James Harden’s Move to Brooklyn Required a Wardrobe Overhaul

January is a horrible time to start out a brand new job in Brooklyn. The temperatures drop into the low double digits. The wind stings your face. Metropolis dwellers ransack each Dealer Joe’s in anticipation of storms. However James Harden, who grew up in Los Angeles and went to highschool in Arizona, is having fun with his first New York winter, having been traded from the Houston Rockets to the Brooklyn Nets final month. Sitting in his condominium, ready for the storm to cross, he texted his stylist Kesha McLeod: “It’s fairly cool.”

Harden’s commerce to the Nets has led to all kinds of recent experiences and challenges for the previous MVP: there may be the snow, and the extra urgent job of studying to gel along with his two new All-NBA teammates. There’s additionally the matter of suits. “I needed to change my complete wardrobe,” Harden told ESPN reporter Rachel Nichols. “It is freezing!” McLeod clarifies that Harden actually meant all the things: he’s stocking up on boots, gloves, hats, an enormous Brooklyn-ready coat. “We’ve lots of vogue coats,” she says. “We’ve lots of, Oh-this-is-cute-to-wear-here coats, however no actual coats.”

Helpfully, he’s not beginning completely from scratch. “He does have some actually sick items simply from years previous,” McLeod says. You might keep in mind the Coach parka Harden wore a few seasons ago: shearling exterior with a fur lining on the hood. Mixed along with his signature beard Harden regarded like a personality out of The Revenant. On the time we referred to as the jacket a “private furnace with sleeves,” which may be why he wore it whereas forgoing socks. In Brooklyn, he now not has that luxurious. “It is embracing these key items that he knew he by no means had and constructing that up,” McLeod says.

However the commerce is having wardrobe implications past merely unlocking new ranges of layering. McLeod says one of many largest adjustments to consequence from Harden’s transfer from Houston to Brooklyn is his temper. The primary couple of weeks of the season, it was obvious that Harden now not wished to be a member of the Rockets. That truth was evident in his play—and, when you knew the place to look, in his outfits. “You get the one who’s really a human being like, ‘I do not wish to put this on. I do not wish to dress for a workforce I do not wish to be part of,’” McLeod says. And positive sufficient, the outfits Harden wore in the course of the early stretch of the season with Houston have been restricted principally to sweatsuits, typically with a coat.

In Brooklyn, although, Harden has stopped mailing in his play—and stopped mailing in his suits, too. “As soon as you are feeling good, your garments look higher,” says McLeod. “You wish to dress. Sadly we won’t exit and have fun something, however you wish to be up and also you wish to exhibit.” You may verify the tape: for his debut in Brooklyn, Harden wore Balenciaga boots, ripped denims, a cool plaid shirt with ruffles towards the underside—and, after all, an enormous puffer jacket with a fur-trim hood. The good cash says he was sporting socks, too.