Minnesota Lynx rookie Olivia Miles plays basketball with certainty and savoir faire. She gets dressed the same way.
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Over the last few years, the glamour of the WNBA draft has escalated accordingly with the league’s popularity. No longer a business-casual gathering of what 2012 No. 3 pick Devereaux Peters once described as “some of the most athletic accountants you’ve ever seen,” the draft is now a bona fide gala, complete with gowns and suits, and a red carpet (or, in signature WNBA form, an orange one). Glam squads are hired, designer clothes and handbags are furnished, and some of the most heftily insured ankles in the world wobble around on stiletto heels.
So when Olivia Miles, coming off of a stellar college basketball career at Notre Dame and Texas Christian University, made her debut on the WNBA’s orange carpet this spring, makeup-free in a bomber jacket, slacks and loafers, she stood out. And not everyone appreciated it right away. “Miles just came from the gym,” one observer joked on Reddit.
But it was when Miles, 23, took the stage in a rare second draft-night outfit — oozing gravitas as she officially joined the Minnesota Lynx in an oversize suit of green trousers and a black blazer, with a sharp purple striped tie and wallet chain — that I and surely many others clocked what was actually going on here. All the impressive women of the 2026 draft class looked great, but Olivia Miles looked cool.
Miles needed only half of the 2026 season to establish herself as the breakout star of the year, dazzling fans with her no-look passes and scoop layups, and leading the top-ranked Lynx in assists and points per game at the All-Star break. The rare player to make the WNBA All-Star team in her rookie season, Miles rolled up to that event in a dramatic black pin-striped double-breasted Public School suit, yanked off the runway of the New York label’s Fall 2026 menswear collection, according to her stylist, Dianne Garcia. Sophisticated maneuvers, not rookie moves.
Much has already been said, justifiably, about Miles’s style on-court. Her distinctive Afro and instantly iconic prescription goggles are as delightful as they are unique, and they make her already mesmerizing feats of shot-making that much more fun to watch. But outside the arena, Miles wears clothes with sophistication, self-possession and the kind of cohesive personal style philosophy that eludes some celebrities for their entire careers. Her outfits are relaxed, but don’t be fooled: Her style is anything but sloppy, with as much poise and swagger as her basketball.
We do, though, have to talk first about the goggles.
In the age of LASIK eye surgery and every kind of contact lens, wearing sport safety glasses is, as they say, a choice. They’re unusual at any level of sports. But to wear Rec Spec-style frames as a pro, in 2026 — a classic of a bygone era of athletes, memorably worn by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Horace Grant and James Worthy — is to nod toward the old-school, a gesture to invoke the greats.
Tennis legend Rafael Nadal wrote in his 2011 memoir that the ritual of putting on his signature headband ahead of a match was a way of marking a mental transition, like putting on armor before charging into battle. I wonder when I watch Miles ceremoniously switch out her everyday frames for her on-court goggles just before tip-off if she’s flipping a similar mental switch. The Lynx declined The Washington Post’s request for an interview with Miles.
Miles’s hair, too, often combed out into a round Afro that bobs around as she weaves between defenders, is a decision made deliberately and with greatness in mind. After catching some criticism for her hairstyle at the WNBA draft, Miles posted a photo to Instagram of herself accepting a Lynx jersey with the caption: “for my fellow black women with natural hair like mine … be you and be free. the beauty that our hair brings is so unique and essential to who we are.”
Miles later told the Root, “I’ve also been inspired by people who have come before me who have broken barriers like Dr. J and Allen Iverson, who wore their hair out being proud of it.”
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Miles really gets going, though, when she’s out of her Lynx uniform. She rarely wavers from her preferred silhouettes — baggy slacks and shorts, boxy shirts and tanks. But she’s developed an obvious eye for cool pieces, sporting avant-garde athletic wear from the up-and-coming sport brand Raspberry Hills, jerseys from Chrome Hearts and luxury streetwear labels like Rhude and Ryoko Rain.
“I’ve noticed since we first began working together that Olivia is drawn to details rather than anything overly loud or overtly trend-driven,” Garcia, her stylist, told The Post in an email. “Her off-court style is minimal and intentional, centered on strong silhouettes, subtle design elements, and pieces that let her personality and natural presence lead.”
She’s been spotted in sneakers from Maison Margiela and tracksuits from Y-3, Adidas’s collaboration with the legendary postmodern Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto. In July, Miles wore a sweatshirt from the prestige Japanese streetwear brand a Bathing Ape into the tunnel in Phoenix before dropping a career-high 33 points on the Mercury.
Like so many American fashion fans, she loves the subtly regal sportswear designs of Willy Chavarria; like 2026’s other breakout basketball star Jalen Brunson, she loves an understated Louis Vuitton pouch handbag.
Miles is not, in other words, still searching for an identity or trying to get a proverbial foothold. Not in basketball nor in personal style, as many rookie players (and general-population 23-year-olds) are. She plays with certainty and savoir faire; she gets dressed the same way.
Earlier this month, Miles arrived at the Target Center in Minneapolis for a game against Indianapolis wearing a boxy tee by the emerging streetwear label Blanco Lane with several pairs of eyes printed across the front.
An apt outfit choice for such a game, it turned out, as Miles fended off a formidable challenge from Kelsey Mitchell and the Indiana Fever in what she called her “‘Welcome to the W’ moment.”
All eyes were on Miles, and so they remain: Fans are wearing goggles in her honor, and so are announcers. The double-entendre nickname the Spectacle has started to follow her around as she makes her way into not just the Rookie of the Year conversation but the MVP conversation. Renowned for her supernatural “court vision,” Miles clearly has a vision for herself off of it, too.
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