Sport and style team up for Nomia’s new basketball shorts
Yara Flinn has spent the past five years making slinky party dresses and high fashion micro-mini skirts for her womenswear line Nomia, but after hitting a creative rut, she tried to conjure up memories of precisely when and where she was first schooled in style and grace. As it turns out, it had nothing to do with the runway. As starting center for her high school basketball team in Manhattan, Flinn picked up aerodynamic court moves and a tomboy attitude she stills carries today. “Basketball to me, of all the sports, has the most swagger,” says Flinn. “The way you dribble, the way you dunk—it’s such a strong force of masculinity and bravado.” This spring, Flinn designed a chic, minimalist women’s take on the classic men’s basketball short, reimagining the bottoms she used to wear for games in Japanese polyester, trimmed with sheer silk and cinched with a waxed-cotton drawstring. The sophisticated shorts don’t find Flinn abandoning Nomia’s elegant, feminine customer so much as mixing in a bit of baggy bluster from the guys. “That’s what really makes women their sexiest,” says Flinn. “They’re alluring, but they’re not showing everything.” Which means that Flinn’s cross-court steez is made for ballers of any sort.
Styling Deidre Dyer. Models Lily at Re:Quest and Keila at Muse NYC. On Lily: Top Cheap Monday, Necklace Bauble Bar, shoes Rodebjer. On Keila: Top Motel Rocks. All shorts Nomia.