D There he bravely looked from the cover of the NBA magazine Hoop: without earrings, necklace, or visible tattoos. Basketball superstar Allen Iverson, as the league boss had wished him to be—too perfect to be true. And it wasn’t. Iverson’s tattoos lay hidden beneath the block letters of the cover story, the jewelry was photoshopped away, and his cornrows blurred into the depth of field.
The manipulated 1999 cover was the precursor to an order that NBA commissioner David Stern would send to all teams a few years later. Twenty years ago a dress code was introduced. With the start of the 2005/06 season baggy pants, chains and durags were banned, as were hiking boots (i.e., Timberlands). Those who played in the NBA should also look “professional” off the court. However, less like a basketball player, more like a vacuum-cleaner salesman: business casual meant shirts, jackets and lace-up shoes.
Stern pushed the NBA’s global expansion forward. In the early 2000s international stars like Yao Ming, Pau Gasol, and a young Dirk Nowitzki poured new money into the league. At the same time, the NBA remained visibly tied to the controversial US hip-hop culture. Jay-Z sat courtside with Beyoncé at the All-Star Game, Shaquille O’Neal danced through a P. Diddy video—and from glossy clips on MTV to the concrete courts in the Hessian countryside, gangsta rappers and high school students alike wore the oversized jersey of the league’s coolest guy: Allen Iverson.
The elusive guard, standing 1.83 meters tall, operated with explosive athleticism and dizzying dribbles for the notoriously unsuccessful Philadelphia 76ers, knotting his opponents’ legs. Eleven-time All-Star, 2001 Most Valuable Player, ninth on the all-time scoring list for points per game. Statistically hard to quantify is his influence as a style icon: tattoos, gold chains, oversized pants, and shirts looked more rebellious than Michael Jordan’s clean-cut image (“Republicans buy sneakers, too”) and were easier to imitate than Dennis Rodman’s appearances in a wedding dress. Suddenly the NBA appeared in a hip-hop look.
Against Hip-Hop Culture
“You could see Kobe come in with the diamond chain and the baggy clothes, and everyone started doing it,” Iverson recalled recently. “Then the league said, ‘Wait, we have to do something about this.’” A scandalous game between Detroit and Indiana, which ended in a mass brawl, gave Stern the opportunity to impose disciplinary measures. His dress code targeted hip-hop culture—and, as many saw it, Black players.
“First, it’s a strange way to establish white authority over Black bodies,” says Grant Farred, who researches racism in sport at Cornell University. “Second, it’s about capital. The NBA didn’t want to be associated with thuggishness.” For Farred, the dress code was Stern’s last great display of power. What followed was the emancipation of the players.
Instead of simply appearing in a suit, many stars interpreted the dress code creatively. Inspiration for a new Black Dandyism found itself in Italian haute couture and Japanese streetwear. The pioneers James Harden and Russell Westbrook continue to shape Iverson’s legacy not only as playmakers but also as extravagant trendsetters. They undermined racist stereotypes, on the court and on the fashion-week runways.
An even more explicit fashion statement followed after the murder of George Floyd in 2020: 285 players wore league-approved protest slogans such as “Black Lives Matter” instead of their name on the jersey. It is hard to imagine the NBA allowing this again in the Trump-era 2.0. How strictly the dress code is enforced today remains unclear. Neither the league nor the players’ union has commented on it. Only this much: in its essentials it remains in force.
Publicly the stars appear carefree. When a Vogue team accompanied Russell Westbrook to the Louis Vuitton show in Paris in 2019, he laughed into the camera: “That’s the best thing about fashion: you can do whatever you want. I do that too. Why not?”
