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Angel Reese covers Vogue’s Winter Issue! I love it. Angel is the college basketball champion turned pro-athlete superstar. She’s the same generation as Caitlin Clark, and the two women had a college rivalry and now they have a professional rivalry – Clark plays for the Indiana Fever and Angel plays for the Chicago Sky. A few years ago, during the NCAA championship game, Angel’s “you can’t see me” gesture to Caitlin altered both women’s careers, with (white) people outraged that Angel Reese would besmirch a white woman with a tame and popular gesture among athletes. While Caitlin has become “the face” of the WNBA, Angel is a superstar in her own right, and I love that Vogue is showcasing that. Vogue’s cover story is basically a feature for Angel, Gabby Thomas and other pro athletes to trendspot how sports + fashion has gone mainstream. Some highlights some of Angel’s interview:
“It’s always been both: basketball and fashion,” Reese says. Basketball runs in the family, she explains; both her mother and grandmother played. And when she was growing up in Baltimore, the sport was just around. “But I was a fashion girlie from young too. Like—let me find this picture my mom sent,” she goes on, digging through her bag for a snapshot of herself, age five, adorable in a pink dress and tiara, almond eyes gleaming. “I was always in my mom’s closet, putting on her stuff. I liked to carry a purse. Hair done. I wanted to look put together. I still do.” That desire to look finished applies on and off the court: Reese earned her Bayou Barbie nickname at Louisiana State thanks to her penchant for glamming up for games.
“I used to watch America’s Next Top Model with Tyra and practice my walk in the living room,” Reese recalls. Later, in college, she put that sashay to use in the LSU tunnel, with her teammates joining her in serving fierce pregame looks. Once on the court, she led them to a national championship before deciding to go pro—an announcement she made not on ESPN but rather via this very title. One day, she says, she’d like to model in a real fashion show; maybe Paris Fashion Week, that’s still on her to-do list.
I remember when Angel was a college star, I looked through her Instagram and I was so happy to see that she already had endorsements and she was working with brands. She also had a polished, fashionable image even then, posing for selfies and spon-con with her fake eyelashes and perfect hair and makeup. Angel should absolutely get more endorsements and a brand-ambassadorship with a major fashion house. Why wouldn’t designers want a tall, slender beauty like Angel to walk their runway too?
Cover & IG courtesy of Vogue.
