there’s a way we can replicate it or get it in my size,” says Jordan.
On the phone from D.C., where the Nets were playing the Wizards, Jordan describes his style as “Woodstock.” He loves fedoras, long coats, and chunky gold rings, and cites Greg Lauren and John Varvatos as designers he’s drawn to. His current wardrobe is a far cry from the extra-long white tees and baggy jeans he was wearing when he first joined the league in 2008. “Looking back I’m like, What was I wearing?…That was terrible,” he laughs. The look was very much in style at the time though, and most players can relate to the personal learning curve of developing an individual fashion sense when you go from being a high schooler or college student to professional basketball player overnight.
“At the beginning of my first year, I didn’t really know what I liked or how I was supposed to dress,” says Tatum, who entered the league at 19 in 2017. “It took me a month or two honestly, and then I just came to realize that fashion is all about what you like and what makes you comfortable.” Having come into his own with the help of Michel, he’s been investing in hoodies, outerwear, and layering pieces that reflect his laid-back personality while keeping him warm in Boston. “For coats I love Louis Vuitton and Burberry,” he says, noting that one in particular stands out for sentimental reasons. “[I have] a Louis Vuitton letterman jacket that I wore to the All-Star Game in Chicago [in 2020]. It was my first All-Star Game, so it was a special day for me. The only thing is, I’ve yet to wear it again, and I’m kind of mad at myself for that. I definitely need to get more use out of it.”
Whereas players like Tatum are fairly new to having access to stylists and designer clothes—and the salaries to theoretically buy out Bergdorf Goodman—fashion-enthused veterans have been amassing and wearing luxury pieces for years, establishing themselves as style authorities and permanent fixtures at fashion weeks. When discussing his approach to dressing on the phone, Serge Ibaka utters a phrase he’s used countless times to describe his sartorial sensibilities. “I do art,” he says, explaining that the type of looks that landed him on Vanity Fair’s 2019 Best-Dressed List were largely missing from the latter part of last season due to the demanding schedule of play in the bubble. “When I dress I like to take my time,” he says. “Like I say, I do art, so I have to think. I kind of lost that in the bubble because it was very stressful for me. Basketball was requiring so much focus. We were playing almost every day; I didn’t have time to do art in my mind.” To the delight of the internet’s most fervent fashion fans, he’s back to wearing his Dior sneakers, Balmain sweaters, and Thom Browne slacks. He insists that his move from the Toronto Raptors to the Clippers won’t have an impact on his style, as he’ll still need his meme-worthy scarves for away games, and the Empire Customs suits he had made up north are as timeless as his collection of J.M. Weston shoes.
Ibaka, along with Paul, Jordan, Tatum, and Tucker, regularly appears on @leaguefits, Slam magazine’s Instagram account dedicated to players’ game-day “fits”—present-day fashion vernacular for a look that’s especially well-crafted or aspirational. “It took off way quicker than I thought it was going to,” says Ian Pierno, the Slam social and creative producer who manages the account, which launched in April 2018. “I think the main reason is because basketball players got into it really fast. Right now it’s at about 650,000 followers, but even when it was at 10,000 there were players DM’ing me and sending me photos like, ‘Yo, can I get on here?’ ”
During the season, Pierno says, the account’s inbox is flooded with players sending photos of themselves. Some of them have his personal number and text him. “I’ve had dudes send me pictures and I’ve looked at the time and been like, ‘It’s halftime of your game—you’re not even allowed to be on your phone now.’ ” The day I spoke to Tatum, a photo of him arriving at TD Garden was posted to the account, garnering 22,800 likes and counting. He was dressed in a then unreleased pair of Lost Daze cargo pants, a Dream On hoodie, and a Margiela puffy coat—a look styled by Michel.
“It’s a chance for anyone to be a star,” Pierno says of the tunnel walks that land on the page. “At the end of the day, there’s only 24 guys that can be all-stars every year. [But] when you look at fashion, there are so many guys that have carved out these larger roles in the basketball stratosphere just because they dress cool.” There’s no method behind Pierno’s posting decisions other than choosing the fits he’s most impressed by. “The guys that really stand out are the ones that don’t look like they’re trying too hard; that can pull off these absurd pieces,” he says. Among those who immediately come to mind are Dwayne Bacon, Jordan Clarkson, Kyle Kuzma, and PJ Washington. Those who follow the account would likely add Russell Westbrook, Kelly Oubre Jr., Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Ben Simmons too. And James, and Carmelo Anthony. And James Harden. And definitely Iman Shumpert, now that he’s back from free agency. The list of players leaning into expressive and at times over-the-top fashion is impossible to narrow down.
This fervor has resulted in huge branding moments, with tunnels across the NBA now being sponsored by the likes of Jet Blue, Lexus, and Beats by Dre. More important to the players and stylists, though, is the visibility these walks down the so-called concrete runway draw to both social justice issues and small, independent brands. Last summer, numerous players showed up to games in T-shirts commemorating George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and calling for law enforcement to be held accountable for their deaths. And as the fashion industry grapples with significant financial losses and an uncertain future, having a player photographed in an emerging label can catapult the brand to mainstream recognition and substantially increase sales. Two T-shirts worn by Tatum in the bubble—one by Believe in Yourself printed with an I Love New York logo and another that read “Fight the Power” by Diet Starts Monday—sold out within minutes of being tagged in Instagram photos. “It was such a great feeling knowing that JT was a part of that,” Michel says.
Fashion labels are increasingly recognizing the influence of NBA athletes, reaching out to dress them and tapping them to design capsule collections. Tucker, whose expansive wardrobe is filled with Loewe, Bode, Versace, and a laundry list of streetwear brands, has been an obvious choice. In the past he’s worked with Ovadia and Giuseppe Zanotti, and last month he released a collection of sunglasses with Temples & Bridges. “It was a natural progression with where I was going with my style and brand,” he says, adding that accessories are an essential component of his style.
Before leaving Toronto, Ibaka partnered with Canadian outerwear brand Nobis to design a nine-piece collection. “The only way I wanted to design something was if they let me do my own thing and bring my own flavor,” he says. “They said they’d let me do whatever I wanted, so I said okay, perfect. We started everything from scratch.” Previously, he hosted a fashion and shopping show at luxury retailer Holt Renfrew coined Avec Classe.
“I think it’s extremely powerful,” Mays says of the growing synergy between fashion and the NBA. “We’re seeing a bunch of Black and brown men looking good and feeling good, and also elevating themselves and fashion brands to another level.”
Players and stylists agree that that feel-good energy is priceless.
“Dressing well inflicts a lot of confidence,” Michel says. “Even if you’re one of the bench players, if you like what you’re wearing, you’re like, ‘You know what? I look good. I might even get in the game tonight. I might score 30!’ ”
— Why Meghan and Harry’s Revelations About Racism Within the Royal Family Were So Devastating
— After the Year of No Bras, Things Are Looking Up
— The Hamptons Rids Itself of Donald Trump Jr. Ahead of High Season
— The New, Sad Irony of the Rift Between Prince William and Prince Harry
— Caroline Rose Giuliani’s Unicorn Tale: Three-Way Sex Has Made Me a Better Person
— A Brief History of Piers Morgan’s One-Sided TV Feud With Meghan Markle
— 20 Women-Owned Fashion Brands for Celebrating Women’s History Month
— From the Archive: Meghan Markle, an American Princess
— Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.