Fashion and Apparel

Subterms

    Latest story

    163 Shares199 Views

    Naomi Osaka Unveils Harajuku-Inspired U.S. Open Look Made by Nike and Yoon Ahn

    by

    When Naomi Osaka walks onto the court at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, N.Y., this week, she will be covered in bows.One large bow is pinned like a pillowy prize to the back of her bomber jacket. Underneath her jacket, on the back of her competition dress, a smaller shiny bow rests on four tiers of ruffles. Two tiny bows are stuck to the backs of her shoes.“Be very honest,” the designer Yoon Ahn said she told Ms. Osaka when they were conceptualizing the look. “There are no wrong ideas. What are you into right now?”Ms. Osaka responded with Japanese subculture references, said Ms. Ahn, who co-founded the Tokyo label Ambush in 2008 and began collaborating with Nike in 2018. (On Aug. 27, Ms. Ahn will release an eight-piece collection of vintage tennis-inspired clothing for Nike Women.)“She sent me a few looks of this ‘Lolita’ goth thing she was really vibing at that moment,” Ms. Ahn said. “They go out and wear pink, frills, bows, lace. It’s about really owning the cutesy-ness and the girly-hood.”Two versions of Ms. Osaka’s U.S. Open look were made: one in black, for evening matches, and another in green, for daytime competition. (Nike also made a version for her 1-year-old daughter, Shai, who “might” watch her mother play, Ms. Osaka said.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Tennis

      Catherine, Princess of Wales, in Purple, Is a Wimbledon Winner

      by

      In her second public appearance since her cancer diagnosis, the princess once again made a considered choice.Carlos Alcaraz may have won the men’s Wimbledon final in relatively short order, Barbora Krejcikova may have surprised everyone by taking home the woman’s trophy, and Henry Patten and Harri Heliovaara may have survived a tiebreaker to claim an upset victory, but the off-court champion of the tournament was unquestionably Catherine, Princess of Wales.Making only her second public appearance since revealing her cancer diagnosis and treatment earlier this year, and her first solo appearance, the princess arrived on Sunday, the final day of the event, to assume her role as the royal patron of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, dressed in royal — and Wimbledon tennis club — purple.Coincidence? Doubtful. She was on center court, after all. The princess has long understood her role as a symbol of continuity and the future of the royal family, and she dresses for it. Her illness and subsequent retreat from public view, and the relatively small drip of information about her condition, have only heightened the import of each step back into the spotlight. She would know the image would be picked over, disseminated and analyzed for any clue to her prognosis.This is particularly true at Wimbledon, where what the attendees wear is given almost as much attention as what happens in the games. See, for example, Zendaya, who modeled Ralph Lauren jackets and ties to both finals, and Margot Robbie, who unveiled her take on pregnancy fashion in polka-dot Alaïa.To that end, Catherine’s dress, a graceful midi-length crepe style by Safiyaa that looked to be a version of the label’s Cecilia style, only appeared simple.But no choice in such a freighted moment is unconsidered. And Safiyaa, one of Catherine’s go-to labels, is a female-founded British brand that makes all its products to order, in part to avoid the issue of overstock. (See the alignment with the Prince and Princess of Wales’s sustainability efforts, which include Catherine’s very public shopping of her own closet.) She last wore a caped look from Safiyaa to the Royal Variety Performance in December, before stepping back from the public eye.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Basket

      LSU’s Kim Mulkey Courts Controversy in Style

      by

      Inside the coach’s winning fashion playbook.The smog of a Washington Post exposé may have been hanging over Kim Mulkey’s head during the L.S.U. game on Saturday afternoon, but the highest paid coach in women’s collegiate basketball wasn’t going to hide. How could you tell?Well, in part because at the start of the N.C.A.A. tournament, she had given a news conference threatening a lawsuit about the article, thus calling to attention to it. In part because there she was, running up and down the sidelines and screaming her head off. And it part because … goodness, what was she wearing?A gleaming pantsuit covered in a jumble of Op Art sequined squiggles, as if Big Bird had met Liberace and they’d teamed up for “Project Runway.”Kim Mulkey, resplendent in sequins at the L.S.U. Sweet Sixteen game on March 30.Gregory Fisher/USA Today, via ReutersEven in the context of basketball, a sport in which players and coaches understood the power of personal branding through clothes long before almost any other athletes, Ms. Mulkey stands out. More than perhaps anyone else in the league — possibly in all of women’s basketball — she has made her image a talking point, a reflection of her own larger-than-life personality and a tool to draw attention to her sport. She is basketball’s avatar of the Trumpian era, offering a new version of The Mulkey Show at every game and costuming herself for the moment. As her team meets the University of Iowa again in the Elite Eight, brand Mulkey will most likely be raising the stakes once more.It would be wrong to call her clothes “fashion.” They have little to do with trends or silhouette. But love what she wears or hate it, love how she behaves or hate it, her sometimes ridiculous, always eye-catching outfits are, like her winning record, abrasive personality, problematic comments about Covid-19 and reported homophobia, impossible to ignore.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Golf

