Lisa Leslie Closed a Runway at NYFW. Eight Days Later, Los Angeles Made Her Immortal.

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Eight days.

That is the distance between Lisa Leslie closing a runway in New York City and Lisa Leslie being unveiled in bronze outside Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Eight days between a fashion moment and a forever moment. Eight days that, taken together, tell the story of a woman whose legacy has never been contained by a single city, a single sport, or a single season.

The designer who quietly threaded those eight days together? That story is worth telling in full.

New York First

On the evening of September 12, 2026, the Janet Mandell New York Showroom at 28 West 25th Street in Manhattan’s Flatiron District became something rare for New York Fashion Week: a room that felt genuinely alive. Approximately 75 guests — athletes, broadcast talent, executives, editors, and tastemakers — gathered for The Legacy Table, an experiential evening conceived by Mahiri Takai and produced in partnership with Elliot Carlyle of CURRENT•LY Global. The evening was hosted by celebrity stylist and fashion curator Dawn Marie Haynes, whose decades of industry authority set the tone from the moment guests arrived.

The program moved through several chapters. First came an immersive gallery reception featuring live art by visual artist Margarita Howis. Then a thought leadership conversation that sharpened the room’s focus. Then a live performance by special guest recording artist Greg Banks. But the room was waiting — even if it didn’t quite know it yet — for what would happen at 8:31 PM.

That was the moment 831MINHLE took the runway.

The Designer Behind the Moment

Designer Minh Le’s private-client couture and performance tailoring house has built its reputation quietly and deliberately — by appointment, by referral, and by the kind of word-of-mouth that only happens when clothes do exactly what they are supposed to do for bodies that demand excellence. Her clientele spans the WNBA and NFL, national broadcast media, and corporate leadership. Dawn Staley has worn her work. So have Robin Roberts, Tamron Hall, Craig Melvin, and A’ja Wilson. These are not names collected for press releases. They are clients who return.

The collection at The Legacy Table was dedicated entirely to Lisa Leslie — a woman whose career is, at its core, a catalog of firsts. It was, therefore, Minh Le making a declaration.

Bold colors filled the runway. Striking silhouettes moved with purpose. Every look carried the authority of a designer who has spent years understanding that the body is not a problem fashion needs to solve — it is the starting point. That philosophy found its fullest expression in a collection honoring a woman who has spent her entire life arriving somewhere no one had been before.

When Lisa Leslie closed the show, the room understood exactly what it was witnessing.

A Lady of Firsts

To understand why a collection dedicated to Lisa Leslie carries the weight it does, you first have to understand the full scope of what she has done — and how consistently she has done it without anyone else having done it before her.

She joined the WNBA at the league’s inception in 1997 as one of its first draft picks. In her very first game, moreover, she recorded 16 points and 14 rebounds — the first double-double in WNBA history. Then, on July 30, 2002, she became the first woman to dunk in a WNBA game. That single moment redefined what was possible in women’s basketball on its biggest stage. She also became the first WNBA player to score 3,000 career points, then 4,000, then 6,000. Eventually, she became the first player in the sport’s history to reach 10,000 combined career points, rebounds, and assists.

A Record That Has Never Been Matched

In 2001, she became the first player ever to win the regular season MVP, the All-Star Game MVP, and the WNBA Finals MVP in the same season. That triple crown of dominance remains unmatched to this day. In addition to those honors, she is a three-time WNBA MVP, an eight-time All-Star, a two-time WNBA champion, and a four-time Olympic gold medalist. Furthermore, she holds the Los Angeles Sparks’ all-time records in points, rebounds, blocks, field goals, free throws, minutes, and games played. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inducted her in 2015.

Now, in 2026, she becomes the first woman to have her statue in Star Plaza at Crypto.com Arena — joining Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, and Wayne Gretzky in the most storied sports plaza in Los Angeles.

Every chapter of Lisa Leslie’s life has started the same way: with her doing something no one had done before. As a result, a collection dedicated to her is not a tribute to a single achievement. It is an acknowledgment of a life lived entirely in first-person.

The Suit That Waited

The most memorable moment of the evening did not happen on the runway. It happened after — when Lisa Leslie took the microphone, faced a room full of people who had just watched her close a fashion show, and got honest.

She spoke about what it has actually meant to find Minh Le.

“It’s a personal choice to want to be fashionable,” she told the room, “but at 6’5″ and all of the tall, beautiful women that you see go through — sometimes it’s very difficult for us because everything is not so inclusive of body shapes, height, and all of those things. Meeting Minh has changed my life in so many ways. She has made me suit after suit, and styles and fashion and just beautiful clothes that — thank God I can afford now because I work hard for that — but at the same time, to have someone who is so passionate about fashion and making sure that I look good.”

Why That Moment Hit Different

That is the part that doesn’t make the highlight reel but matters more than any statistic. Lisa Leslie — four Olympic gold medals, two WNBA championships, a Hall of Fame induction — standing in a room and saying, plainly, that finding a designer who actually builds for her body changed her life. Not her wardrobe. Her life.

Then she told the story of the suit.

Minh had made it for her. It fit so precisely and felt so fully hers that Lisa held onto it rather than wear it. She was saving it for a moment worthy of the garment. Time passed. The suit stayed on its hanger, perfect and patient.

Later, she ran into Minh at an event. Minh asked about it — why hadn’t she worn it yet? Lisa explained she was holding it for something special.

Minh’s response was immediate:

“Every moment you wear 831MINHLE is a special occasion.”

