The Washington Wizards star, who has been known to have a strong fashion sense, shared several of his fashion beliefs and secrets during his Manila visit.
For Washington Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma, Asia has always been the epicenter of fashion trends.
Kuzma, who is in town to promote his clothing brand and to check out the local basketball scene, has developed a reputation in NBA circles as one of the most fashion-conscious players. On Monday, in a meeting with the local media, he revealed that Asian fashion and culture has had a strong influence in his own tastes.
“I feel like it always has,” he said. “I feel like I’ve always admired Asian fashion. I think a lot of the trends are always set over here. You know I think you know people on the east side of the world are very tasteful. You know they care about materials, fabrics, what they wear, how they present themselves, so I think naturally I’ve always kind of took that a little bit.”
Kuzma offered a glimpse of his mindset when it comes to clothing and fashion.
Asked to describe his fashion sense in three words, he answered: “Let’s go neutral, comfortable, and me.”
He also said he admired the fashion sense of actor Shia LaBeouf. “I think he has really good fashion sense. It’s like natural.”
Asked what his best piece of clothing was, he replied: “It’s a tough question but I’ll say I really love leather. I love leather. I think it’s like a classic.”
Kuzma has been in a relationship with Canadian model Winnie Harlow for around four years now, and he admits that unlike him, she is into accessories.
“I think one thing that she loves is accessories. I was never really an accessory type of person. I’m more into clothes, outfits, fabrics, textures. She loves bags, earrings, necklaces, little things you put on your clothes.”
Asked which fashion trends he liked and disliked, Kuzma had a surprising answer.
“I actually loved the skinny jeans era. I feel like that was the era that people really started paying attention to clothes, right? Especially in America, at least.
“I don’t like a lot of like super, super color, super, super, like all over the place.
There’s a time when I did like it, but then now I’m more like plain, quiet, but focused. Cozy. Cozy, but focused on like textures and like nice buttons and stuff.”
Kuzma said he hopes to expand his clothing company, Childhood Dreams, here in the Philippines.
“Yeah, I really want to bring more of it out here. I think that’s something that is my next steps you know meeting more people over here distributors you know to share you know kind of my artistry and what I look at as clothing. So that’s definitely at the top of my agenda for sure.”
On Kobe Bryant and Basketball
Kuzma started his career with the LA Lakers in 2017, and even though he didn’t have the privilege to have been teammates with the late NBA legend Kobe Bryant, the two still developed a relationship off the court. It’s something he will always cherish.
“I mean it means the world, it means everything. I think I was very blessed and fortunate when I first came into the NBA to build like a relationship, real relationship with him and ask him about a lot of different things whether it was basketball, life, business, relationship, what to do, what not to do.
“I think coming into the NBA being 22 years old, 21, 22 and having somebody like that as a mentor to just guide me but also just for me to take his words and do whatever with them is invaluable.”
The two would regularly work out and have dinner together before Bryant tragically died in a helicopter crash in January 2020.
“Everything was really special because it’s somebody I really looked up to. And somebody that I’ve always really taken an interest into. Working out with him was really, really fun too.
“Just being able to be in the gym and learn. Just to pick up on his mindset and how he approaches certain things, certain situations. At a young age for me it was great.”
Kuzma, who was teammates in college with the Blackwater Bossing’s rookie Sedrick Barefield, is looking forward to taking more of a leadership role with the rebuilding Wizards in the coming NBA season.
“It’s all about getting better as a team,” he said of the Wizards, who finished a dreadful 15-67 last season. “I think that’s the most important thing to me right now because you know the past two seasons I’ve had career years and I’ve gotten better and better. But it’s not as fun if the people with you aren’t having career years as well. This year is all about building that and helping others get better.
“So that’s super important to me, trying to just build a winning culture. Last year was the first year of our rebuild. This is year two. We’re a young team but we have a lot of talent and you know good character guys. We had a minicamp a couple weeks ago you know with the whole team, the new guys, so it’ll be great.”
Banner Image by Sid Ventura.