How this designer custom-makes clothes for the NBA's most stylish players
- Isaac Saqib designs clothes for top celebrities like J Balvin, Juice Wrld, and Kyrie Irving.
- We visit Saqib at his NYC studio to get a behind-the-scenes look at how he creates pieces for NBA players.
- NBA players typically need clothes that are made to measure.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Following is a transcript of the video.
Medha Imam: Basketball players are today's style icons, but there's a pretty big problem with that. Finding fly clothes that fit. That's where designer Isaac Saqib comes in. Yo, Isaac, come here! He's the founder of luxury streetwear brand Mercy X Mankind.
Isaac Saqib: Hey! Medha: Hello! So, who have you dressed?
Isaac: Just some great artists like Young Thug, J Balvin, and Juice Wrld, and then some really fresh NBA players.
Medha: But how does Saqib make eye-popping clothes that also fit some of the best NBA players?
Isaac: Welcome to the studio. When it comes to creating something for an NBA player, it's that you can't use your standard men's or women's pattern. Because you have your standard small, your standard medium, your standard large, but with an NBA player, because they don't fit that standard, everything has to be made to measure, so there has to be a pattern made from scratch, essentially, off of their particular measurements.
Medha: Basketball players aren't built like other athletes. They're long and lean, and their disproportionate body measurements break all the rules of manufactured clothing. That's why players like Irving go to designers like Saqib to find something, anything, that makes them look normal.
Isaac: Designing for them, especially when they're really tall and abnormally shaped, the fact that we make everything here in New York and the fact that we're in a major city and we're able to meet with them and discuss with them, that helps us a lot, because we're able to create these fly clothes for them that they can rock, you know, walking into their arena. We're able to provide that because we make everything here. So we can make everything made to measure, essentially.
Medha: But when did arena tunnels become runways for the top NBA players? It all started with a fight. The Detroit Pistons were hosting the Indiana Pacers in a heavily contested regular-season NBA game between two championship contenders. With less than a minute left, a few of the players get into a fight, raising tension in the building. A few moments later, a fan in the crowd hurls a drink directly at the Pacers' Ron Artest, and a full-scale brawl occurs. The teams and players at the center of this event were champions and all-stars. The NBA was hit with a PR crisis. And one way to address it was attire. Baggy T-shirts, sweatpants, snapbacks, and jewelry. That was the typical look for NBA players back in the early 2000s, before "Malice in the Palace." And David Stern, the NBA commissioner at the time, wasn't a big fan. Journalists and fans constantly linked urban style trends with the league's, quote, "thug-like" reputation. Make no mistake; this was and still is a pretty far-reaching racist assumption. Stern responded to the brawl by implementing the NBA's first-ever dress code. Players were no longer allowed to freely express themselves but were now required to dress in business-casual attire during any team or league business.
Dwyane Wade: Like, OK, now we gotta, you know, really dress up, and we can't just throw on a sweatsuit. Then it became a competition amongst guys.
Medha: Players changed the narrative. They took the restrictive dress code into their own hands and transformed a pregame walk into, well, a catwalk. Off-court attire became an excuse to dress up, be creative, and express yourself. And the fashion industry took notice. Now brands and fashion designers like Saqib turn to basketball players to showcase their latest looks.
Isaac: People are always looking for the next best thing. Right? So they always want to be the first ones to rock, like, a new brand or a new designer. And the fact that I'm upcoming and I'm unique, in the sense that I don't come from a fashion house, I think that kind of makes me attractive in that sense.
Medha: But it comes with a few hurdles.
Isaac: Designing for any high-profile clientele is always complex. It's never an easy task, and people like Kyrie Irving, because he's longer and because his body isn't, like, an average body size, we had to make adjustments to the fit of the pants, the hip, all the way down to the leg opening to make sure that his foot would fit inside. And then bigger, way bigger people, like Chris Copeland, we had to make many adjustments just to make sure that he fits into that coat the way he wants it to fit.
Medha: To get an idea of how Saqib designs for the likes of NBA players, we followed him as he made a custom jacket for Chris Copeland.
Isaac: Sometimes making stuff for NBA players can be really nerve-wracking, but other times it's not too bad. Someone like Kyrie Irving is, like, a little bit bigger than average, but someone like Chris Copeland, or, like, Karl-Anthony Towns that we made a jacket for, they're like monsters, you know, these guys are, like, 6-9, 7 feet, and it's really weird because their torsos will not always be super abnormal, like, they might have, like, a regular-sized torso, but the length of, like, their arms, is, like, huge, you know, and their height is huge, and then their hips are bigger than normal, you know.
Medha: But perfecting the fit is just one part of it, the technical part. Players want clothes that reflect who they are. Sometimes that means going loud and flamboyant. And other times, it's choosing something a little quieter that still stands out.
Isaac: You know, if they're spending that much money, they want something that's not just gonna be overlooked. But in the same sense, you have NBA players like Chris Copeland, like Kyrie Irving. They want something a little bit more subtle. They don't want something that's super loud, they want to be comfortable, and the pants that we made for Kyrie Irving were just a regular pair of distressed, like, suit trousers. It wasn't anything bold or special, but it's something that he liked and something that, you know, he's probably gonna rock on a daily basis.
Medha: Finding clothes that fit remains a daily struggle for players like Irving and Copeland, but it's more important than ever because postgame discussions are no longer restricted to a player's on-the-court performance. Their appearance off the court could just as easily become a national headline.