Kobe Bryant's Style Through The Years

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Fashion has evolved tremendously since Kobe Bryant was first drafted in ’96. Long gone are the baggy suits once donned by nascent players on NBA draft day. We watched Bryant, a then 17-year-old phenom, transition from a young man straight out of high school, into a beloved and stellar athlete. One of the greatest to be exact. You can add sports style icon to that title as well. The 41-year-old transcendent star perished Sunday morning when the helicopter he often used to commute back and forth to his games, crashed into the Calabasas hills. Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna Maria Onore Bryant and seven others were also on board the fatal flight. On the court, Bryant, who dubbed himself the Black Mamba, was a precise and calculated striker; off-the-court, is style was effortless. His tailored suits perfectly fit his slender 6’6″ frame. “I like dressing like I’m 36,” he said in an interview with GQ in 2015. When asked who is the most stylish man he ever met, he responded, “The man in the mirror. I’ll go with that one.” The dapper baller reminisced about the old days, when the NBA first imposed a dress code for all the players. “I liked showing up to the arena in my Nike sweats and my hoodies and sneaks. I enjoyed that. There were times I wanted to throw a suit on. It depended o my mood. If I felt like being all sophisticated, I’d throw on a suit.” And thus, his suit game rose to the level of his hardwood game. See how his style elevated through the years.