In-and-Out: How Fashion Journalists Write About Black NBA Dandies

Abstract

The National Basketball Association (NBA), now flush with lucrative television contracts from its broadcast partners and an owner-friendly collective bargaining agreement, is as popular as ever. Besides athleticism only reserved for a small portion of humans and basketball plays that can only be made by not even most elite college players, what also keeps fans on the edge of their seats are the outfits worn by Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Lebron James and the many other fashionable players. Using what Bourdieu’s (1984) termed cultural intermediary in Distinction as a conceptual framework, this study will examine how 12 fashion journalists write about Black NBA dandies. According to Bourdieu (1984), cultural intermediaries are involved in the presentation and representation of cultural and symbolic goods and services, some of whom are salespeople, advertising executives, and interior designers. Cultural intermediaries serve as the link between production and consumption, giving the end consumer access to legitimate culture. As fashion journalists, these participants educate their readers on the latest in bespoke wear, haute couture clothing and Black style. The Black NBA body provides a medium for fashion journalists to highlight the exclusivity and democratic ideals of fashion because of the ways in which they peel off the layers of celebrity, position Black NBA dandies within a network of images, and create a dialectic tension between Black culture and a generic White culture.