How Kobe Bryant’s first stylist changed his off-court fashion game

Stylist Paige Geran first met Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant at the opening of Phillipe Chow in Beverly Hills, California. The year was 2009, and the restaurant’s opening coincided with the Lakers’ L’Uomo Vogue cover. In hindsight, Geran said, it was a pivotal moment for both of them.

“He was going through a transition,” Geran remembered. “When he changed his number from 8 to 24, I’m not going to say he was reinventing [himself], but he was reinventing. He was starting to do more shoots, and getting more out there.”

Geran had worked with Bryant’s team before meeting at Philippe Chow, usually on small requests. For example, when rapper Lil Wayne was performing in LA, and because he was Bryant’s favorite, Bryant wanted Lil Wayne to wear his jersey. Geran got the jersey to Lil Wayne’s team.

When Geran connected with Bryant at the restaurant opening for his cover celebration, the Lakers star wanted to add a stylist to his squad. Since his team had built a relationship with Geran, they began working together. She would go on to style Bryant from 2009 to 2011.

“It took a second to get things off the ground though, initially, because it was a really gray area for him to have a stylist,” Geran said. “They were like how does this even work. They knew he needed someone but at that time, there weren’t a lot of players that had stylists.”

The biggest adjustment was working with designers to build custom clothing with the Lakers star’s proportions. “Now it’s common for designers to accommodate athletic builds and the players’ shoe sizes,” Geran said. “[Designers] are smart now. They make clothes off-the-rack that players can wear, because working with athletes is like a gold mine.”

And working with Bryant was very straightforward. “He was extremely detail-oriented, and as his first stylist, so was I,” Geran said. “He’s like, ‘This is your thing. This is my thing. Like I know basketball, you know fashion.’ ” Bryant didn’t give much direction, but he wasn’t into suits then.

“He was into upscale luxury, like custom leather jackets and denim,” she said. “He just wanted to look good, but he didn’t want to take a lot of time. He did not like doing fittings at all. So I had to master the art of becoming like the mad scientist when it came to measurements and dimensions.”

Geran describes working with Bryant as unconventional. Typically, a stylist dressing an athlete would set their looks up for the month, but with Bryant, Geran met him weekly to do outfit handoffs.

“My working relationship with him was somewhere between a slapstick comedy and a drama,” she said, describing the handoffs. “You would have to catch up with him during the week. I would actually have to go to the practice facility. I would go to the plane and hand off his stuff to him if he had trips. I would drive right to the private airport, which is totally unconventional and again, he didn’t do fittings.”

One moment that stands out to Geran was when she had designer Tom Ford’s personal tailor come measure Bryant for custom Tom Ford suits. Bryant, who was at a doctor’s appointment, wanted to meet with the tailor directly after.

Bryant never knew what he would wear on game day until he opened Geran’s bag. She crafted an off-the-court style for Bryant that fell somewhere between a fresh take on the classic suiting of old Hollywood and the elevated wardrobe adopted by soccer player David Beckham, who had exchanged baggier pants for slimmer, more tailored silhouettes.

“He’s like, ‘Hey, you think he can meet me in the parking lot?’ I’m like, no, he’s going to think we’re crazy. Can you please come back to the practice facility? He’d be in the Staples Center for a concert and be like, ‘Paige, I’m really cold. Can you bring me a jacket?’ And I’m like, to the Staples Center?”

“At that particular moment in the NBA, that was the look,” Geran said. Before they began working together, Bryant wore huge Gucci suits or sweats, so Geran enjoyed watching him blossom into enjoying fashion. Thanks to Geran, Bryant was finding his style and still fit into the league’s rigid dress codes for athletes established by NBA commissioner David Stern in 2005, created after the Malice in the Palace brawl in 2004. When Adam Silver became the commissioner after Stern left in 2014, he gave players more leeway.

“You had to wear collared shirts, or you’d have to wear a suit depending upon the team if you’re traveling,” Geran said. “But all those rules are now gone. The NBA and fashion have collided. It’s a very marketable business for the players and the NBA. So it changed everything.

“If you walked in the arena before a game in a sweat suit, you get like a $10,000 fine [under the old rules]. Now, guys are wearing tank tops and skirts. They just let everybody just be free. You couldn’t sit in press conferences with sunglasses because you’d get a huge fine. It’s amazing to see how much it has evolved. I’m sure Kobe would be looking at people like, ‘What the hell?’ ”

Below, Geran remembers how three of Bryant’s timeless looks came to be.

Jimmy Kimmel Live!, ABC, Season 8

“Kobe was really comfortable in all-black since he’s called the Black Mamba. I used to put him in these sick, all-black looks because that was his energy. This is a custom leather jacket I built for him. At the time, a gentleman named Eric ran a company called Jean Shop, and everyone in the NBA got custom jeans from the shop. 

“This particular night, he had Kimmel and then an event right after. But, yeah, this leather jacket, I did tons of custom leather jackets, and I would have to do them on the fly. I design, create and pull from different things. I was making them like crazy, and that was one of them. He even talked to me one time about doing a leather jacket line. It never happened, but that’s how much he loved the leather jackets I was making for him.”

2010 NBA Finals Game 2: Boston Celtics vs. Los Angeles Lakers

“This is a Dolce & Gabbana sweater off-the-rack. I used to take the sweaters to a dry cleaner and have them blown out and stretched. I had to get the sleeves stretched because Kobe had 60-inch shoulders and a 60-inch chest, which was very dramatic.

“All his custom shirts [like the one he’s wearing under the sweater] come from Anto’s of Beverly Hills. They’re like legends. I made Kobe sign a cover that we did so they could put it on their wall. They have Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.’s shirt patterns in their shirt vault. Oh my God. They’re like, the best shirt makers.”

Jimmy Kimmel Live!, ABC, Season 8

“This was a special moment. It was the day after they won his last championship and his fifth ring. He wore a custom jacket from Gucci, which was popular then. Justin Timberlake had recently worn it for his music video. Floyd Mayweather, you’d see him in all the colors of it. It was called the Madonna jacket. I ordered this custom jacket from Italy for him.

“Sometimes I would order his stuff and just save it for a moment. This was perfect because he won the championship and all the guys were dressed like super-regular degular. This jacket was very classic and one that Gucci has redone for many years.”