Tunnel Walks Are The New Catwalks

On Oct. 15, a commotion rippled through the crowd at the 2024 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. With lights still dim inside the Brooklyn Navy Yard warehouse venue, guests scuttled from their seats to catch a glimpse of what a particular attendee was wearing — and it wasn’t one of the models or performers who had just put on a spectacular showcase. Instead, several cameras and phones surrounded Chicago Sky phenom Angel Reese, wearing a head-turning scarlet mesh number, as they tried to capture the 22-year-old athlete in all her chic glory.

Not that her presence was an unusual sight: 2024 is the year that WNBA stars became style icons in their own right. Sports fan or not, you’ve likely heard their names — Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink, Breanna Stewart, and Kelsey Plum, to name a few — mentioned in the same sentence as Prada, Fendi, Gucci, and other major labels. Other athletes, meanwhile, who aren’t front-row fashion show fixtures (yet) have also started to incorporate chic staples in their games via the “tunnel walk”, rocking designer it bags and buzzy barely-there trends on the makeshift runway.

The Tunnel Walk, Decoded

The tunnel walk, a player’s walk through the stadium’s “tunnel” — a short stretch from the entrance to the locker rooms — lasts only minutes, if not seconds. Unlike red carpets, such pre-game arrivals aren’t televised, nor are they manufactured for a live audience, but nevertheless, they’ve grown into highly anticipated style moments.

“It’s literally a social media phenomenon,” says Courtney Mays, a former high school basketball player-turned-stylist to New York Liberty forward Breanna “Stewie” Stewart, Atlanta Dream center Tina Charles, WNBA legend Sue Bird, and soccer wonder Megan Rapinoe, among others. “It’s [players] getting out of their cars or team bus. [It’s] not glamorous at all.”

Many athletes, however, are taking the walk seriously, often dressing in their finest ’fits before changing into their uniforms a few minutes later. The style moments are so chic, in fact, that that’ve spawned an Instagram account, WNBA Tunnel, dedicated to the tunnel walk.

“If somebody put something on they felt good in, you could tell through their tunnel walk.”

Velissa Vaughn, the former college basketball player who started the account, was plugged into the games and intuitively felt the tunnel walk captured a certain magic. “I did some social listening on Twitter, literally typed in ‘WNBA Tunnel,’ and it was [buzzier] than I could have ever imagined,” she tells Bustle. So the fashion PR maven pitched an idea to her clients: create a social media page to specifically document the tunnel walks. “They thought it was stupid [and not] worth the while,” she recalls.

It wasn’t until the season’s opening night on May 15 that Vaughn decided to create and manage the page herself (first on TikTok, then on Instagram) after seeing a particular outfit. “Kelsey [Plum] stepped out in this sick, leather two-piece number. Chest open,” she says, recalling the moment. “It set the tone for the season.” Five months later, @WNBATunnel boasts more than 80,000 followers.

Sydney Bordonaro, a former Division 1 basketball player who styles Las Vegas Aces’ Plum, remembers the look all too well. The leather outfit Bordonaro called in didn’t arrive on time. Panicked, Bordonaro flew to LA the day before the game and drove to the mall an hour-and-a-half away to pick it up herself.

“I’m harassing [the brand’s] people at this point,” Bordonaro tells Bustle. “I was like, ‘Listen, I’m coming to the store. I’m not buying these things. You’re going to give them to us, and I’m going to bring them back after she wears them.’” (Bordonaro and the brand now have a great working relationship.) The outfit made it to Plum on time, and the rest is viral history.

The walk has grown to be such a phenomenon that certain teams now find themselves planning for it — even NBA teams have designated stops when entering arenas to pose in before every game. “It’s literally like a runway,” Vaughn says.

Tunnel Walks Have A Long History

Although tunnel walks only blew up in 2024, dressing up to go to work was actually born from a controversial NBA moment two decades ago.

“The turning point came with the NBA when the commissioner at the time implemented a dress code,” Mays recalls. “Some people say [it] was a racist moment in the NBA because it was after ‘malice at the palace.’” In 2004, a fight broke out among some players from the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons. The moment was so big that it became the subject of the five-part 2021 Netflix docuseries Untold.

Before the melee, athletes showed up in sweats. “Some say the league was trying to separate itself from hip-hop culture, so they were like, ‘When you’re coming to work, you have to be business casual,’” Mays says. Since then, the men have been showing out for their tunnel walks, including her clients, like San Antonio Spurs’ Chris Paul and, in early 2008, Dwyane Wade, when she was just getting her start as a styling assistant.

