The smog of a Washington Post exposé may have been hanging over Kim Mulkey’s head during the L.S.U. game on Saturday afternoon, but the highest paid coach in women’s collegiate basketball wasn’t going to hide. How could you tell?
Well, in part because at the start of the N.C.A.A. tournament, she had given a news conference threatening a lawsuit about the article, thus calling to attention to it. In part because there she was, running up and down the sidelines and screaming her head off. And it part because … goodness, what was she wearing?
A gleaming pantsuit covered in a jumble of Op Art sequined squiggles, as if Big Bird had met Liberace and they’d teamed up for “Project Runway.”
Even in the context of basketball, a sport in which players and coaches understood the power of personal branding through clothes long before almost any other athletes, Ms. Mulkey stands out. More than perhaps anyone else in the league — possibly in all of women’s basketball — she has made her image a talking point, a reflection of her own larger-than-life personality and a tool to draw attention to her sport. She is basketball’s avatar of the Trumpian era, offering a new version of The Mulkey Show at every game and costuming herself for the moment. As her team meets the University of Iowa again in the Elite Eight, brand Mulkey will most likely be raising the stakes once more.
It would be wrong to call her clothes “fashion.” They have little to do with trends or silhouette. But love what she wears or hate it, love how she behaves or hate it, her sometimes ridiculous, always eye-catching outfits are, like her winning record, abrasive personality, problematic comments about Covid-19 and reported homophobia, impossible to ignore.
“She’s the OG, example of how to capitalize on who you are,” said Sydney Bordonaro, a stylist who works with seven W.N.B.A. players and was herself a Division I basketball player. “How many eyes are on her during each game? How could you not take advantage of that opportunity? It’s priceless.”
As such, and as the women’s game becomes increasingly popular and new N.I.L. rules put a premium on the monetization of image and identity, Ms. Mulkey is fast becoming the author of a different kind of playbook. One that has made her a lightning rod not just because of her coaching style, but because of her style as a coach.
“She has built herself into a brand,” said Mitchell S. Jackson, the author of “Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion.” “It’s about ratings and about personality.”
A Brief History of Basketball Coach Fashion
It was the Lakers coach Pat Riley who set the tone for sideline fashion back in the 1980s when he adopted a wardrobe of Armani suits, using clothes to convey his ambition and polish. “He became the standard-bearer,” Mr. Jackson said. “But he also blended in.”
Pat Summitt, who spent 38 years as the women’s basketball coach at the University of Tennessee, took a similar approach, becoming known for her shoulder pads and power suits. As Lindsay Gibbs, the founder of the newsletter Power Plays, pointed out, female coaches had long understood that “they were being scrutinized to a different level” and that what they wore was going to be play a role whether they liked it or not.
Yet overall, it has been the men who have garnered much of the attention — perhaps because they also had the paychecks and the discretionary income. And perhaps because the W.N.B.A. has a long and fraught history with gender stereotyping, which for years saw the organization pushing classically “feminine” ideals, including offering hourlong makeup and hair tutorials for rookies to combat nervousness about powerful female athletes and all they represent.
In recent years, and especially in the men’s game, the coaches have ceded the spotlight to the players, opting to dress in team apparel rather than designer clothes, even as their on-court stars have ended up on the front row of fashion shows. Ms. Mulkey is an alternative to all that.
And though she is not the only style-forward coach in the game — Dawn Staley of South Carolina, Adia Barnes of the University of Arizona and Sydney Carter, the director of player development for the University of Texas are lauded for their image-making flair — Ms. Mulkey is the most extreme. She has been compared to a Who from Dr. Seuss’s Whoville, Ric Flair of WrestleMania and a flamingo. (Well, she has been called a “rare bird.”)
Whether you consider her looks merely “eccentric,” as Ms. Bordonaro does, or straight from “the Las Vegas clown section,” as Tom Broecker, the costume designer of “Saturday Night Live,” does, it may matter less than the fact that you consider them at all.
“She’s making a statement about her individuality and determination to be herself, no matter what,” Ms. Gibbs of Power Plays said. “It has become something people look out for, and she’s leaning in.”
Sparkle, Sparkle, Sparkle
Ms. Mulkey’s penchant for outré dress began to emerge during her 21 years at Baylor, in which she led her team to three national championships. During that time, she also courted controversy with comments dismissing the university’s sexual misconduct scandal and her treatment of her star player, Brittney Griner, who has talked publicly about being told to stay in the closet by her coach and to cover her tattoos. (Later, Ms. Mulkey did not speak up when Ms. Griner was imprisoned in Russia in 2022.) Still, her style was a lot more “normal, for want of a better word,” Ms. Gibbs said.
It was during L.S.U.’s run to the N.C.A.A. trophy last year that Ms. Mulkey vaulted from basketball fame to national fame, thanks in part to her penchant for sequins, feathers and lurid color combinations. She wore a black and white sequined polka-dot pantsuit, a Kelly green and hot pink plaid jacket with pink feathers on the sleeves, a rose-pink jacket with enormous … well, roses, on the sleeves and, for the final game, an allover sequined tiger-stripe pantsuit. (The tiger is the L.S.U. mascot.) Riding in the celebration parade afterward, she chose a purple sequined jacket with more tigers.
It is not a coincidence that one of Ms. Mulkey’s favorite labels is called Queen of Sparkles. Designed by Jaime Glas, it is sold at the Baton Rouge store Rodéo Boutique, where Ms Mulkey reportedly gets many of her outfits — or where Jennifer Roberts, the L.S.U. director of women’s basketball player personnel and influence, gets them for her. At this point, according to a 2023 article on her closet in the Louisiana daily The Advocate, she has 171 pairs of shoes and “29 glittery jackets.”
“Look, we’re from Louisiana,” Ms. Mulkey said, by way of explaining her taste. “We like sparkles, we like diamonds, we like Mardi Gras, we like to eat and we like to party.”
Whatever the reason, her choices have meant that even people with no particular interest in basketball (like the FUG girls) have suddenly begun watching the games. “People tune in to see what she’s wearing,” Mr. Jackson said.
And Ms. Mulkey understands the stakes. When she gave that news conference about the Washington Post article at the start of the N.C.A.A. tournament, she left the sequins behind for the institutional security of a simple long-sleeve purple L.S.U. T-shirt. As if to remind everyone what a team player she really is.
The post L.S.U.’s Kim Mulkey Courts Controversy With Style appeared first on New York Times.
