Photo: Courtesy of Chanel Beauty

The connection between sports and beauty has grown significantly over the past few years. Chanel Beauty’s new collective, the CC League, is a first-of-its-kind program that invites female athletes to explore their femininity outside sports and performance. The house committed to nurture and empower seven athletes across the world by giving them the tools to invent their own definition of beauty, like group-coaching sessions on self-confidence, exclusive workshops, access to a network of women outside their sport, and more. The athletes include Mexican springboard diver Gabriela Agúndez, French pole-vaulter Marie-Julie Bonnin, Hong Kong swimmer Sum Yuet Cindy Cheung, French Paralympic cyclist Heïdi Gaugain, South Korean short-track speed skater Kim Gil-li, South Korean climber Jain Kim, and Hong Kong fencer Janelle Leung. The collective’s mentor is Renee Montgomery, a former WNBA player, a sports broadcaster, and the vice-president and co-owner of Atlanta Dream, Atlanta’s WNBA team. Montgomery is the first and youngest WNBA retiree to do so. Her passion as an athlete and businesswoman makes her the greatest fit for the role. The mentor has always seen a world where sports and beauty could collide.

Photo: Courtesy of Chanel Beauty

How do you define beauty? 
Singularity is how I would define beauty. Whatever that unique thing is about you, like if you have a gap between your teeth or freckles that you rock and owning that. It all goes back to confidence, which is the most beautiful thing, and that’s what my role is as a mentor: to help instill that. I wasn’t just automatically confident; my hard work is what makes me confident. I was a shooter in the game of basketball, and I didn’t make shots just because. It was work. I put in a lot of hours and a lot of work, so then I was confident to shoot and make it.

What’s a beauty trend you’d try once and never again?
There are so many different types of facials and therapies. I can almost say that I’m a facial connoisseur at this point. I’ve tried Chanel’s signature facial and the La Fascia (a fascia-therapy massage) but anything involving needling, I’m terrified about it. I might try it once, but I don’t know if I can do it anymore after that. Lasering, too, I’d try it but I don’t know if I’d be a regular. Everyone says that’s where the results are.

What has been your No. 1 rule in retirement? 
A lot of times, even in sports, because we’re built to be such team players, you’re always like, I’ll take less for the team in my contract, or as a point guard I was always trying to set up my teammates to make them look good. My job, in my brain, was to make them look good. When I got out of sports and started to get into business, it was a different type of world. You need to not be shy, especially as a woman. That’s why I love how Chanel was built and how they focus and celebrate women and make commitments to women, especially women in business. A lot of times, we’re overqualified and we don’t apply ourselves, whereas our counterparts could even be underqualified and still think they’re the perfect person for the job. Just being a woman in business now and being an entrepreneur and seeing the percentages of venture capital and how much the funds don’t go to women, I just think, Women, we have to start asking for what we deserve.

What is your No. 1 rule to young girls who want to be an athlete?
If you’re working on your ball handling every day, you will be a better ball handler. If you’re working on your shot every day, you will have a better shot. The best advice that I can give to athletes is that there’s no secret formula — you have to put in the work.

I never knew how much sports would help me in my retirement life. Because I’m so disciplined, the way that I go about life is different. I will read all the emails and I will answer them, because I was taught to finish tasks. I’m not going to leave a job unfinished, because that’s just not what I do. For athletes especially, we’re built for the C-suite because we know how to handle pressure, be a good teammate, and problem solve. These are all attributes that I’m seeing now that you want your leaders in your C-suite to have. It’s crazy to see how much sports prepares you.

What is your No. 1 fashion rule for the WNBA draft?
There are no rules. Traditionally you used to see athletes suited and booted and very professional and not to say that the outfits aren’t now, but I think they are getting more creative and showing more personality. I don’t want to go back to the certain look that we had before. I’m just going to say it, man, we looked a mess back then. Don’t judge me for my previous fashion. That’s all I will say.

Social media wasn’t as prevalent as it is now in breaking down our outfit. Nobody even saw what I wore before the game because there weren’t cameras in the players’ tunnel (what they now call the “tunnel walk”) to catch us. So of course, we were just wearing sweats. The evolution is that people are paying attention from head to toe what you’re wearing and they’re breaking down the styling, the tunnel walks, the stylists, and I love it.

What is a rule that you love to break?
It’s hard for people to see me in the fragrance and beauty space because they know me as an athlete. They’ve known me since I was a McDonald’s All-American nominee playing their All-Star games in high school. It’s a beautiful thing, because they love me as an athlete. But I like breaking rules, because it also gives me the space and allows me to become so many other titles.

There are a lot of firsts that still could be had, which is crazy. We still see women and men being the first to do things and it shocks me sometimes when I see these firsts happening in the present day, but that’s why you have to think about breaking rules, because if you stay in those rules, some of these firsts would never happen.

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