The National Basketball Association has done more for gender nonconforming fashion than Harry Styles ever could. Fashion’s definitions and ideals of masculinity have changed throughout history, but no time has marked more drastic shifts in how we gender fashion than the last five to ten years. With a rise in gender nonconformity, more men are experimenting with fashion and playing with more “traditionally feminine” colors, styles, and silhouettes than ever before.
When discussing these changes, we have celebrated the likes of Harry Styles, Timothy Chalamet, and Billy Porter as the poster children for men in feminine clothing. While there is much to be said about Harry Styles’ cover of Vogue, on which he was photographed in a Gucci dress, there is a conversation to be had about who is (or isn’t) celebrated or discussed when we speak of gender nonconforming fashion.
When we look to moments in popular culture, we often gravitate towards red carpets or the covers of magazines. In the fashion industry, nearly every publication posts their best dressed lists recapping every major awards show red carpet while we repost our favorite celebrities’ looks. However, as we anxiously await our next opportunity to see what their stylists have put together, there are over a million people nearly every night of the week, 9 months of the year, watching the NBA.
With the rise of social media in the last ten years coupled with frequent media appearances that come with life as a professional athlete, more and more NBA players have started to experiment with fashion. Most major players now even have their own styling teams. Thanks to players like Russell Westbrook and Lebron James, player’s entrances through concrete tunnels from the team bus into the arena have gone from a mystery that fans rarely got to see to televised red carpets.
Instagram accounts and websites such as More Than Stats and League Fits dedicated solely to athlete fashion have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers. People are paying attention not just to the quality of a player’s game, but to their drip when they step off the court. To further mark this shift, GQ nominated two players from the league for their “Most Stylish Man” of 2022, with readers voting allstar from the Oklahoma City Thunder Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (SGA) the most stylish man of the year.
Fellow OKC alumni and all-star players Russell Westbrook and James Harden paved the way not just for players to show interest in fashion, but to truly be experimental with what they wear. Westbrook himself has been spotted at both fashion week events and in pregame entrances wearing skirts, and players like Jordan Clarkson and Serge Ibaka have followed suit. Other players such as Harden, Jarred Vanderbilt, SGA, and PJ Tucker frequently play with textures like mohair and fur, bright pinks and oranges, and have prints for days.
All being said, it is not just the eyes of their stylists that make their outfits so impactful, it’s also about the men who are wearing them. To see Harry Styles, a singer and actor famous for being in a boyband with a primarily female fanbase, wear a dress on the cover of a magazine with a predominantly female audience, is vastly different from seeing Jordan Clarkson–a 6’5” professional basketball player–don a skirt as he enters Wells Fargo Center to play against the 76ers.
The men of the NBA embody our society’s idealized form of masculinity in nearly every way. These are professional athletes who spend nine months of their year competing against one another three nights a week, many of whom are driving factors in their respective teams’ successes. They are tall, athletic, and physically in better shape than most of us could ever imagine being, which leads boys around the world to look up to them. They are walking symbols of what many men in our society strive to be, and they’re wearing skirts.
Most men are not looking to the Met Gala or the cover of Vogue for their fashion inspiration, but instead towards their favorite athletes’ pre and post-game attire. While I loved Harry Styles’ Vogue moment, I’m a queer woman in fashion with an inherent appreciation for gender nonconforming styles. I could speak for days on the history of gender bending fashion and the communities who have embraced feminine fashion for men. But the majority of that conversation will never keep my twenty year old brother who’s studying sports management engaged quite like the words “dude did you see SGA’s tunnel fit last night”?
Words by Flora Medina.
Graphic by Aubrey Lauer.