Vaughn recalls specific NBA tunnel moments and credits Mays for her role in shaping the tunnel. “If you look up Chris Paul, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, they’re all styled by Black women,” she says. “Those women started the tunnel,” citing Mays, along with Calyann Barnett, Khalilah Beavers, Rachel Johnson, and Kesha McLeod.

The Spotlight Is On The W

Two decades after men turned the mandated dress code into a style showcase, Mays believes it’s finally the women’s time to shine. “In fashion in general, people are more interested in what the girls have on,” she says. But unlike the men who’ve been enlisting stylists for nearly two decades, the women’s league is just starting to dip its toe into pro styling. “Everyone’s still figuring out their lane and what their style sensibility is,” Mays adds.

In Bordonaro’s case, the changes are so abrupt, even for someone like Plum. “It’s just night and day from two, three years ago,” says the stylist.

Bordonaro didn’t consider herself a pro stylist when she started working with Plum in December 2021. At the time, she had recently taken a job at Grassdoor, a former cannabis delivery service, while waiting for a sports agent position to open up. That’s when she was enlisted by a friend, Seattle Storm’s Jewell Lloyd, to help her get dressed for an event.

Plum was in a similar situation. She didn’t have a stylist — or a budget for one — until a mutual friend linked up the two in a group chat. “I’m over here charging girls $50 an outfit and buying things on PrettyLittleThing,” she recalls. “I had no training in styling.”

“Seeing these women come on the orange carpet for the draft in Prada, in big names, we knew to watch this class.”

Wearing fast fashion went on for a while. In fact, despite Plum being one of the biggest inspirations behind the WNBA Tunnel account, it wasn’t until this year that major brands like Coach and Marni took the initiative to reach out to dress the athlete.

Bordonaro credits fashion brands’ new interest in the WNBA to the league’s increased visibility overall — one propelled by Clark and Reese. The numbers back it up. Per the WNBA, the 2024 season — which marked the pair’s rookie season — broke all sorts of records, including an all-time viewership high across platforms with 54 million unique viewers. (ESPN alone saw a 170% increase in viewership from 2023.) “I always compare those two to Magic [Johnson] and [Larry] Bird when they came to the NBA in the ’80s. It just put more eyes on [the WNBA],” the stylist says.

Vaughn agrees, calling it the “Caitlin Clark effect.” “Let’s be honest, nobody was paying attention to the [WNBA] fashion in the last five years,” the public relations professional says. “But seeing these women come on the orange carpet for the draft in Prada, in big names, we knew to watch this class because they showed us, ‘This is who we’re going to be’ at the beginning of the season.”

While more eyes are on the WNBA, especially with the likes of Brink rocking thigh-high slits and Reese wearing the biggest barely-there trends in the tunnel, Mays hopes other aesthetics also get representation. “The W is comprised of a large percentage of queer women who are masculine-presenting, who are gender-fluid,” Mays says. “Some are ultra-feminine, for sure. We’re doing a disservice to the league by not acknowledging the women that [aren’t]. Those girls are just as stylish and just as important.”

Vaughn confirms that on social, the most viral looks are the more feminine ones. “[The audience] has always been about 80% men,” she says, “Men tend to have a better response to the more feminine players of the season. Like, ‘Wow. Where did these girls come from? They’re in miniskirts.’” Trend-wise, Vaughn confirms, “The miniskirt was big this season.”

The Future Of Fashion In The W

All three fashion pros are hopeful that this is just the beginning. Vaughn hopes her account and working with stylists could help the women financially by connecting with brands. “A lot of them are in their off-season. Some have to get a job right now, go overseas and play,” she says. “It’s not like the NBA where you’ve made enough money for the year.”

“Players are realizing one picture can help transform so many things. They’re starting to monetize the tunnel,” Vaughn adds. Bordonaro agrees, “You can’t ask for a better stage for a brand. These players are brands.”

Now that the WNBA season has wrapped, best believe these athletes will make even more style statements off the court.

“It’s only going to get bigger,” Vaughn says, citing UConn Huskies guard Paige Bueckers as an example. “She’s been all over the place — to US Open, [New York] Fashion Week. She wore KidSuper to the ESPYS, and that was [the WNBA Tunnel’s] highest-performing post from the ESPYS,” she says. “She’s not even in the WNBA yet — she’s in college.”

Vaughn adds, “With these young kids coming in, they have a huge affinity to fashion and style. This next round of up-and-coming players are going to drive that narrative even more.”

Sources cited:

Sydney Bordonaro, stylist

Courtney Mays, stylist

Velissa Vaughn, publicist and WNBA Tunnel owner