      Tiger Woods Introduces His New Brand: Sun Day Red

      by

      Mr. Woods is trading in the Nike swoosh he wore for decades for the tiger logo of Sun Day Red, which will be a stand-alone unit within TaylorMade Golf.For even those who have only a passing interest in golf, one of the sport’s most memorable images is of Tiger Woods playing his way to another major tournament victory while wearing a red polo shirt with a white Nike swoosh.That image is officially in the past, however. In January, Mr. Woods announced the end of his 27-year deal with Nike, which had made him hundreds of millions of dollars. The partnership was marked by memorable ads and, of course, the red Nike shirts that Mr. Woods wore during many final rounds on Sundays.When Mr. Woods announced the ending of his partnership with Nike, he said there would “certainly be another chapter.” On Monday, he and his new brand sponsor, TaylorMade Golf, made clear that the next chapter would again include a red polo shirt. It will be stitched with a tiger in the center, the logo for his new brand under TaylorMade: Sun Day Red.Sun Day Red is marketed as a “lifestyle brand” for both sports fans and non-athletes and will include apparel — even cashmere sweaters — and shoes, David Abeles, chief executive of TaylorMade, said in an interview. (Mr. Woods switched to FootJoy shoes from Nike after his car crash in 2021.)How much of a role design will play in that apparel was not entirely clear, but Mr. Abeles said that “the design language of the products is completely different” from products Mr. Woods wore in his last sponsorship deal. Initial promotional images showed a new logo — a tiger with 15 stripes to mark the number of major championships Mr. Woods has won; a black, long-sleeve T-shirt with the brand’s name, Sun Day Red, on it; and its version of the red polo, which is on the bloodier end of the red spectrum and includes black buttons, suggesting attention to detail. (To be fair, there’s only so much anyone can do with a polo.)Mr. Woods’s affinity for red stems from his mother, who is from Thailand, where the color has significance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Soccer

