Allen Iverson and the evolution of streetwear From Hampton to the introduction of the ''dress code'', why AI has been so influential for today's NBA

On June 6, 2001, just few hours before his 26th birthday, Allen Iverson showed up in the Staples Center press room for the NBA Finals post-race 1 conference. He has just put 48 of them at the Los Angeles Lakers, in one of the most sensational upsets in the history of the Finals, with an iconic play that will help bring Tyronn Lue into the story from the wrong start, regardless of the result of that series: «All that it is important to leave everything you have on the field: it is the only way you have to go back to the locker room and be able to look at yourself in the mirror without regrets ». He wears a pair of sunglasses that he would not have disfigured in the Matrix, a Philadelphia Eagles shirt of at least two larger sizes, a black bandana with his logo - the same that appears on his signature shoes by Reebok -, a showy crucifix d silver that matches the diamond on the right lobe: an unmistakable style for what, at that moment, is the most famous athlete in the world.

It doesn't matter that, by his own admission, the person concerned confessed that he would never dress like his current followers - «To each his own and I respect him. But, at this point, a certain type of dress code would also be necessary for some of these guys: they are scandalous »: Iverson's influence is not in adhering to the new canons of elegance referable to an NBA context, but in having pushed the new generations to reinvent and reinvent themselves in search of expressive freedom and their own way of being off the court which in some way represented the variety of game styles that characterizes this historical phase of "The League". Because, after all, the signature moves are not only those on the parquet.