When I hop on an early morning call with Paige Bueckers, the basketball star is already mid-transformation at a Madison Reed Hair Color Bar near Dallas, Texas. “This is another off-season adventure,” she says of her switch from her signature blonde hair to an ombré Pink Orchid effect.
At just 24-years-old, Bueckers is currently enjoying a short break in the action after going straight from winning the 2025 NCAA championship with her UConn teammates to securing the 2025 WNBA Rookie of the Year Award for her record-breaking debut season with the Dallas Wings. And that’s just one summer.
No one was surprised when Bueckers became the number one draft pick for the upcoming season of Unrivaled, the domestic three-on-three league cofounded by Breanna Stewart and Glamour Woman of the Year honoree Napheesa Collier. While Bueckers is currently living and training in Dallas, she leaves for Miami in mid-December—and she’ll be playing with a brand new look…at least until the demi-permanent dye washes out.
Like many of us, Bueckers discovered her love for beauty and fashion back in college, though her interest wasn’t sparked by swapping clothes with her roommates or, in my case, joining Emerson’s fashion club and doing the entire dorm’s makeup for a late-night screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Instead, Bueckers tells me she began really experimenting on the set of photo shoots for various NIL deals and sponsorships, including her ongoing partnership with Madison Reed, a hair-care brand founded by UConn alum Amy Errett.
“It was my first long-term beauty deal and partnership, so it was fun to get into different ways of self-expression, coloring your hair and showing young girls that you don’t have to fit in one box,” she says of the collaboration, which began about two years ago. “You don’t have to just be a basketball player, you can be into beauty and fashion and express yourself in different ways, on and off the court.”
Good luck sorting Bueckers into just one box. Her generational talent on the court may have enticed avid sports fans and brands like Nike, Gatorade, and Bose (to name a few), but her unflinching personal style, relaxed aura, and social media hijinks certainly keep her 7 million followers across TikTok and Instagram locked in on her next moves.
Luckily for them, Paige Bueckers is not exactly lying low in the off-season, between securing her spot on the 2025 Time100 Next list of rising stars, an appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show, and her recent adventures in London before supporting her former teammates at UConn’s opening night in early November. Soon, she’ll be packing up for Unrivaled, with games airing on TNT, truTV, and HBO Max starting in early January.
Before her next off-season adventure, Bueckers spoke with Glamour about her new hair look, a potential Miami makeover with Minnesota Lynx player DiJonai Carrington, and the prospect of playing against Azzi Fudd come June 2026 (should everything work out with the ongoing CBA negotiations).
Glamour: Can you tell me why you chose this orchid pink ombré look for your transformation?
Paige Bueckers: I’m a natural brunette. I’ve been a blonde since, like, my freshman year of high school, and then, for the past two or three years, I’ve been kind of switching it up. I started off with Sparkling Rosé, which I enjoyed, and then I did the UConnic Blonde, which is my signature color. I’ve been blonde for a while, and now the Pink Orchid is just another fun version of a color. I like the ombré version of it to where it’s like, in and out. It’s not fully committed but it is definitely there and you can see it—and I want people to see it.