      How Lionel Messi Made a Pink Jersey Soccer’s Must-Have Item

      by

      In the span of three months, the soccer superstar has made Inter Miami’s eye-catching jersey the hottest piece of sports merchandise on the planet.All of a sudden, after a single summer, the pink jersey is everywhere. It has become almost impossible to acquire, yet there it is, paradoxically, on the backs of thousands of fans thronging American stadiums, hanging from market stalls in Buenos Aires and Bangkok, a vivid flash on almost every field where children gather to play soccer in England.That the jersey has become, apparently overnight, the hottest piece of sports merchandise on the planet is a simple, capitalist equation: the result of an irresistible combination of one of the most recognizable and beloved athletes of his generation; a distinctive, exotic color; and the ruthless efficiency of textile factories in Southeast Asia.Somehow, though, few people saw it coming. Tor Southard was better placed than most, but even he was caught unaware. As Adidas’s senior director for soccer in North America, he had been receiving emails from colleagues for nearly a year asking if the company’s biggest star, Lionel Messi, would be joining Inter Miami, also a client of Adidas.As far as he knew, it was just a rumor. Like the rest of the planet, Southard learned it was true only on June 7, the day Messi announced his intentions in a rare interview with two Spanish news outlets.For many, the immediate question was the soccer one. Six months after winning the World Cup with Argentina, why was Messi, the finest player of his generation and arguably the best of all time, leaving the elite clubs and competitions of Europe to join a team that ranked among the worst in the comparative backwater of America’s top league, Major League Soccer?For Southard, and for Adidas, there was a rather more pressing matter. Within a couple of days of Messi’s announcement, the company had received almost 500,000 requests from stores and suppliers for jerseys in Miami’s soft, electric pink. It is a specific fabric and a specific shade: Pantone 1895C. “It’s not like it was white, and we had inventory we could repurpose,” Southard said.Even if they could not foresee quite what a phenomenon the jersey would become, and quite how many people would clamor to get their hands on one, Southard and his colleagues had some sense of what was about to happen.Adidas was going to need more of that fabric. A lot more.‘No. 1 priority’The Adidas flagship store in Manhattan. John Taggart for The New York TimesOn the day Messi announced he would sign for Inter Miami, Adidas had a stock of Inter Miami jerseys in stores and storage facilities around the United States. It did not last. The shirts sold out so quickly that Southard said it seemed the inventory simply “evaporated.”Getting the fabric to make more — and fast — was just the first step. Although Adidas would not start selling official Messi jerseys until his contract was formally signed on July 15, it placed orders for vast rolls of the pink fabric needed to make them within 24 hours of his interview on Spanish television in the first week of June.The risk, of course, was that the deal could still collapse. “It’s a trade-off you make for speed,” Southard said.In ordinary circumstances, retailers order jerseys as many as nine months in advance. Major sportswear brands, like Adidas and Nike, generally prefer to produce large batches of team gear, rather than manufacturing to meet demand, as fast fashion chains tend to do.Given the number of what the industry terms “chase buys” — a sudden influx of orders in unanticipated volumes — for Messi’s Inter Miami jersey, Adidas knew its usual playbook would not work.A lone Messi shirt left in a soccer shop outside Tokyo.Kosuke Okahara for The New York TimesIt had learned that from experience. In 2021, when Cristiano Ronaldo returned to Manchester United, one of the handful of retailers Adidas works with, Fanatics, asked for a million more jerseys. A year later, after Messi helped Argentina win the World Cup, Adidas had to produce and ship an extra 400,000 Argentine national team shirts in the span of three months.Getting pink jerseys bearing Messi’s name and No. 10 into the market, Southard said, immediately became Adidas’s “No. 1 priority, globally.”Frisco, Texas.Logan Riely/Getty ImagesTo streamline the process, the company sourced the pink, recycled polyester fabric for the jerseys as close as possible to the factories in Southeast Asia that would make them. Orders for other details like logos and crests were expedited at other facilities, sometimes leapfrogging the production of apparel for other Adidas teams. To cut down on shipping times, the first batches of the Messi jerseys were sent out in small shipments, almost as soon as they came off the production line.The frantic production effort worked. Initially, Adidas had told its retailers to begin selling jerseys with a promise of delivery by Oct. 15. But the first editions arrived in the United States by July 18. They were sent straight to Miami, where demand was highest.They sold out almost instantly.‘Everyone has a hookup’La Paz, Bolivia.Leonardo Fernandez/Getty ImagesOn a street corner in Miami’s wealthy Brickell neighborhood one evening last month, two young men had set up a pop-up Messi store, their racks groaning with Inter Miami jerseys in pink and an alternate version — black with pink trim — that the team wears on the road. This was the work of the imaginatively titled Messi Miami Shop.The name sounds official. The online store looks it, too. It sells two versions of the Messi jersey, as most sportswear manufacturers now do: a “player version” made with high-quality material and an athletic cut, and a “replica” designed for fans whose bodies might not have the precise dimensions of an elite athlete.The Messi Miami Shop is not, though, affiliated in any way with Messi, Inter Miami or Adidas. (It is, though, a shop.) Its jerseys had come, instead, from a contact in Thailand, purchased for $10 apiece. “This is Miami,” one of the sellers said. “Everyone has a hookup.” And a markup: The stall was selling the jerseys at $25 for a children’s edition and as much as $65 for an “authentic” inauthentic adult version of the team’s black jersey.The sellers, who declined to give their names for reasons that should be obvious, had sold around 30 in a couple of hours, they said. But they are not the only ones hustling.A few nights earlier, outside Exploria Stadium in Orlando, Fla., a different group of hawkers were doing their own brisk business in Messi jerseys. Messi was not playing that night — he missed several weeks of the season because of an injury — but Inter Miami was in town, and plenty of fans were prepared to pay $40 for a pink jersey bearing his name, even if it had shoddy stitching and was plucked from a backpack.Despite all of Adidas’s attempts to get its official Messi jerseys into stores as quickly as possible, the clamor for them — any version of them — has proved so great that counterfeits have flooded the global market to meet the shortfall.Though the company says it has now largely caught up with the backlog of orders, it has found that it is still selling jerseys far faster than it can produce them, and not just in the United States.Rio de Janeiro.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesIn Buenos Aires, where Messi’s status as a national treasure was sealed by victory in the World Cup, there are pink jerseys for sale in store after store and kiosk after kiosk along Calle Florida, one of the Argentine capital’s teeming shopping streets, and in the stalls of the bustling San Telmo Market. At some vendors, the fakes go for about $50.In Europe, where tribal affiliations to local clubs run deep, Miami jerseys are suddenly commonplace. At a training session for elementary school children last month in Manchester, England, the usual concentration of Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool gear was flecked with a half dozen pink Inter Miami jerseys, each bearing Messi’s name.It is difficult to overstate the scale of demand. Official sales have surpassed every benchmark Adidas could have imagined, Southard said: more than the frenzy that accompanied David Beckham’s move to the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007; beyond the rush prompted by Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United in 2021; beyond the clamor for Messi’s Argentina shirt in the aftermath of Qatar 2022.Inter Miami is now the best-selling Adidas soccer jersey in North America, ahead of all five of the storied European clubs that the brand traditionally regards as the crown jewels of its portfolio: Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich and Arsenal.Since July, Fanatics, which dominates sports apparel in the United States, has sold more Messi jerseys than for any other soccer player, and any athlete at all except the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts. No player, in any sport, has ever sold more jerseys on the site in the first 24 hours after switching teams than Messi did in July.The Adidas store in Manhattan.John Taggart for The New York TimesHis cinematic arrival in M.L.S. — with a late game-winning goal in his debut on July 22 — came too late to salvage Inter Miami’s season. The club will miss the playoffs, which start on Wednesday. Messi will not play in pink again until next year.But that has done little to quell his impact. Inter Miami’s games drew record crowds from the moment he arrived. The team’s ticket prices for next season have soared. Adidas is confident that it has enough of the next edition of Messi’s jersey — due out in February — in production to meet demand.For many fans and retailers, it cannot come a moment too soon. The jersey has become so coveted, so scarce, that even Beckham himself — one of the most famous soccer players of his generation, a worldwide celebrity and, as part-owner of Inter Miami, Messi’s boss — has found it hard to get hold of one.More than once, he has wanted to send a pink Messi jersey to a friend or an associate as a gift, only to be told that he will have to wait, just like everyone else.Alan Blinder More

