To say Angel Reese was busy on her 22nd birthday would be an understatement.
That morning in May, at home in Chicago, the young basketball star practiced with her team, the Sky, in preparation for her highly anticipated rookie season in the WNBA, North America’s top professional women’s basketball league. In the evening, she would fly by private jet to New York and attend her first Met Gala, wearing a custom look by 16Arlington: a turquoise sequined dress with a deep neckline and feathery mini-skirt.
The next day, the 6-foot-3 forward was already back in Chicago for the Sky’s pre-season game against the New York Liberty. Critics attacked Reese for her turn at the Met Gala, accusing her of not being focused. Reese answered them with a tough offensive game that included 13 points and five rebounds, helping Chicago to a blowout victory over New York.
The duality she exhibited in that 48 hours — fiercely competitive, unapologetically glamorous — is as concise an encapsulation of Reese as you get. The Baltimore native had played her final college game on April 1 before triumphantly declaring for the WNBA draft in a Vogue feature two days later. In July, just ahead of the WNBA’s mid-season break, she would travel to Paris as a guest of Pharrell Williams, Bernard Arnault, and Anna Wintour to take part in a star-studded pre-Olympics event at Fondation Louis Vuitton.
When the league resumed in late August, Reese set a WNBA record as the fastest player ever to surpass 20 double-doubles (which in her case was double digits in points and rebounds in one game) in a season. Along the way, she fronted a campaign for Good American, inked deals with L’Oréal and Revolve, and released her first collection with Reebok.
In the not-so-distant past, there was an expectation that rookie female athletes would keep their heads down, focus on honing their skills, and leave the limelight to more seasoned pros. Reese is the antithesis of this view and has laid down a new playbook for young women sports stars aiming to build their profiles — and grow their commercial value — far beyond their day jobs.
Her first whirlwind months as a pro are testament to her ability to juggle building her image outside the game of basketball while still dominating on the court, a balance she has maintained since shooting to fame after she led the Louisiana State University Tigers to their first-ever National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) championship in 2023 — a watershed moment for both her basketball career and her commercial endeavors.
“When I won the national championship, that’s when everything kind of went through the roof,” Reese told The Business of Fashion.
Her rise comes at a moment when athletes are increasingly becoming their own brands, at times even more influential and recognizable than the teams they play for or the companies which seek to endorse them. Fashion has become a critical component of how they brand themselves and show off their personalities, while their visibility and cultural clout make them great partners for fashion brands aiming to bolster their images and reach new audiences.
Today, Reese is far and away the most-followed WNBA player on social media, with more than 8.2 million followers across Instagram and TikTok. Among her most-viewed TikToks is a pinned clip from 2021 showing off several off-court fashion looks mixed in with on-court highlights. It’s captioned “Get you a hooper that can do both.” Other videos take followers through pre-game outfits and handbag purchases, reflecting an off-court image that earned the nickname the “Bayou Barbie” at college.
At the same time, Reese is an aggressive player. Though a wrist injury ended her debut WNBA season just shy of the playoffs in September, she still comfortably recorded one of the most dominant rookie performances in the league’s history. And it’s this unique mix of personas — delivered in a direct, playful, and unfiltered manner — that has made her one of the WNBA’s breakout stars
“I make sure my nails, hair, lashes, and edges are done, and then I take it to the court,” Reese said. “That same girl must still be a competitor and a dog on court. I’m all about normalizing that you can live both lives — you don’t have to just be an athlete.”
A Fashion All-Star
Reese, who grew up in Baltimore and enrolled at the University of Maryland before transferring to Louisiana State in 2022, arrived in the WNBA in April as part of a draft class of superstar rookies including Caitlin Clark — the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer — and Cameron Brink that helped usher in a new era for the league.
Until this season, growing hype around women’s basketball at the college level had failed to translate into WNBA viewership and commercial interest in the pros. But 2024 has seen unprecedented international media coverage, stadium attendance, TV viewership, and merchandise sales, along with long-overdue attention on older star players in the league who had fought to grow the game for years.
The explosion of interest in the WNBA and Reese’s soaring profile is deeply intertwined, insiders say.
“Angel’s growth is so remarkable because not only has she matured and adapted to the league so quickly, but she’s simultaneously growing the sport, making it relevant to new audiences and also building her off-court businesses at the same time,” said Swin Cash, the WNBA legend and three-time champion, who currently serves as vice president of basketball operations for the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans.
What has set Reese apart, even from the other star rookies, is her natural ability to build and monetize her personal brand, seamlessly blending her interests in fashion, beauty, and music with her athletic prowess. It began at LSU, where she developed the “Bayou Barbie” moniker, a reference to the school’s swampy location in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the attention Reese lavishes on her lashes and nails (though she now goes as “Chi Barbie” after relocating to Chicago).
For Reese, fashion has offered a means of signposting her personality to prospective brand partners. In the WNBA, she has used the pre-game “tunnel walk” (where players arrive at the arena) as her own personal runway show, turning up to games in eye-catching outfits from brands like Balmain. It helped her land a deal with online retailer Revolve, whose stylists help source tunnel-walk looks from some of her favorite brands, like an Alexander Wang bodysuit paired with Chanel sneakers. For her red carpet moments — like her draft night and Met Gala appearances — she often works with stylist and Vogue fashion editor Naomi Elizée.
“Angel uses the tunnel walk as yet another channel to communicate this persona of hers that’s larger than basketball — she’s building out the Angel Reese brand,” said Velissa Vaughn, a PR and marketing specialist, former college basketball player and creator of WNBA Tunnel, an influential Instagram account that tracks players’ pre-game style.
Though Reese is a fan of luxury labels from Chanel to Miu Miu, she has, so far, largely worked with mass-market brands. But Vaughn said the caliber of labels that want to be associated with Reese is already somewhat remarkable for a female basketball player. For her to have been invited as a guest to Louis Vuitton’s Olympics event, despite not competing in the games herself, was telling. A lifelong admirer of the fashion industry, she dreams of one day walking in a runway show at Paris Fashion Week, ideally for her favorite brand: “I’m a Chanel girl, hands down, let me say that,” she said. Louis Vuitton is also high on her list.
Reese wants to design her own label one day. She’s getting a taste of the experience with Reebok, which last year announced her as the face of the brand’s newly re-launched basketball category, run by Shaquille O’Neal, Reese’s idol-turned-mentor and business partner on her new podcast venture, along with fellow NBA legend Allen Iverson. Both O’Neal and Reese made their name as college basketball standouts at Louisiana State University, and after meeting at an LSU football game, O’Neal, a former Reebok athlete himself, quickly identified her as a rising star. Reebok signed her to a deal in October 2023, and in August 2024, Reese released the first collection of clothing and sneakers that she helped to design.
“The women’s game is evolving rapidly, and Angel is right at the forefront of that transformation, and she deserves credit for that,” said O’Neal. “She’s showing fans — especially the young kids — that you don’t have to fit into a box or be just one thing. You can be anything you want to be.”
