Finding Fashion And Community In The Stands Of New York Liberty Games

When Hypatia Sorunke attended their first New York Liberty game, they were immediately struck by the court displaying the team’s signature colors of black, seafoam green, and silver. It was the New York Liberty’s annual, league-mandated Pride game against the Dallas Wings. The game, celebrating its LGBTQ+ fans with pride-inspired activities and merchandise, also held a Pride after-party. 

While Sorunke was thousands of miles away, it was at that moment of walking down the steps that they felt as if they had been transported back home to San Antonio, Texas, where they grew up attending San Antonio and Silver Stars games.

“I remember standing there, looking around, and I was like, ‘there’s so many queer people here,’” Sorunke told GO. “And yes, it was the Pride after-party, but it was something about this crossover between New York fashion, New York expression, New York individuality, and queerness in the sports space.”

Sorunke rarely travels without their film camera, and it was when they started taking pictures at the after-party that they noticed something special about the WNBA fanbase.

It was the first of many inklings that led the nonbinary, multi–media artist to attend all 51 New York Liberty games for the 2024 season for their project, “Fitted WNBA.” The self-funded project consists of over 1200+ images documenting WNBA fan fashion. From sparkly accessories to ombre nails and designer bags to head-to-toe fit pics, Sorunke documents the atmosphere and emotions of well-devoted attendees who show they are just as fierce as the players are in their pre-game tunnel outfits.

“I am grateful to have never experienced the world without the WNBA,” laughed Sorunke while sitting in their apartment in East Harlem. Growing up in the South, playing basketball during recess, later playing competitively on the court, and throwing discus at track meets during their teenage years, Sorunke explained that the first time they ever felt part of a community was when playing basketball in high school.

“One of my very early moments of like, ‘Oh they’re in the community of people like me,’ was when I got my first Black [queer] woman coach,” they said. “Having that kind of mentorship and having that someone who could see me in a way that maybe everyone else couldn’t see me from a player perspective and humanity perspective—was one of the first kind of moments where I was like ‘oh there’s a community within basketball.’”

As an alumnus of the University of Texas at Austin, Sorunke’s work is deeply influenced by their double major in Plan II Honors African and African Diaspora Studies and double minor in Creative Writing and Government. “Fitted WNBA” became real to them while looking at 1960s-1980s Harlem through Barnard College’s Independent Research Fellowship. 

“I was looking at a lot of art for a while, trying to match up with the political timeline of the evolution of Black power,” they said. “And because of this research and my background, I was exposed to the role of relational aesthetics and the power of that recognition across different time periods and places. It really helped me understand there is this underlying role of documentation that mirrored the work I was doing as an artist, researcher, and now self-taught archivist.”

Since the Liberty finished their 2024 season with their first-ever championship win, photos from “Fitted WNBA” and Sorunke’s words can be found in Vogue. They’ve also continued to spread awareness about “Fitted WNBA” by making content on TikTok and Instagram. Whether it was giving attendees the opportunity to break down their outfits or test their WNBA knowledge in a series of trivia questions, they all continued to show how close-knit a community the WNBA fanbase is, despite the competitive nature of the league.

“It provided me this opportunity to not only approach people who were standing out, it allowed me to approach different people. If it was a slow day where I couldn’t really find anyone, I would just be like, ‘Hey, do you wanna do some trivia?’ And most of the time they would say yes,” said Sorunke. “I was actually shocked to find out that maybe out of all the people I interviewed, I want to say 10 or less people told me no. And I think that’s a testament to the kind of community that the WNBA is building of people wanting to connect and be a part of whatever’s going on.”

But wait, there’s more! “Fitted WNBA” is turning into a photo book and zine, which are currently available to preorder. Sorunke gave GO a teaser of what readers can expect to see when opening a physical copy. Imagine pages with vibrant, colorful doodles on top of fit pics, interviews with some WNBA-style icons, and maybe even an essay by Sorunke. 

Although Sorunke is the first person to document the fashionable fandom of the WNBA, they emphasize that the idea is not theirs to claim.

“I am a fine arts artist that works in film, mixed media, and photography on topics across the diaspora. This project is more of an extended footnote to Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion by Mitchell S. Jackson, who in interviews frequently credited the LGBTQIA+ movement for the evolution of style in the NBA,” explained Sorunke. “I set out to prove that the WNBA had a hand in that curation by standing on the principles of wanting to center the documentation of women, queer, and trans folks in the space. I think that feels like the part of the project that I want to really take ownership over,” they explained. “But everything else. It was what everyone brought to the table. There has been a long standing history of community, and especially queer and trans community within the New York Liberty space that is not really mine and I never wanted it to be.”

If it’s one thing Sorunke can claim—it’s the gruesome traveling process behind the project. Following the New York Liberty across the country can be draining, especially for something entirely self-funded. But Sorunke was still determined to attend every Liberty game, even if it meant driving 13 hours to Atlanta one time after their flight had been canceled on a back-to-back game.

“It changed the way I thought about a lot of the places I visited,” said Sorunke. “As well as the teams and the local history.”

Liberty and non-Liberty fans, Sorunke shows in “Fitted WNBA” that fashion carries everywhere, not just in New York. Fashion is not only self-expression but a tool for empowerment that can bridge communities. For what it means to be a player and supporter in the WNBA, expressing oneself in a competitive league where each team functions like a family, including its fans, is more important than ever because it establishes a sense of individuality while still being a part of a movement.

“I want this book to feel like it has a space in the conversation around sports and fashion. If I’m able to do that while also highlighting the Blackness and queerness and transness that is the undercurrent of American culture everywhere, then hypothetically, I’m curating a space that sports fans can find parts of themselves in. Especially if you are queer and trans youth that is living in the South and looking for something in sports where you can and will be reflected in. There is that space here; there is a community here,” said Sorunke. “I really wanted to be able to have something joyful that could exist in different spaces for people to be able to reckon with whatever’s happening in the world around them. Because there’s proof–here’s proof: we exist in this space. It is our space, it’s been built on us, and it’s biased for us to be able to be ourselves in.”

Check out Sorunke’s beautiful portfolio highlighting their other multimedia projects, pre-order the “Fitted WNBA” Collection, and keep your eyes peeled on TikTok and Instagram for more updates as it gets closer to the release this summer. Let “Fitted WNBA” usher us into the 2025 WNBA season, and who knows, maybe you’ll see Sorunke at a game with their film camera.