Rising up, Lazar Hayward remembers gravitating in direction of manufacturers like Iceberg. Seeing Nas, Raekwon and Jay-Z rock tees and knit sweaters bearing Snoopy, Mickey Mouse and Popeye appeared so effortlessly hip-hop. He’d tag alongside along with his dad on weekend journeys into the town the place they’d journey round NYC’s style district and fill upwards of 5 hockey luggage with items after which flip them at his dad’s flea market cubicles. When he wished to show up the sophistication, he’d sneak into his dad’s closet and snag considered one of his many silk shirts. Purple, brown, white, navy, black; a group of excellent base colours lay at Hayward’s fingertips.
“I used to be taking all of them joints, sneaking ‘em proper in my bookbag and he was getting pissed,” Hayward says with amusing.
Mixing his streetwear origins with an elevated grandeur has change into the bedrock for the clothes model Hayward based in 2020, Nobel. Now, Hayward finds himself on the opposite facet of the coin. Final 12 months, Nobel’s unique shorts for the Las Vegas Summer time League offered out. Since then, everybody from present NBA gamers to the NBPA has been hitting him up in hopes of getting their palms on the following drop.
Following a four-year profession at Marquette, the All-Large East choice was chosen within the first spherical of the 2010 NBA draft, carving out a seven-year profession between the L and the G-League. After quietly stepping away from skilled basketball, Hayward started on the lookout for one other outlet to channel his expression.
“And I used to be like, style. I don’t should put my title on it, I don’t actually care to place my face there,” Hayward tells SLAM. “Nobel, I selected that title for a purpose as a result of there was a lot crap occurring and I simply thought that, being nobel although there’s a bunch of shit occurring to you in your life, you’ll be able to nonetheless do proper. I simply wanted a relentless reminder, and that’s why Nobel got here in.”
When Hayward launched the model 4 years in the past, he envisioned clothes items that informed tales by gelling the vitality of the road with an unstated class. He references every thing from Chanel to how we place pictures inside our journal because the visions for his inspiration.
Steeped in Hayward’s love for Roman numerals and classic structure, Nobel captures a swish edge by means of distorted floral imagery and archaic detailing. From vibrant colours and pastel palettes to subtle aesthetics and angles, Hawyard has crafted his personal type of class by means of Nobel.
As Hayward tirelessly labored by means of the start phases of the model’s growth, the NBPA took discover, inviting the founder to affix the union’s Gamers Accelerator Program. All through the pilot launch in 2020, Hayward took half in each workshop and panel he could possibly be part of. His persistent dedication has led to continued partnerships inside the program.
For the previous two years, Nobel has been working with the Gamers Affiliation on the Las Vegas Summer time League. In 2022, Hayward cooked up event-exclusive tees with Roman numerals depicting the founding 12 months of the NBPA–1954. Alongside varied NBPA member manufacturers final 12 months, Nobel returned to Las Vegas the place the model offered an up to date crop of designs on the PA’s first-ever pop-up retail expertise.
“Every part is natural with me, every thing. I actually stand on that. Irrespective of how lengthy it takes, even with cash, enterprise, all that, I simply need it to be natural,” Hayward tells SLAM.
The latest run of publicity continued into this previous All-Star weekend after we teamed up with Hayward and Nobel for a collaborative sequence of heavy tees, merging our two model’s unrelenting ardour for the sport and its intersection with style. Mirroring the success on the NBPA pop-up in Vegas, two of the three items inside the capsule offered out by Saturday’s finish. Don’t fear, we’ve nonetheless bought sizes left on this crisp white tee.
Since stepping away from the hardwood and into an outlet of his personal creativeness, Lazar Hayward has crafted a definite lane for inventive expression to roam free. His journey, like numerous different gamers, has change into a blueprint for the present technology of future entrepreneurs to research. He’s sending packages of threads to the League’s brightest stars, learning materials within the depths of LA factories, collaborating with the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder, the Dallas Mavericks and the Minnesota Timberwolves (hold ya eyes peeled) and promoting out pop-up venues. Although he nonetheless hasn’t gotten his palms on the shorts that offered out at Summer time League in 2023, he’ll be again in Vegas this summer season with a brand new assortment in tow.
“I’m gonna get me some this time although,” Hayward laughs.
Images through Lazar Hayward.