Naomi Osaka honored ‘The Answer,’ NBA legend Allen Iverson, with her dramatic on-court ensemble at the US Open on Monday night in New York.
Facing unseeded Russian Anastasia Zakharova in the opening round, the trend-setting Osaka donned Iverson’s famed arm sleeves and headband as she walked onto center court at Arthur Ashe Stadium in a wide-tulle floor-length skirt and a sleeveless hoodie.
Interestingly, her grey sweatshirt included burnout newspaper clippings of her career exploits sewn into the tattered fabric.
The look was part of Nike’s effort to connect tennis with basketball for this year’s US Open. Earlier on Monday, Aryna Sabalenka sported a mesh jersey for her first-round win over Camila Osorio.
But Osaka happens to be a big fan of Iverson, the legendary Philadelphia 76ers point guard, whom she credits for setting trends both on and off the hardwood.
‘For me, he’s a trailblazer,’ Osaka said earlier in the week, while donning a t-shirt featuring an old issue of SLAM magazine with Iverson on the cover. ‘I think he’s also someone that I look up to a lot, because he’s done a lot in fashion. Whether it’s on purpose or not, he’s shifted the way that NBA players dress. I also think the whole conversation around clothes in sports, and also just expressing yourself through style, I feel like he’s someone that I look up to in that regard.’
Naomi Osaka honored ‘The Answer,’ NBA legend Allen Iverson, with her dramatic on-court ensemble at the US Open on Monday night in New York
Facing unseeded Russian Anastasia Zakharova in the opening round, the trend-setting Osaka donned Iverson’s famed arm sleeves and headband
The 2001 NBA MVP, Iverson still has a cult following in basketball and fashion circles
Osaka said she has never met the basketball Hall of Famer, but said ‘hopefully he’ll see this,’ suggesting a future meeting could be arranged.
Designers Téla D’Amore and Ev Bravado were happy to use the 51-year-old point guard as inspiration.
‘The look references Allen Iverson, more specifically, his gray sweats and the nonconformist cadence with which he moved through the world as an athlete,’ they told Vogue. ‘Naomi and Law sent two images our way of Iverson wearing a headband—head only—and from there, we had roughly 30 hours to figure out the rest.’
The 28-year-old made a fashionable start to her tournament before the action began, with a number of staged photoshoots inside the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Locations included the media room, the player garden, and Arthur Ashe Stadium itself, with Osaka sporting a variety of different looks shared daily in the build-up to the start of the event’s main draw.
Osaka even enlisted Zendaya‘s stylist Law Roach to assist with the creation of one of the outfits, posing up a storm in an archival Spring/Summer 2003 Dolce & Gabbana dress among the desks and monitors in the press workroom.
Osaka acknowledges the crowd in Flushing, Queens before her first-round match
Anastasia Zakharova, of Russia, returns the ball to Naomi Osaka during the first round
Naomi Osaka did not get an easy first-round draw against Russian Anastasia Zakharova
On-court however, her outfits have been even more creative.
The four-time Grand Slam champion kicked off this season’s majors series at the Australian Open, where she sported an outfit some fans perceived as a ‘jellyfish-inspired’ look.
Osaka arrived at the Rod Laver Arena with a wide-brimmed hat with a white veil and parasol before warming up in a frilled jacket and dress that looked like tentacles.
In June at the French Open, Osaka was accused of not coming to Paris ‘to play tennis’ by her first-round opponent Laura Siegemund after arriving for her opening match in a flowing black skirt and corset made from her old Nike outfits before unveiling the shimmering gold dress, which the Japanese star said she thought looked like the Eiffel Tower at night.
The black corset and skirt was designed by couturier Kevin Garmanier, who works with upcycled materials. The pleated black skirt was made using the inner layers of one of her jackets while her old tennis skirts and dresses were also cut up and reused. The outfit was then covered in hundreds of hand-applied crystals.
‘I came here to play tennis, not to put on a fashion show,’ Siegemund had told TNT Sports. ‘And if others want to put on a fashion show, then they should go ahead and do it. That’s totally fine with me.’
Osaka made a fashionable run-up to the tournament with a series of photoshoots around the Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre
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Her second-round opponent Donna Vekic took a different view, calling for critics to ‘relax’.
‘Some people take tennis way too seriously,’ she said. ‘Relax, it’s just an outfit. I think it’s good that she’s doing different things, expressing herself through fashion.
‘Whether it’s good or bad, that’s a different thing, it’s fashion.’
At Wimbledon, Osaka played with the tournament’s strict all-white outfit by turning to Japanese designer Hana Yagi for a kimono-inspired look which referenced both Kill Bill star Lucy Liu, and kirigami, the Japanese art of paper-cutting.
Osaka sported the custom white outfit, covered with embroidered cranes and cherry blossom, both enduring symbols of Japanese culture, with bell-shaped sleeves, an obi belt, and a trailing tulle skirt.
Osaka finished the outfit with a kanzashi hair ornament, historically worn by geisha, and Mikimoto jewellery from the famous Japanese luxury pearl brand.
As Osaka progressed throughout the tournament, she subtly changed the styling of the outfit, opting to wear just the belt and trailing tiered skirt, or the jacket open instead of cinched at the waist.
The Australian Open saw Osaka wear an outfit some fans compared to a jellyfish with its billowing veil
In Paris, the 28-year-old was inspired by local landmark the Eiffel Tour for Roland-Garros
Her opponent in the first round Laura Siegemund was critical of her choice, but received compliments from elsewhere in the draw
At Wimbledon, Osaka was able to get creative with the tournament’s strict dress code
After defeating Aryna Sabalenka to book her spot in the quarter-finals however, Osaka changed her tune somewhat, saying that she felt inspired to ‘dial back’ her focus on outfits, and instead switch it to tennis.
Discussing her photoshoots before the tournament, Osaka shared that she had been inspired by her own experiences spending time on-site late before the crowds pour in.
‘I feel like I’ve just been running around the grounds earlier in the morning just before, like, the crowds come in, and I feel like I’ve also just been exploring places that I’ve never been to before,’ Osaka shared. ‘And I always feel a little, like, am I allowed to be in here? But we keep getting by.
‘So I would say we just open doors and kind of like peek in. But also Seb (photographer Sebastian Arriagada) kind of led me into the media room. Yeah, thank you for letting me take photos in your workplace.
‘Honestly, like, nothing I do, I do it to make a statement. I think it just ends up being that way,’ she said of her eye-catching on-court looks.
‘But I literally do the things that I love to do, and I feel like people relate to it, and I’m really glad and grateful for that, because I feel like the type of person I am, a lot of people can see themselves in me. I really, honestly, I love that about myself.’
