Before every professional basketball game, style and sports converge during the tunnel walk. It’s essentially the backstage of an NBA or WNBA game: Players are photographed walking into the arena before changing into their uniforms. And just like actors and musicians are styled for red carpets, many athletes now have stylists, ensuring they look their best for the tunnel walk and everything that follows.
One of the top stylists in the game is Courtney Mays, who focuses specifically on sports stars. Mays’ clients include Chris Paul, Breanna Stewart, Sue Bird, and Megan Rapinoe. She also works with a few entertainers, such as actor Anthony Anderson and musician Brittany Howard.
“I'm a fan of the game, whatever game. Basketball, football, hockey, soccer, I'm a fan,” Mays says on the latest episode of “Nice Talk”. “And [athletes] are novices to the fashion space, so I can come in as sort of the educator. Also, they're really collaborative, maybe the team sport of it all. I think we can have those real conversations about what their goals are.”
Of course, like anyone else, an athlete’s knowledge of fashion and connection to their personal style is going to vary. For example, “Chris, we call little President Obama. He's very conservative, but, like, cool,” Mays says. “He loves fashion, and he wants to look great, but he doesn't care that much.”
But some players care a lot. Like fellow NBA player Karl-Anthony Towns, who Mays has also worked with, including during the recent NBA All-Star Weekend.
“The most fascinating thing about him is he is such a student of the industry, and he knows the designers, the history of the designer, the collection from 15 years ago,” Mays says. “He's really into the vintage. He's so knowledgeable. I'm sitting there, like, taking notes.”
Beyond making her clients look and feel good, Mays says her work is driven by a bigger mission: championing diversity in all its forms, from body size and sexual orientation to gender identity and personal style. For her, the WNBA is the clearest place to see that ethos in motion: “How cool is it that there's such a diversity in style sensibility and there's a diversity in identity within one sport?”
She continues, “When you look at women in sports, there's a huge queer population that's not being shown publicly in a way that I think is appropriate. I think that we should be celebrating queer identities. I think we should be celebrating the diversity in body types, especially in women's sports. So I'm like, if I have to shout it from the rooftops that, you know, not all of us want to be in miniskirts and crop tops, then I'm going to do that … I think that if I can find a way to use fashion to champion all of that, then I've done my job.”
For more from Mays—including her advice for aspiring stylists and why she’s not interested in “viral moments”—check out this week’s installment of "Nice Talk". The episode is available everywhere you listen to podcasts.