Game, Chic, Match

Fashion is aiming for a podium finish with its sports-focused gambit. Will it be a home run?

- AARON KOK

As soon as she stepped out at the 2024 Women’s National Basketball (WNBA) draft in April, Caitlyn Clark got people talking.

As draft hopefuls like Clark began arriving at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the buzz wasn’t on how Clark was the first to be picked for the Indiana Fever. Instead, social media erupted at the sight of Clark’s arrival look from Prada. In a rhinestone mesh top, a sleek white double satin overshirt and skirt, Clark could easily be mistaken for a fashion week attendee rather than a basketball draftee. She would go on to visit her new base town of Indianapolis in head-to-toe Louis Vuitton.

It was a first for Prada—the Italian house has never dressed a player for either the WNBA or the NBA draft prior to Clark. With WNBA games continuously breaking viewing records—2.1 million eyeballs were tuned in to Clark’s first game in May—it’s easy to see the allure for Prada.

And Prada isn’t the only brand to have a sporting first this year.

Gucci has also seen its share of chatter at Wimbledon last July when Italian tennis up-and-comer Jannik Sinner strode out in a Gucci tennis kit.

The English have always held a strict view when it comes to tennis, but for the first time in almost 150 years, the unwavering dress code of “tennis whites only” was ignored and Gucci was very much integral to that. With Sinner’s custom-made GG logo duffel bag, style won the match against stuffy rules.

“Bringing sport and luxury fashion together in this way is something that’s never been done before and I feel extremely proud to be a part of it. I hope people will love it as much as I do,” Sinner later told Women’s Wear Daily.

The new partnerships between fashion and sport have also grown beyond the arenas and into sports-adjacent projects.