Meet the Black woman designing the WNBA’s coolest apparel, Andscape

Founder and owner of the streetwear brand Playa Society Esther Wallace she all the time knew what was occurring in women’s basketball. Her latest clothing collaboration of the WNBA pays tribute to those that helped construct the buzz around women’s basketball.

“We knew we were awesome,” Wallace said. “But we’re glad the rest of the world is catching up. This collection pays tribute to those who made it – the players, the creators – everyone who knew we were cool and did the work to get us here.”

The Summer 2024 collection features a cream hoodie and T-shirt with the words “If You’re Just Now Tuning Into Women’s Basketball, We Told You So” in the WNBA orange colorway. The products can be available on the brand’s website from Friday. The slogan describes Wallace’s partnership with the Playa Society and her commitment to elevating players.

For Wallace, who also designed a brand new clothing line for the Golden State Valkyries, that is his second collaboration with the WNBA this month. The Valkyries are an affiliate team of the Golden State Warriors in the WNBA and one among them two latest expansion teams inducted into the WNBA since 2008. Named after a gaggle of female warriors from Norse mythology, the team will play its first season in 2025. The clothes are already left sold out twice because it was first released.

Wallace told Andscape he doesn’t have words to explain the opportunity to work so closely with the WNBA, but it surely’s been an extended time coming.

“I don’t even think it’s a flattering word,” Wallace told Andscape. “I don’t know what words to use. To (tentatively) receive an email from the Golden State Warriors” – the two teams share an office – “to keep up with those early conversations like, ‘we don’t have a name yet, we don’t know what it’s going to look like yet, but we know we want some Playa Society merchandise”, it was cool.

Wallace wasn’t stressed about how all the pieces got here together for her Valkyrie clothing collection. Yes, she was creating works before the band had a reputation, but these are her favorite projects. Everything she did at Playa Society prepared her for this.

“It’s like playing clutch, right?” Wallace said. “Quarter four and I got to finish the project and then see everyone’s reaction and how much everyone liked the product, which was cool because I was like, OK, I did it in quarter four and I got the win. It was special.”

Even as a toddler, Wallace knew she desired to design clothes. “I was that kid who walked around with a sketchbook,” she recalls. “I took it everywhere. It was my whole childhood.” She began sewing clothes for herself and even assumed that she would go to review at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

“However,” Wallace said, “I was very tall.” While people round her urged her to play basketball, she insisted on becoming a designer. “I was very stubborn.”

It wasn’t until she dropped out of performing arts highschool, where she began studying costume design, that she began to wonder what her life on the court may be like.

“All my friends went to regular public school, and I dropped out after about three days and ended up going there,” Wallace said. “I didn’t realize the school had the No. 1 girls basketball team in the state and a few of the top basketball players in the country. Of course, I didn’t know that because I wasn’t eager about basketball in any respect.

She was convinced to take up basketball during her sophomore 12 months of school and went to a basketball game at the University of Massachusetts (Wallace is from nearby Springfield). UMass played against Temple, which was a life-changing experience for her.

“This is Temple, where Dawn Staley trains,” Wallace explained. “So I see Dawn Staley on the sidelines, Candace Dupree, who was playing at the time, and all these black girls. I say to myself, “Oh my God, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.” All he needed to do was see Staley and her team and Wallace forgot about design.

Wallace thought she would play basketball so long as possible after which coach. During her master’s studies, she played abroad. “I wrote my master’s thesis on the misrepresentation and underrepresentation of women’s sports in sports advertising.”

Although Wallace maintains that she wasn’t desirous about starting an organization at the time, “someone at one point asked, ‘Why don’t you solve this problem?’ “

From that moment on, she began to assume what it could be like if, as a substitute of coaching women’s basketball, she could design and influence women’s basketball. Wallace returned to the United States in 2014 and went to work.

“I started playing around with my own screen printing designs, I tried to build my own printing machine, but it was a disaster,” she said.