That line is not a marketing slogan. It is a design philosophy. It explains why Minh Le works by appointment, builds from the body up, and has never once treated a client’s measurements as a challenge to overcome. Every person who walks into 831MINHLE is already the occasion. The clothes simply have to be ready for them.

Coach Dawn Staley, a staple 831MINHLE client, called the evening magical afterward. A fashion and sports family reunion, she said. That is not the language of someone who attended an event. Rather, it is the language of someone who felt at home in a room built for people like her.

Then Los Angeles

Eight days later, on September 20, 2026, the Los Angeles Sparks unveiled a statue of Lisa Leslie in Star Plaza at Crypto.com Arena. In doing so, they made her the first woman to receive that honor in a plaza that already holds the likenesses of Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, and Wayne Gretzky, among others.

Let that land for a moment.

In a plaza that has, for decades, told Los Angeles the story of its own greatness, Lisa Leslie now stands in bronze. She is the first woman there. She is the first Sparks legend there. In the truest sense, she is a first lady of that plaza, of that city, and of that sport.

“To be cemented in Los Angeles, the city that raised me, I couldn’t be more proud to be a role model forever,” Leslie said in her statement. The word forever is doing real work in that sentence. A statue is, after all, the built world’s acknowledgment that someone’s contribution cannot be contained by a single era or a single generation. It is the architecture of legacy.

Magic Johnson, who has known Leslie for nearly three decades, put it directly: “Lisa’s legacy isn’t just measured by championships and accolades. It’s defined by the doors she opened and the standard she set for generations to come.”

Bronze, at Last

She spent her entire twelve-year WNBA career with the Sparks. She led the franchise to back-to-back championships in 2001 and 2002. Her jersey, No. 9, was retired by the team in 2010. And now, in 2026, she stands in bronze — the second player in WNBA history to receive a statue from her franchise, and the first woman standing in Star Plaza alongside the legends of Los Angeles.

What Minh Le Understood First

Here is what makes the arc of these eight days more than coincidence.

Minh Le has been dressing Lisa Leslie — not pulling looks the way a stylist does, but building for her. She constructs garments that begin with the specific reality of Lisa Leslie’s body, her presence, and her authority, then works outward from there. That is what performance tailoring means at the 831MINHLE level. In short, the garment knows who it is for before it is finished.

Dedicating an entire NYFW collection to Lisa Leslie — honoring her as a lady of firsts, building every look in the image of that legacy, and then putting Lisa Leslie herself on the runway to close the show — was an act of creative vision. Moreover, it understood something the broader culture was still catching up to. Lisa Leslie was not simply a legend receiving a tribute. She was an active, present force in the rooms that mattered, wearing clothes that reflected her stature, at exactly the moment history was preparing to cast her in bronze.

The Difference Between Tribute and Participation

The collection at The Legacy Table did not commemorate Lisa Leslie’s legacy. It participated in it.

That distinction is what Minh Le has always understood. Legacy is not a retrospective. It does not exist only after the fact — only in statues and retirement ceremonies and Hall of Fame inductions. Legacy is alive. It is worn. It shows up in the fit of a jacket and in the way a silhouette moves when the person inside it knows exactly who she is.

Eight days before Los Angeles said forever, New York said now.

A designer from South Carolina, working by appointment and building for one specific body at a time, was already there — sewing clothes that do not wait for special occasions because they understand that every moment already is one.

The Legacy, Continued

The collection at The Legacy Table will be remembered as a NYFW moment that read the cultural temperature with precision. Women’s sports is not having a moment right now. Instead, it is having a reckoning — a long-overdue acknowledgment of the talent, artistry, and cultural weight that has always been there, waiting to be seen at scale.

Lisa Leslie was there before the reckoning. In fact, she is one of the primary reasons the reckoning is happening. Throughout her career, she consistently did things first, in a sport she helped build from the ground up, in a city that is finally — permanently — making her immortal.

She closed a fashion show in New York City wearing clothes designed specifically for her legacy. Then, eight days later, she stood in Los Angeles as her city made her bronze.

The suit is no longer waiting for the right occasion.

The occasion has arrived. And it was always going to look like this.

Photography by Quantum Lotus Labs, LLC. / Torry Sledge
View the full gallery at https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/zrl2koekvvdzredie05qi/AJawVe035H3bEDgdoqGA8cM?rlkey=ng0foqwkcz0c89u7f0xz9rih1&st=7rsiq9dr&dl=0
Photo Credit: @the_quantum_lotus / @qlotuslabs

Photography by Full Fledged Icon, LLC.
View the full gallery at fullfledgediconllc.pixieset.com/thelegacytable.
Photo credit: @fullfledgedicon

The Legacy Table was produced by Mahiri Takai @mahiritakai in partnership with Elliot Carlyle / CURRENT•LY Global
Creative Direction & Brand Strategy: Elliot Carlyle (@elliotcarlyle / @currentlyglobal)
Hair & Makeup: Damali Beauty Agency (@damalibeautyagency)
Styling: J’Lyn E. Martin (@jemstyleslife_)
Live Art: Margarita Howis (@margarita.howis)
Live Entertainment: Greg Banks @gregbanksmusic
Venue: Janet Mandell New York (@janetmandell)
Casting & PR: CURRENT•LY Global
Host: Dawn Marie Haynes (@dawn2duskhaynes)

831MINHLE is a private-client couture and performance tailoring house by designer Minh Le.
By appointment: www.831minhle.com

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