The Hustler Sculpture

Dress Code: Fall/Winter 2025

In “The Hustler,” gold rope chains of varying thicknesses drape in a scalloped pattern, echoing the layered necklaces worn as declarations of status and success. The piece recalls Darryl Dawkins, who first brought jewelry to the court before the NBA banned it in 1980 for safety reasons, and extends to the cultural revolution that followed as hip-hop artists like LL Cool J transformed gold chains and medallions into icons of swagger and power. By cascading into the form of a net, the chains become both ornamental and heavy with history—glittering like a chandelier while carrying the weight of a legacy. The work celebrates the entwined shine of basketball and hip-hop, where jewelry emerged not only as adornment but as a language of identity, authority, and ambition.

Dress Code: Fall/Winter 2025 is a couture-inspired series of chain basketball nets that reframe the history of style in the NBA as a story of discipline, rebellion, and spectacle. Each net marks a shift in how players navigated appearance and identity under the league’s evolving rules, tracing a lineage from Darryl Dawkins’ gold chains to Russell Westbrook’s front-row presence at Paris Fashion Week.

Together these nets reveal how the court has always been more than a site of sport. It is a stage where identity is contested, rules are enforced, and self-expression finds ways to shine through.

*Each sculpture incorporates reclaimed and archival chains and elements sourced from Lover’s Tempo Jewelry.

The Hustler prints are available for purchase here.