Boys in blue: Style collaboration during Celtics’ visit to White House

Celtics

Wearing navy Italian wool, Oxfords, and a three-piece suit, Jayson Tatum coordinates stylish team effort for celebratory White House visit.

Collaboration matters. You need passers and shooters. You need guards and centers. You need agile dribblers and powerful dunkers. It takes two to lob.

And while there’s no “I” in team, there are two of them in Louis Vuitton, featured in a high-visibility pairing this week when fans, spectators, and politicos saw a dynamic duo in action: A JT x LV collab during the Celtics’ visit to the White House on Thursday where they met President Biden to celebrate their 18th NBA championship.

To be clear, this fashion relationship does not appear official. You can see from a quick scan of the Louis Vuitton Instagram account or a brief review of search results that no formal agreement seems in play between these two powerhouse brands, Tatum and Louis Vuitton. 

While unofficial, they are rendezvousing. It’s a stylish situationship.

Jayson Tatum loves to wear Louis Vuitton, and there are a lot of ways to wear it, often seen in bag form — dopp kits, duffel bags, and suitcases especially, like this multicolored model Tatum rolled out of his Indianapolis hotel or this camouflage brown version spotted during another Midwest road trip.

As seen this week in D.C., the Louis Vuitton went beyond the bag. 

In the focal point and emphatic center of Tatum’s outfit — a mostly blue collection with a three-piece, slate pinstripe suit, white collared shirt, and black-and-blue Oxford shoes — the pièce de résistance bore the Louis Vuitton brand in the format of a men’s overcoat. 

In true-to-form Tatum style, the coat is subtle, simple, and “sophisticated,” described by the brand as having “a cool visual twist from its gusset pocket detail.” 

Additionally, according to the website, the coat is “tailored from double-faced pure wool [and] features a single pleat at the back and an all-over Monogram Constellation motif on the inside. Signatures include LV cuff buttons, the season’s engraved Louis Vuitton pin on the collar and a woven Louis Vuitton Staples Edition label stitched to the cuff.”

As a team, the Celtics displayed a cohesive look in coordinated shades of blue, broken up by some neutrals.

In what could be described as a “blue wall” of fashion, Kristaps Porzingis, known for wearing suits (whether playing or benched) rocked a cobalt blue two-piece. Jrue Holiday reflected Tatum, opting for a navy and slate combination. Derrick White, in blue and black, grounded the team’s fashion with white tennis shoes and crew socks. Sam Hauser lightened the ensemble in a powder-blue look.

Jaylen Brown notably wore his signature all-black look, as did former Celtic Oshae Brissett. Al Horford also expressed neutrality in taupe. 

Teamwork brings people together towards a shared goal and the Celtics showed a united front at the White House in various types of black, blue, and brown, leaving room for some individuality. 

President Biden celebrated the team’s unity during the Rose Garden ceremony, highlighting “hard work, teamwork, respect, and the knowledge that no one of us is ever as good as all of us can be when we’re together.”

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