The Influence of Fashion in Sports

      "I began styling almost as soon as I became aware of clothes," shares Manny Jay, a stylist who was raised in Lancaster, a small city in South Central Pennsylvania, before relocating to New York to pursue his career. "I would say it started around 6 or 7." At that age, many parents still chose their children's outfits, but his allowed him the freedom to showcase his individuality. Before long, Jay was styling many in Lancaster, including his mother, sister, and friends. As social media began to expand, he joined platforms like MySpace and Facebook, cultivating a presence that ultimately led him to meet the creators of the eyewear brand Coco and Breezy. "They were really popular at the time," Jay recalls. "They told me, 'You’re styling. This is a career—we know other stylists who earn a lot of money doing this.'" Coming from a small town, he never realized his passion could also be a profession. He quickly moved to the city, assisting various stylists willing to hire him and eventually collaborating with fashion industry legends such as Patricia Field and Law Roach. Now, Jay is carving his own path, and over the past year, he has ventured into one of the fastest-growing cultural arenas: women's basketball. Since November 2024, he has been styling one of the WNBA’s best-dressed players, Skylar Diggins-Smith. Diggins-Smith, a guard for the Seattle Storm and Unrivaled's Lunar Owls basketball club, is recognized for her fierce competitiveness on the court and her sophisticated taste off it. For the second time, she was named the MVP of 2024 by League Fits, having first won the accolade in 2022. The two met prior to the Las Vegas Grand Prix, an event Diggins-Smith attended as a Puma ambassador. "The synergy was instant," she describes.

      According to the six-time WNBA All-Star, Jay's meticulous attention to detail was one of the first aspects that attracted her to his work. She notes that he intuitively understands her while consistently encouraging her to step outside her comfort zone. For her, collaborating with Jay goes beyond simply assembling impressive outfits. "It was about creating a narrative that resonates," she states. This outlook makes Diggins-Smith an ideal creative partner for a stylist like Jay. "She recognizes how fashion can elevate you into many other arenas," he remarks about his client. Both share a competitive spirit in their respective fields, always striving to outdo themselves. "I'm not necessarily competing with others; I’m always competing with myself," he explains. "We both possess this drive to perform at our best and surpass our previous efforts." Their partnership has resulted in some of Diggins-Smith's most striking tunnel outfits, particularly during the inaugural season of Unrivaled—a new three-on-three league in Miami founded by her teammate Napheesa Collier alongside Breanna Stewart from the New York Liberty and Mist basketball club.

      The connection was immediate. Playing in a new league provided the duo an opportunity to explore fashion and showcase their creativity ahead of what is anticipated to be one of the WNBA's most significant and high-profile seasons in its 28-year history. Together, they chose to apply a styling technique Jay learned from Law Roach, known as method styling, to creatively incorporate Diggins-Smith's Unrivaled team name into her tunnel outfits throughout the inaugural season. "When you are given something like a mascot or a movie premiere, and you receive a theme, it’s enjoyable to dress within that context," Jay remarks. "I wanted to translate that into the tunnel with Skylar." Her first look for Unrivaled was designed by AnOnlyChild: a brown, tailored suit with bold shoulders resembling an owl's wings. "We’ve made an effort to include looks that evoke and resemble nature," Jay notes, referencing colors like green and brown. "The Lapointe look—the green one with fur on the sleeves—was also very owl-like [with] wings," he adds. "The details are subtle," Diggins-Smith notes, "but deliberate, like owl-themed jewelry or feather-inspired patterns." For her, developing this character and infusing significance into her looks for Unrivaled connected her more deeply to her team and improved her on-court performance. "The owl theme represents wisdom, intuition, and vision—qualities that resonate with me both on and off the court," she explains. "It was our approach to adding depth that transcends mere aesthetics. It’s about foresight and staying ahead of the game."

      Throughout this season, Diggins-Smith has also highlighted several rare designer handbags from brands like Chanel and Louis Vuitton. "We were fortunate to collaborate with What Goes Around Comes Around for [Skylar's] bags to carry down the tunnel, and I anticipate that relationship will continue," says Jay. When he informed