WNBA fashion has gained momentum for a few years, thanks to avant-garde trendsetters A’ja Wilson, Kelsey Plum, and Skylar Diggins-Smith. It’s a big shift from the late 1990s and early 2000s when players and coaches almost exclusively wore traditional business clothes, often assimilating with masculine flair (male NBA players had their own fashion crisis at the time, according to SB Nation).
Now strutting down WNBA tunnels — sports parlance for entrances to game day arenas — chic menswear-inspired looks are mixed in with microminis, six-inch pumps, and leather trench coats.
Fashion’s bible, Vogue, has tuned in and designated the WNBA tunnel a new runway, and Saturday night’s All Star Game has the makings of a pregame fashion show.
April’s draft started 2024 with No. 1 pick Caitlin Clark wearing a structured satin shirt from Prada and a crystal crop top. Before her season-ending ACL injury, second-overall choice Cameron Brink wore a sleek ultramodern one-shoulder black gown with cutouts, while No. 7 Angel Reese wore an awards-show-worthy shimmery gunmetal dress with a hood by Australian label Bronx and Banco.
WNBA players make a fraction of what their male counterparts earn. Fashion — and the lucrative brand endorsements that can come with it — could boost earning potential for the league’s players.
The promise of new endorsements for athletes, and more attention on the WNBA in general, prompted Christopher Ruff to create the WNBA League Fits social media account. Ruff has been a WNBA fan since he watched Los Angeles Sparks player Lisa Leslie two decades ago and in 2021 he started to think about how he could help draw more fans to the league.
“Fashion can be used as the first step to get people to look and put more eyes on the actual product, which is the game,” Ruff said.
A player’s outfit can communicate their personality and creativity, which can resonate with those who don’t normally watch basketball. Tunnel fashion is the individual glamour before the game-wear conformity.
But many athletes don’t have the luxury of big-name fashion houses knocking on their door, so they’re getting creative. WNBA stylists are hustling to source Italian fabrics and tailor looks to players who don’t have big-brand sponsorship, said fashion publicist Velissa Vaughn, who runs an Instagram account focused on WNBA tunnel looks.
“They just want to really embrace their creativity, their self-expression,” Vaughn told The Post.
Some, such as Napheesa Collier, prioritize emerging brands that are women- or Black-owned, or that are carried by locally owned boutiques in lieu of sourcing the same look from major retailers.
The rising popularity is good for emerging designers, said Vaughn, and for the fashion-forward athletes.
“To see what it’s like now, the respect and the admiration from pop culture and society is so rewarding,” Vaughn said, “because these players are really killing it in so many different ways than just on the court.”