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Basket

      Book Review: ‘Fly,’ by Mitchell S. Jackson

      by

      When I was growing up, there was a thing called “the ballplayer look.” It served two essential purposes: to show the world you were a hooper, and also that you were fly. It could be the way you rocked your socks and shorts, the sneaks you chose on the court, your haircut, the type of earring you wore. It all came down to a style that signaled basketball was your calling card.Michael Jordan at the N.B.A. All Star Slam Dunk Competition at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, Ind., 1985.Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE, via Getty ImagesLeBron James in February 2023, on the night he became the highest scorer in N.B.A. history.Tyler Ross/NBAE, via Getty ImagesIn FLY: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion (Artisan Books, 221 pp., $40), the author Mitchell S. Jackson goes to great lengths to capture the evolution and meaning of that aesthetic. From Bob Cousy’s Rat Pack-inspired suits in the ’50s and ’60s, to Michael Jordan’s on-court style that ran the ’90s and LeBron James’s “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirt in 2014, to Jalen Green’s masterful Louis Vuitton/Damier combination during this year’s Paris Fashion Week, the book traces the sartorial eras that have come to define the N.B.A.Dennis Rodman wears a custom wedding dress and makeup by Kevyn Aucoin at a book signing in New York City, 1996.Evan Agostini/LiaisonAllen Iverson sucking on one of his “trademark devil-may-care lollipops,” at the M.C.I. Center in Washington, D.C., 2001.Doug Pensinger/Getty ImagesDue credit is given to the fashions of Walt Frazier, Jordan, Allen Iverson and Russell Westbrook. Missing are the contributions of Pat Riley and the late designer Cary Mitchell, the Black-power influence of Earl Monroe, and any mention whatsoever of the current W.N.B.A. as the most fashion-forward league in all of sports. But those are misses, not bricks. Because what Jackson does with “Fly” is canonize the cultural impact the “ballplayer look” has had all along.Kobe Bryant poses for GQ in 2009.Peggy SirotaMagic Johnson arrives at the 1988 All-Star Game in Chicago in fur.Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE, via Getty ImagesRussell Westbrook, in Thom Browne, “epitomizes the redefinition of masculinity” at New York Fashion Week in 2022.Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC ImagesWalt “Clyde” Frazier in a leather-trimmed hat and cape in New York, 1970.Walter Iooss Jr./NBAE, via Getty Images More

