by The day after winning the gold medal in the men’s 100m race at the Paris Games, Noah Lyles set his sights not on more titles and records but on a more fashion-oriented goal; having a pair of trainers named after him. “I want my own shoe. I want my own trainer. Dead serious,” he told reporters. It’s not a trainer for fellow athletes to run in, he stressed, but a shoe with the same legendary potential as Adidas’ Stan Smith (named after the former US tennis champion) or Nike’s Air Jordan (named after basketball player Michael Jordan ).
It’s a testament to how seriously Lyles takes his reputation as a fashion star who also happens to be a world-class sprinter. “The most important thing is to run fast but it’s great to run fast and look good,” Usain Bolt once said. Now Lyles is reinventing what it means to look good as an athlete. It goes far beyond the snazziest tracksuit in the lineup: it has the world of fashion at its feet.
Most athletes fill their Instagram feed with somewhat dull training updates but you could be forgiven for landing on Lyles’ page and assuming you were scrolling through photos posted by the most fashion-forward recently. His birthday was marked last month with a photoshoot at the Barbican wearing a Louis Vuitton shirt, his nails emblazoned with the word “icon”. Earlier this summer, he posed alongside Snoop Dogg wearing a sharp Gucci x Adidas suit with Dr. Martens loafers and Fendi sunglasses.
“Noah’s style is completely representative of who he is,” says Maya Bruney, the photographer behind that Barbican shoot and founder of Track and Fits, a platform that promotes the synergy between athletics and fashion. “Just like he is on the road, with fashion he’s a rule breaker, he’s very confident and doesn’t care what other people think. He personifies this new movement of personal style, paints his nails and does what he likes, which is totally in a world full of tradition.”
Although track and field athletes have a long legacy of promoting trainers and tracksuits, they are rarely seen in any other sport. This is where Lyles breaks the mold; “I told him ‘don’t wear trainers, be yourself, wear what you really like’,” says Bruney. Lyles happily obliged. “He has received negative messages about the way he dresses but he rises above it,” says Bruney.
In fact, he has fully embraced his bold and confident approach to fashion, bringing a whole new dimension to athletic meets. Since last year, Lyles has been imitating NBA and NFL players and their use of the stadium tunnel as a kind of catwalk. Working with his stylist Kwasi Kessie, Lyles now arrives at competitions in non-standard attire but wears carefully curated looks from a mix of high-profile and under-the-radar designers, making him an irresistible staple when it comes to fashion and virality. potential. “He’s doubled his fan base since he started walking in. He has completely elevated his personal brand,” says Bruney.
Elsewhere, Lyles has also tackled our usual desire for athleticism. He has recently started wearing pearls in his hair – an unexpectedly delicate antidote to the strength and power needed by sprinters at the top of their game. For the premiere of the Netflix documentary series Sprint, in which he stars, he wore head-to-toe white in reference to his pearl obsession – a look consisting of a sequinned jacket by Amiri, a Simone Rocha shirt and a pearl-embellished Bode. broken. To appear on Jimmy Fallon’s talk show, he chose a leather jacket from the Parisian fashion house, Celine, with Saint Laurent trousers and a thick pair of cowboy boots: it is not the classic current outfit.
“It’s just stylish,” Kessie recently told Women’s Wear Daily about her friend and client’s approach to fashion. “What I mean by that is he doesn’t have one [style] like, ‘I’m going to be a rock star or I’m going to wear street clothes.’ It depends on the intent of the outfit and the energy it is trying to portray. For me, it’s just completely stylish. It doesn’t check one box. He has a knack for fashion and style.”
Like most top athletes, Lyles has already secured sponsorship deals with a major sportswear brand (Adidas) and a luxury watch maker (Omega). Unlike many athletes, however, he even wore his Omega watch during the 100m final, flashing the £13,500 Speedmaster timepiece into the world as he raced down the track at the Stade de France, a statement of his commitment to give his show a unique show to meet him. Ambassadorship deals. But as Lyles mentioned in his post-race press conference, he wants his Olympic gold to open many more fashion doors, just as Emma Raducanu’s 2021 US Open victory led to rumored Dior and Tiffany deals within days of the final.
“Noah Lyles could be a very powerful brand ambassador for any business after the Olympics. Not only because of his achievement at the Games and how this will raise his profile, but because he has a natural charisma that really comes through when it comes to social content,” says Sara McCorquodale, founder of the influential information agency Corq. “In luxury, this is often lacking. There’s beauty, style and occasional eccentricity, but it doesn’t seem to have the kind of X-factor Lyles declares in buckets. For example, Burberry’s partnership with footballer Son Heung-Min is very interesting but we don’t really understand his personality through his campaigns. A talent like Lyles is an incredible partner for a luxury brand in the age of TikTok. “
Through his partnership with Kessie, Lyles has created a look that effortlessly blends big design houses with lesser-known brands – this should have great appeal for luxury homes in search of a cool factor. “I’m sure Lyles will have a choice of brands after the Games, but I’d love to see a big global collaboration with Prada,” says McCorquodale. “It would bring freshness and relevance as well as offer a new twist on styling.”
Could the Prada Lyles be the big trainer of next year? Watch this space.
