Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion

by Mitchell S. Jackson

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

From Pulitzer Prize winner Mitchell S. Jackson comes the story of basketball, blending history with timely themes of race, media, politics and culture. Fly traces the growth of basketball set against the backdrop of the growth of America through Civil Rights. This is a gorgeous book, both in its overall aesthetic and in its narrative prowess.

Equal parts photo-rich lookbook, and cultural commentary, Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion is the story of the extraordinary intersection of high fashion and basketball, from the league's inception to today, and celebrates the iconic style of NBA athletes * A USA Today Bestseller

Each chapter explores the style of an era and the cultural influences that shaped it: The league’s inception in 1949, pre-Civil Rights Movement, when the NBA was mostly comprised of white players who wore suits and skinny ties. The years following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the birth of funk and R&B when basketball fashion got flashier (think Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Wilt Chamberlain wearing fur coats and big hats). The Michael Jordan era of the 1980s and 1990s, with its oversize suits. The epic Iverson/Hip-Hop years of the late 1990s and early 2000s. And now to today, a time defined not only by social media and high fashion’s birthing of the tunnel walk (think LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Russell Westbrook), but one in which athletes are idealized as style icons and activists, figures who inspire conversations beyond how they play and what they wear.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781648290923
Publisher:	Workman Publishing Company
Publication date:	09/05/2023
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	151,470
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 12.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Mitchell S. Jackson is the winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing and the 2021 National Magazine Award in Feature Writing. Jackson is the critically acclaimed author of The Residue Years, Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family, and John of Watts (to be published soon). His other honors include fellowships, grants, and awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Creative Capital, the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library, the Lannan Foundation, the Ford Foundation, PEN America, TED, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Center for Fiction. His writing has been featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, Time, Esquire, and Marie Claire, as well as in The New Yorker, Harpers, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, The Guardian, The Washington Post Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, and elsewhere. Jackson’s nonfiction book Survival Math was published in 2019 and named a best book of the year by fifteen publications, including NPR, Time, The Paris Review, The Root, Kirkus Reviews, and Buzzfeed. His next novel John of Watts will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Jackson is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, covers race and culture as the first Black columnist in the history of Esquire, and serves as the John O. Whiteman Dean’s Distinguished Professor in the English Department of Arizona State University.

Editorial Reviews

07/31/2023

Pulitzer winner Jackson (Survival Math) captures how NBA players have styled themselves over the decades in a visually appealing survey that sometimes falls short on substance. From 1946 to the present, Jackson spotlights hoopers whose style made waves, including “self-proclaimed hippie” Bill Walton’s shaggy hairstyle in the 1970s; Michael Jordan’s “capacious bespoke suits,” a look that seeped into mainstream fashion in the 1980s and ’90s; and Allen Iverson’s hip-hop–influenced diamond jewelry, “baggy jeans, and in-your-face body ink,” which stirred up public furor about the NBA’s “respectability” and in 2005 compelled commissioner David Stern to establish a “business casual” dress code at league events. Despite the book’s wealth of striking photos, Jackson misses a few opportunities, as when he gives short shrift to the way social justice issues and such movements as Black Lives Matter have shaped NBA fashion, and lets exultant descriptive writing (“envision Julius Erving swaggering outside the Nassau Coliseum in a cream-colored shirt and bell-bottom pants, the tint of Dr. J’s oversize sunglasses matching the burgundy of his leather lace-up shoes, the gold of his Casio wristwatch reflecting the tone of his pinkie ring”) overtake the stated goal of proving how “the story of clothing, fashion, and style in basketball over the past seventy-five years is also... the story of America.” It’s an eye-catching compendium that could have been more. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"A coffee-table book that elevates the subject to the same decorative status as a Dior or Gucci monograph."—The New York Times

Mitchell S. Jackson walks readers through eight decades of sharp suits, fresh kicks, audacious bling and playful embodiments of swagger on and off the court. Perfect for your friend who’s still talking about Serge Ibaka’s scarf.—The New York Times

Jackson, a prize-winning cultural critic, shows how basketball players became the most glamorous, fashion-forward athletes in the world.

—The New York Post

“A gorgeous, glamorous look at the intersection of fashion and basketball.”—Bookpage

"Stunning photos and spot on cultural commentary."—The Root

“Mitchell S. Jackson expertly fuses fashion and basketball, showing why players’ off court style can be as impactful as what they do in the game.” —NINA GARCIA, editor in chief, Elle

“In Fly, Jackson does more than compile a basketball/fashion look book, and it’s more than a timeline and history. To me, what he explores is the evergreen push to remind people that the talented are more than their talents. That there’s a burning creativity and a relentless desire to express oneself, not as a highlight but as a human.” —JASON REYNOLDS, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Stamped

“You cannot be a true enthusiast of sports or fashion if you don’t own a copy of this book. European designers are too often credited with the trends that spread around the world, and Jackson shows us that those designs are nothing without validation from the streets where many NBA athletes get their start. In this beautiful celebration of culture, he captures the role these athletes have played in style on a global scale.” —D. WATKINS, New York Times bestselling author of Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised and Black Boy Smile

“NBA fashion has evolved so much over the years. To see the various styles worn by players throughout the eras—all in one book—is cool. Now with social media and the game being so global, everyone sees everything. NBA fashion has never been bigger.” —P.J. TUCKER, Philadelphia 76ers

“Throughout “Fly,” Jackson’s bird’s-eye-view on the intersection of high fashion and elite athletes is comprehensive, and packed with commentary and historical context alike.”—CNN Style

From the Publisher

09/01/2023

In prose as stylish as its subject, this love letter to basketball and its swanky superstars takes readers on a colorful ride through the sport's sartorial preeminence from the 1940s to the present. Novelist and Pulitzer Prize—winning feature writer Jackson (Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family) celebrates the legacies and individual personalities of these elite athletes—Wilt Chamberlain, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and many more—while illustrating how they were influenced by and also affected cultural history throughout the decades. The book's abundant photographs are a mix of candid and composed shots that are given full credit in the backmatter. Readers who don't have extensive knowledge of basketball and its biggest stars may feel the need to play catch-up at times due to the work's rapid-fire sports history references and nonstop name-dropping. However, true fans will relish the breadth and depth devoted to the game and its players' on- and off-court looks. The book places them in context with their eras' political and cultural climates. VERDICT A recommended purchase with crossover appeal for fans of basketball and contemporary fashion.—Shannon Titas

Library Journal