    • 63 Shares109 Views

      in Basket

      Best-Dressed at the NBA Draft

      by

      Tailoring, bling and Louis Vuitton, oh my.The fact that the N.B.A. draft occurred smack in the middle of the Paris men’s wear shows was something of a cosmically appropriate coincidence.After all, the draft has increasingly become one of our most watched runways, the heart of the convergence between fashion and sport that has spawned the tunnel walk and social media accounts that chronicle players’ wardrobes — and leads to front row seats at shows like Louis Vuitton, recently attended by LeBron James, and Rick Owens, where Kyle Kuzma showed up. And it is only getting more important.ESPN has added a one-hour “N.B.A. Draft Red Carpet Special” just as E! does for the Oscars and the Met Gala, including a 360 degree cam kind of like the E! Glambot, the better to capture the looks in the round, as well as a reporter asking the attendees, “What are you wearing?”Yes, the question isn’t just for women any more.Perhaps because most of the athletes aren’t used to answering, they didn’t respond with a “what” — they didn’t name their brand — but a “why.” Why they chose the look they chose. Which in turn reflects why this all matters.As Mitchell Jackson, the author of the forthcoming “Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion,” a coffee-table book that elevates the subject to the same decorative status as a Dior or Gucci monograph, said: “N.B.A. draft fashion is its own subject now, not an afterthought but part of the big show. It was always something the players cared about, but with more media coverage of the draft, with the advent of social media and the tunnel, it’s an important part, dare I say essential part, of player’s star power.”It’s the players’ first chance to create the brand of them and offer it up for public consumption. As a result, everything is tailored. Not just literally, but conceptually.The draft class, in all their finery.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesStarting with Victor Wembanyama, the No. 1 overall pick and widely touted “generational talent” from France, who wore a forest green suit from Louis Vuitton with a kimono-like jacket that wrapped at the waist and a matching forest green shirt, a large stone dangling from his neck. Vuitton is, of course, the world’s dominant luxury brand, one synonymous with French savoir-faire and one that recently hired a Black American — Pharrell Williams — as its men’s wear designer, all values (inclusivity, cross-border diplomacy, success) that line up with what Mr. Wembanyama promises to represent.As for the color, he said he liked it because it made him think of outer space (he’s reaching for the stars), while the stone around his neck, less blingy than some of the other ice sported by his soon-to-be competitors, was an element said to help achieve goals.His only competition in the high-fashion stakes came from Kobe Bufkin (picked 15th, by the Atlanta Hawks), in a cream tweed double-breasted suit sans shirt, a choice that revealed a highly tuned trend antenna. It implicitly associated him with other celebrity proponents of the suit-without-shirt look, like Timothée Chalamet (who popularized the trend when he went shirtless to the 2022 Oscars). Little wonder LeagueFits announced that “Atlanta will be competing for a leaguefits championship, confirmed.”Kobe Bufkin in double-breasted tweed, shirtless. Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesNotably restrained was Brandon Miller, the No. 2 pick, in a three-piece plaid number, and Amen and Ausar Thompson, identical twins chosen fourth and fifth, who wore matching double-breasted suits by the tailor Waraire Boswell. One was white, and one was navy. “They went for subtlety,” Mr. Jackson said, a sign of just how much draft fashion has shifted from the straightforward “look at me” to “think about me” or “invest in me.”Pointedly, the looks were part of a collaboration with Amex, and Mr. Boswell also designed a limited-edition jacket inspired by the Thompson suits that will be available only to Amex cardholders. Why not start the influencing as soon as possible?Amen (in white) and Ausar (in navy) Thompson, dressed by the tailor Waraire Boswell.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesOn the other end of the spectrum were Scoot Henderson (picked third) and Gradey Dick (picked 13th), who were the most bedazzled athletes of the night. Even then, though, their bling wasn’t just bling for bling’s sake. It was bling with reason.Mr. Henderson’s suit, by Indochino (a label that has something of a lock on draft-day dressing, this year working with nine athletes), was covered in more than 600 gemstones meant to represent his family tree, incorporating the birthstones of his parents and siblings.Scoot Henderson, in blinged-out Indochino.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times“I wanted to be very thoughtful about how my draft-day look represents both my journey so far and what’s next,” Mr. Henderson, who also wore a customized bedazzled grill, said in a news release. “This suit is a visual representation of what got me here.”This is the next iteration of the personal-story-in-a-lining approach that has become familiar among many players, who paper the inside of their jackets with photographs and memorabilia printed onto silk. See, for example, Taylor Hendricks (picked ninth), whose sugar-pink suit concealed a whole biography.Taylor Hendricks, whose pink suit had a special lining.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesAs for Mr. Dick, he wore a turtleneck and zoot suit jacket, both covered in red sequins. The look got him compared to Zoolander and Siegfried and Roy on social media but was a nod, he said, to Dorothy’s ruby slippers and his own journey from Kansas to the presumably magical world of the Toronto Raptors (a team whose color also happens to be red). Not to mention the suggestion that he has courage and heart, too.Gradey Dick, in sequins. Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesAs a choice, the sequins were mocked and praised in equal measure, but either way they were impossible to ignore. In the attention economy, that’s a win. More

    • 38 Shares199 Views

      in Tennis

      Tennis Bracelet, Anyone?