Instead, Wallace designed the pieces and took them to be printed. In 2017, she developed a straightforward but direct T-shirt. The word “woman” has been crossed out above the word “athlete” on a separate line. The business took off.

“When I was designing it, I had a feeling it could probably be big,” she said. “So at first I was nervous about putting it out there because I wasn’t sure, but I finally put it out there and all of a sudden I was selling hundreds of these T-shirts.”

Initially, she printed the T-shirts in batches of 40-50 pieces, and when those sold out, she increased the variety of T-shirts to 100 pieces. The T-shirts simply sold out. “When I started selling them, it was on tables at the market. Something like that, but when I put it on the Internet, I was selling hundreds of things like that.”

That’s when it became clear to Wallace what he wanted to construct the brand around. She gave herself two months to develop Playa Society as an idea, name and brand.

Wallace said she knew she needed an appointment. Otherwise she would never have decided to publish anything. “I assumed wherever you were could be adequate. I kept telling myself the same thing,” she added. “I’m a perfectionist and I could just separate things endlessly.”

Playa Society was established in January 2018. The company’s name was inspired by a scene from the movie.

“Like a lot of young black girls, I was obsessed with ,” Wallace said. “Is this scene when Monica gets excited in the automotive, she says, “I’m a ball game.” This conversation was always the essence of what I wanted to create – just defending it at that moment was the energy I needed. The “ball playa” part really stood out. I wanted (my brand) to be rooted in community, so I played around with what that language could appear to be, and eventually I got here across Playa Society.”

Wallace launched her brand, and WNBA players embraced it almost immediately. In April 2018, it was worn by WNBA star Candace Parker “Sportsman” T-shirt. on former NBA player Kevin Garnett’s show on TNT. It was a giant moment for Wallace, personally and professionally.

“The message was attached to her for some reason. It gave me some energy and enthusiasm to continue,” she added. “I was giving jerseys to all the NBA players at a time when no other brand was thinking about the WNBA or women’s basketball, so I was building those connections.”

At one point in the summer of 2018, all of the WNBA players were wearing Wallace uniforms because the National Women’s Basketball Association bought them from her, and getting the players’ support meant loads to them. “Sue Bird was one of my first clients. Sylvia Fowles. Natasha Cloud always buys,” Wallace said, naming a few of her early supporters.

For Wallace, having that support simply made her wish to push harder for her girls. In 2020 (COVID-19 lockdown), she left her job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was chargeable for marketing. It was the biggest risk she had ever taken, but that summer she sold “thousands” of “The Athlete” T-shirt, which was still her principal product at the time.

The following summer, Wallace had a probability to check with someone in the WNBA and pitched the idea of ​​working with the Playa Society. Wallace said she treated the conversation as practice for the future, but the WNBA liked her ideas. “They said, ‘Yes!’ and I thought, “really?” “

Her first WNBA collection launched in September 2021. It included a hoodie, sweatpants with matching team logos on the leg, and a T-shirt with the WNBA logo.

“I remember it sold out,” Wallace recalled. “It got here back once I was using (e-commerce platform) Shopify and Shopify notifications made money sound. All I remember is that it faded and faded, after which it began to fade. Wallace then checked and noticed that her first release had sold out inside the first hour.

She said it was a vital day and she or he continues to answer this request. “It was just a matter of building it all as the community grew, as women’s basketball grew. Responding to the need and desire for better merch, but also exploring new designs.” This was a challenge because Wallace operated largely as a one-man band.

While the designer is worked up to see the WNBA shine in a brand new highlight, she desires to make it clear that the attention should not be fleeting. “WNBA, the product was good. It was great and it will only get better,” Wallace said. “It must be the focus of everyone here, so it is not like we suddenly have an excellent product. Many things have been missed and underrepresented.

I hope I can do loads more because I do know plenty of people can be focused on what’s happening now. I just wish to have fun the game and ladies as an entire, not only right away.