You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.
I'm your host, Elise Hu.
What can suits sneakers, and even the way one walks through a tunnel onto the basketball court.
Tell us about history.
The story of NBA fashion is a story of Black people dating back to the 1940s, which is also to say it's the history of America today.
That was writer and TED fellow Mitchell S. Jackson.
In his talk he explores how the fashion of NBA players, from pioneers like Bill Russell to cultural icons like Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson, tells a much bigger story of US history than you might think, and how clothing can be a powerful reflection of identity and resistance.
Kobe's cosmopolitan sensibilities challenged biases about the breadth of Black men's cultural influences.
LeBron, wearing the last words of Eric Garner, empowered a new generation of athletes to broadcast their politics.
This is indeed a story about love and basketball culture and the ways that style can be worth a thousand words.
That's coming up right after a short break.
And now, our TED Talk of the day.
Serious two-part question for you.
What are you wearing and why?
Well, I hope none of you are decked in an outfit against your will.
I happen to think our fashion choices should be deeper than just because we like something.
Who am I?
I'm a long-ago Hooper.
That jumper was wet, too.
Lifelong basketball fan and long-inspiring fashionista.
But most importantly, I wrote the book on NBA fashion.
Literally.
A project that taught me that the story of NBA fashion is a story of black people dating back to the 1940s, which is also to say it's the history of America.
And I plan to show you how players' fashion choices have been both a reflection of the times and a catalyst for changing them, and furthermore how, for those who think these times are indeed troubling, they serve as a model for styling ourselves into resistance.
The NBA was founded in 1946.
There aren't many off-the-court photos of its first fashion era, but the ones that exist show men who adhered to the status quo, dressed influenced by the conservation mandates of World War II.
It's important to note that early NBA fashion extends from pre-civil rights into the heart of the movement.
The first black player was drafted in 1950, and those pioneers were also de facto ambassadors of the best of their race.
Hence, many of them dressed like men who were set on proving their dignity.
Know this, Bob Cousy's civil rights were never in question.
Real talk, Bill Russell's smile was a requisite for a respectable black man.
Yeah, Will got spicy later, but in the 50s, he conformed like everybody else.
The second era is shaped by the Civil Rights Act, the Black Power Movement and the war in Vietnam, plus the huge popularity of soul music and the birth of blaxploitation films.
By the 1970s, 75 of the league's players were black, and those black players, and some of the white ones, began dressing like young men who were claiming their hard-fought freedom to loosen or dash their ties and assert themselves as individuals.
You can see it in their planetary afros in their kente cloth and dashikis in their hippie digs or flashy jewelry.
If you ask me, Clyde Frazier's cape is a flamboyant symbol of freedom.
Here's Bill Walton dressing his then-radical politics.
And look, Dr. J could have been a blaxploitation action star with his earthly afro and edgy fashion.
The NBA paid its first million dollar per season salaries in 1979-80.
The following year, Reaganomics became law.
A few years later, Michael Jeffrey Jordan entered the league and in time, became the most famous person on Earth.
Jordan once said that Republicans buy sneakers too, and though he's since claimed his comment was in jest, it's apparent apoliticalness was a defining feature of his eponymous third era.
As were the excesses born of America's booming economy and the lingering illusion that Nixon's black capitalism initiative was a net positive for black folks.
Jordan was braved on southern black respectability and wore suits, but he also customized them joints with an icon's flair.
Look, little says nouveau riche like magic wearing a fur in the 1980s.
Yeah, maybe his billionaire status now was what Nixon meant by black economic equality.
Jordan's suit proportions, my God.
Aren't they 90s extravagance?
Yeah.
Dennis Rodman was the iconoclast of the Jordan era, with style that bridged him to a liberated white world.
Hip-hop becoming the most dominant force in youth culture sets the fourth era in motion.
In a short span, several rappers reached diamond sales, and Outkast and Lauryn Hill won Grammys for Album of the Year Around.
That same time, Allen Ezell Iverson became the poster child for hip-hop's influence on the NBA.
Not just his style, but his irreverence and aplomb.
However, the racist idea of thugs pervading hip-hop colored the perception of players following AI'.
's lead.
And that infamous brawl known as the Malice at the Palace, well, It didn't help matters.
In fact, it spurred the NBA dress code, ie a new way to restrict black men's freedom of expression.
Hip-hop is over the top, no doubt, which in A.I.'
's case meant bling you could see from the nosebleeds and the lollipop distress insouciance.
D. Wade's get-up reminds us that posturing tough is part of hip-hop's DNA.
Tell me this, does Jermaine O'Neal's gaudy jewelry challenge the stereotype of the black male thug?
While it was shaped by President Obama's first term, David Stern, instituting the NBA dress code defined the fifth era.
Commissioner Stern's rules forced players to eschew their beloved hip-hop gear in favor of more conservative attire restrictions that pushed them to become more experimental with their style.
Before long, the world that excluded black men for ages began offering them prime seats at fashion shows and coveted tickets to the Met Gala.
Like the black dandies of yore, players of the dress code era turned structural limitations into a showcase of their boldness and creativity.
Kobe's cosmopolitan sensibilities challenge biases about the breadth of black men's cultural influences.
Mary Stoudemire's fit insists that we take his style acumen seriously.
Ah, here's Mello forging a place for black men at fashion's biggest night, the Met Gala.
LeBron, wearing the last words of Eric Garner, empowered a new generation of athletes to broadcast their politics.
Instagram crossing one billion users in 2018 marked the sixth era.
Much thanks due to LeBron and D. Wade and Chris Bosh.
Remember them heatles?
The app helped transform the few minutes between a player's arena arrival and the locker room into an unscripted space of expression.
It also helped turn several players, including some bench dudes like P.J.
Tucker into cultural figures who were just as big, if not bigger, in the fashion world than in the world of sports.
Not to mention, some players use their expanded platforms to push for social change.
Westbrook has made a great case as his era's foremost iconoclast.
LeBron, he dressed his calves in Tom Brown for a playoff tunnel walk a viral moment that accrued the whole damn league fashion cachet.
Hip-hop is born as rebellion, and John Morant's diamond-encrusted grill is a throwback to that defiance.
But where are we now?
Well, I don't know about you, but what I see is a government decimating civil rights, assaulting freedom of speech, erasing the history of marginalized groups, targeting immigrants.
How will this broad oppression shape a league in which black players are still the largest share and foreign-born players are some of its biggest stars?
In every era, NBA players, the black ones in particular, have used fashion to challenge forces casting them as less deserving of their human rights and their dignity.
And there's a model in that for all of us right, which is also to ask what's our relationship to power.
And not just because we like it, because we want to resist.
What are we wearing tomorrow?
I mean, we, as in you and me, as in all of us.
Thank you.
That was Mitchell S. Jackson at TED Next 2025.
And just to note, in this talk, Mitchell shares a lot of imagery.
So if you are able, I'd also recommend going to watch the video on TED.com.
If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines.
And that's it for today.
TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective.
This talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little and Tansika Sangmarnivong.
This episode was mixed by Lucy Little.
Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo.
I'm Elise Hu.
I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed.
Thanks for listening.