      by

      Chris Evert made them famous, and their simple, elegant designs have stood the test of time.In 1978, while defending her three-year streak as the U.S. Open champion, Chris Evert lost her gold diamond bracelet in the middle of the match.“When I competed, I wanted to wear something that gave me confidence and empowered me both as a woman and an athlete,” Ms. Evert, who won 18 major singles titles in her career, wrote in an email interview. “My diamond line bracelet did that for me. It was a nod to my personal style, too.”Ms. Evert asked officials to stop play so she could find it.“I think everyone was confused in the stands because I was walking around the court searching for something,” she wrote.Ms. Evert went on to win the match. In a postgame interview, reporters asked her what she had dropped. “‘Oh, that was my tennis bracelet,’” she recalled saying. “From that point on, it just seemed that the tennis bracelet began to take on a life of its own.”“When I competed, I wanted to wear something that gave me confidence and empowered me both as a woman and an athlete,” said Chris Evert, who won 18 major singles titles in her career. “My diamond line bracelet did that for me. It was a nod to my personal style, too.”S&G/PA Images, via Getty ImagesThe tennis bracelet was once known as the “line bracelet”: a single-strand diamond bracelet distinguished by its straight, sparkly row of diamonds. The traditional line bracelet is set with four discreet prongs (the metal fingers that hold each stone in place), one on each corner of the diamond. This setting allows diamonds to shine as brightly as possible.“But now people have reinterpreted it. Now people refer to any diamond bracelet as a tennis bracelet in the various different settings,” said Elizabeth Doyle, a board member of the American Society of Jewelry Historians. She added that today’s understanding of tennis bracelets accounts for a variety of settings, without strict guidelines.Learn More About Jewelry 4 Indie Designers to Watch: Few major jewelry houses chose to present high jewelry collections in Paris this season, but some independent designers have turned heads. Made in the U.S.A.: A startling variety of gems are mined coast to coast, from Oregon sunstone to Maine tourmaline. Is It Real? Experts say online sales have fueled an increase in fakes, confusing buyers and stymieing makers. A Passion for Pearls: Meet an artisan who is entrusted with stringing, repairing and redesigning some of the world’s most exquisite pearl jewelry. More on Jewelry: Stories on trends and issues in the industry.Ms. Doyle, who is also a founder of Doyle & Doyle, an antique and vintage jewelry boutique in New York City, said the tennis bracelet has long been a popular item.“But what I’ve noticed is the stacking and layering, mixing and matching different colors or less important stones in with the diamonds,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be so serious.”Monica Rich Kosann, a Connecticut-based jewelry designer who, in August 2022, launched a line of tennis bracelets with Ms. Evert, echoed this sentiment in a phone interview.“I do think a woman would probably wear her tennis bracelet by itself. I remember my mom having a tennis bracelet, and I remember she wore that with her watch and that’s what she wore,” Ms. Kosann said. “Whereas now, my daughters, they wear it every day. They never take it off, and they mix it in with all their other bracelets, and it’s just become another layer on your wrist.”A tennis bracelet from the brand Dorsey.Dorsey“Does it have to be real?” asked Roxanne Assoulin. Her cubic zirconia tennis bracelets cost under $170 and are meant to be stacked.Stuart TysonHer collection features an emerald that pays homage to the U.S. Open’s former green court, with a diamond droplet of sweat to represent, as Ms. Evert described to Ms. Kosann, “the perspiration of competition.”Roxanne Assoulin’s sparkling iterations are also designed for everyday wear. In 2020, Ms. Assoulin, a longtime jewelry designer, began craving a casual version of the diamond tennis bracelet she wore in the late ’70s (and later disassembled to make earrings).“I didn’t want them to be big and flashy,” she said. “I wanted them to be really small and fine and delicate.”When Ms. Assoulin’s son asked her about a tennis bracelet for his wife, she began to wonder, “Does it have to be real?” Her Tennis on the Rox bracelets are made of cubic zirconia, cost less than $200 and are designed to be stacked.A diamond tennis bracelet from the brand The Last Line.The Last LineThe rainbow sapphire tennis bracelet from the brand MATEO.MATEOFor those who may just be discovering the tennis bracelet and looking for a more traditional design, The Last Line’s petite white diamond bracelet is a miniature nod to the classic. Or, for something less on the nose, Nakard by Nak Armstrong’s series of tennis bracelets are made of tiled onyx, scalloped opals and scale-shaped labradorite, with each stone defined by a prominent black, rhodium-finished frame. For the maximalists, MATEO makes eye candy tennis bracelets out of box-linked rainbow sapphires, as well as pink sapphires in buttercup settings. And for those who tend toward a Phoebe Philo-esque style of unfussy luxury, Dorsey offers a beautiful single strand of lab-grown white sapphire for $240.For more affordable options, all five colors of Anthropologie’s Baguette Tennis Bracelet come in under $30. J.Crew’s square crystal interpretation — currently $49.50 — is so chunky that if it happened to fly off the wrist, mid-pickleball serve, you’d see and hear where it landed.Anthropologie’s pink tennis bracelet costs less than $30.AnthropologieJ.Crew’s chunky tennis bracelet is more in line with costume jewelry.J.CrewDiamond bracelets, in the broader sense, have been popular since the Georgian Era; line bracelets have been around since the Art Deco era, and styled casually with jeans or on the court since the ’70s — at least, if you’re Chris Evert. More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Basket

      Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Brings His Friends on Ride to NBA Stardom

      by

      Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Oklahoma City Thunder guard, is having a career season as one of the N.B.A.’s top scorers. He’s had a little help from his childhood friends.Mark Daigneault thought he had his first day in Hamilton, Ontario, all mapped out: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the star guard he coaches on the Oklahoma City Thunder, would make his morning rounds to shoot hoops and lift weights, and Daigneault would ride along.There was only one problem.“I don’t have room in my car,” Gilgeous-Alexander told him, “because I pick up all my friends.”Sure enough, once Daigneault hopped out of his Uber at Gilgeous-Alexander’s preferred gym in nearby Burlington, Daigneault found him working on his shooting as several young men in matching Thunder T-shirts rebounded for him.Gilgeous-Alexander soon introduced Daigneault to his “super close homies,” five childhood friends whose coordinated outfits that morning were no coincidence. They knew Daigneault was in town.“We wanted to make a good impression,” said Sunday Kong, a former high school teammate.In Oklahoma City, Gilgeous-Alexander, 24, has established himself as one of the N.B.A.’s most dynamic players. On a young team with promise, he ranks among the league leaders in scoring, averaging a career-best 31.4 points a game, while shooting 50.5 percent from the field — supercharged numbers that hint at his abilities as a 6-foot-6 guard who can absorb contact at the rim and create space on the perimeter.Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging a career-best 31.4 points per game while making about half of his shots. That puts him among the N.B.A.’s elite scorers.Garett Fisbeck/Associated PressBack home in Hamilton, a small city about 40 miles southwest of Toronto, five of Gilgeous-Alexander’s pals — a crew that also includes Mark Castillanes and Maurice Montoya, two of his best friends since elementary school, and Vincent Chu, who sat next to him in ninth-grade homeroom — practically fall off their couches whenever he crosses up a defender.“Anytime I see him do something on the court, I’m like, ‘Hey, we practiced that!’ ” said Devanté Campbell, who played youth soccer with Gilgeous-Alexander.Gilgeous-Alexander is always trying to improve, said Daigneault, now in his third season as the Thunder’s coach. That makes him an ideal fit for Oklahoma City — the same place where a young Russell Westbrook became a triple-double machine, Kevin Durant honed his perimeter game and James Harden crafted his step-back jumper. Each summer, Gilgeous-Alexander devises his own to-do list.“Shai’s got every resource available to him,” Daigneault said. “If he wanted to hire a staff and move to Hawaii in the off-season, he could do it. Instead, he parks himself in Hamilton and works with friends who have been in his life forever.”In Gilgeous-Alexander’s self-styled basketball lab, where a sneaker salesman and a restaurant manager throw defensive traps at him, and a college student and an aspiring doctor feed him passes, he prepares for his future by returning to his past.“Those guys give me a sense of home,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “They give me back a piece of myself that feels like so long ago.”‘I’ve got to get better’Before he was getting buckets at Madison Square Garden and walking the runways at fashion week in Paris, Gilgeous-Alexander was someone else: the new kid at Regina Mundi Catholic Elementary School.After moving to Hamilton from Toronto when he was 11, Gilgeous-Alexander met Montoya and Castillanes on his first day of sixth grade. Castillanes recalled showing him around.“Kind of quiet,” Castillanes said. “But once you got to know him, he became himself.”Gilgeous-Alexander impressed on the basketball court, Castillanes said, by being able to dribble and make layups with both hands. But as an undersized ninth-grader at St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School, Gilgeous-Alexander was cut from the equivalent of the junior varsity and wound up on a team of other freshmen.“I wasn’t hurt by it,” he said. “It was more a feeling of, I’m not good enough, so I’ve got to get better.”From left, Sunday Kong, Maurice Montoya, Vincent Chu and Devanté Campbell on the outdoor court at Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School, Gilgeous-Alexander’s former high school in Hamilton, Ontario.Cole Burston for The New York TimesIn his spare time, Gilgeous-Alexander would hoop with Montoya and Castillanes at their Filipino basketball league — the start of a basketball odyssey. Gilgeous-Alexander spent his sophomore year at Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School on Hamilton’s west side before he transferred again, this time to Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga, Tenn., as he sought better competition.Gilgeous-Alexander eventually landed at the University of Kentucky, where John Calipari, the team’s coach, knew he needed to be tough on him. Otherwise, Calipari was going to hear about it — from Gilgeous-Alexander’s mother, Charmaine Gilgeous, a former Olympic runner for Antigua and Barbuda.“When he played well, she would call me and say, ‘Don’t you let up on him,’” Calipari said.Gilgeous-Alexander had arrived at Kentucky with a hitch in his jump shot — Calipari compared it to Charles Barkley’s herky-jerky golf swing — and spent the early weeks of the season mostly coming off the bench. By the middle of January, he was blossoming as a starter. By June, he was the 11th overall pick in the 2018 N.B.A. draft, headed to the Los Angeles Clippers.Gilgeous-Alexander played so well as a rookie that the Thunder put him on their wish list. That summer, when the All-Star Paul George wanted to be traded to the Clippers from Oklahoma City, the Thunder insisted that Gilgeous-Alexander be included in the deal.Now in his fourth season with the Thunder, Gilgeous-Alexander is the face of a franchise that should come equipped with training wheels. Although Chet Holmgren, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 draft, is out for the season with a foot injury, the Thunder have a core that includes Josh Giddey, 20, and Luguentz Dort, 23. Even amid his emergence, Gilgeous-Alexander has never sought to separate himself from his teammates.“I might have sworn at Lu before,” Gilgeous-Alexander said, “but me and Lu lived together, and we’re like brothers so it doesn’t count.”Luguentz Dort, left, and Gilgeous-Alexander bonded as teammates and roommates in Oklahoma City.Alonzo Adams/USA Today Sports, via ReutersGilgeous-Alexander and Dort, who are also teammates on the Canadian men’s national basketball team, are candid about their bromance. When Gilgeous-Alexander was vaccinated against the coronavirus, Dort held his hand. (Gilgeous-Alexander is afraid of needles.) When they were roommates, Dort accepted the perils of sharing space with someone who was recently voted GQ magazine’s Most Stylish Man of the Year.“I don’t want to say his clothes are everywhere,” Dort said. “But he has a lot of clothes — clothes that have a lot of volume to them.”But while life in the N.B.A. is rewarding — Gilgeous-Alexander is in the first year of a five-year contract extension worth about $180 million — it can also be disorienting. So he dodges complacency as if it were a traffic cone, supplementing his time with the team by working with Olin Simplis, a high-profile skills coach.And, of course, he heads to Hamilton at the start of each off-season to work out with friends who neither expect nor ask for anything in return.‘Just something that friends do’After his first season in Oklahoma City, Gilgeous-Alexander wanted to make his summers more structured. So he hit up his buddies: Would they help him out five mornings a week?“It wasn’t even something that needed to be said,” said Campbell, who works full-time at a Kids Foot Locker and assists with a girls’ basketball league. “It was just something that friends do: If we want to see this guy grow and succeed, we need to be there for him no matter what.”Last summer, Gilgeous-Alexander would text his friends a few minutes before 7 a.m. to let them know that he was leaving his house — his hoops-centric version of flashing the Bat-Signal.“You get that text, and you know you have about 15 minutes to get ready,” said Chu, a student at Toronto Metropolitan University.Gilgeous-Alexander’s friends help him with shooting and passing drills during the summer in Ontario.Cole Burston for The New York TimesGilgeous-Alexander would retrieve his friends, one by one, in his pale brown Mercedes-Benz G-Class. Castillanes was typically the first stop.“He always got the front seat,” Chu said.Once assembled, they often had enough time during the ride to Burlington to cram in a homespun version of “Carpool Karaoke.” In June, Jack Harlow’s album “Come Home the Kids Miss You” was on repeat. By July, they were tearing through Burna Boy’s latest tracks.“It’s a refreshing start to the day to see all your friends,” Chu said, “even when you’re mad tired.”At the gym, they would warm up and stretch, then Gilgeous-Alexander would polish his shooting for about an hour as his friends rebounded for him. He usually filled the second hour with drills — footwork, defense, passing — before transitioning into half-court games of 3-on-3 with a lopsided feel.“Shai takes all the shots,” Campbell said.His court work complete, Gilgeous-Alexander would drop his friends off so he could lift weights — in another buddy’s two-car garage. Nem Ilic, 27, who describes his work as “athlete development,” spent last summer building Gilgeous-Alexander’s lower body: lunges in the garage, weighted sled pushes in the cul-de-sac out front. (The neighbors always knew when Gilgeous-Alexander was around.)“Guys in my position, you usually have to work your way up from high school to college to the pros,” Ilic said. “And I have a unique timeline. It went straight to Shai.”In their own way, the friends are a part of it all.A poster of Gilgeous-Alexander is seen on the doors of Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School.Cole Burston for The New York Times“I think the N.B.A. is so crazy that he wants to come here and feel grounded,” Chu said, “and we’re all so grounded up here that we want to hear about N.B.A. life.”They can see Gilgeous-Alexander’s progress — and feel it, too, whenever they try to defend him on those early summer mornings.“I want to say it’s never really that much of a fun time,” Campbell said.They have busy lives of their own. Montoya, for example, manages a Hamilton-area restaurant. Castillanes recently relocated to Oklahoma City after Gilgeous-Alexander asked him if he would help manage his day-to-day life. And Kong works in public health while he prepares for medical school.“You know how they say commitment will pay off if you improve by 1 percent every day? It’s something you see in real time with Shai,” Kong said. “And it’s something I can apply to my own life.” More