{"id":67889,"date":"2025-08-08T15:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T15:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/67889\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T15:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T15:31:07","slug":"monique-billings-on-wnba-style-rakuten-partnership-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/67889\/","title":{"rendered":"Monique Billings on WNBA Style, Rakuten Partnership and More"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFor the first three years of Monique Billings\u2019 WNBA<\/a> career, walking onto the basketball court in sweatpants was the norm. But going into her eighth season and being drafted as a forward for the Golden State Valkyries earlier this year, Billings has gone full fashion mode in showcasing her personal style and personality through her looks. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs first reported by WWD<\/a>, Rakuten announced its partnership with the WNBA<\/a> team as a founder partner and the official shopping rewards partner of the Valkyries.<\/p>\n

\n\tBillings has been tapped alongside teammates Kate Martin<\/a> and Tiffany Hayes<\/a> to be part of its newest \u201cShop the Look\u201d program in partnership with Saks Fifth Avenue<\/a> in which fans can purchase looks they see on players from the Rakuten Arrivals home game tunnel walk<\/a> \u2014 a cultural phenomenon that has exploded across the WNBA and NBA<\/a> \u2014 and earn cash back directly on Rakuten\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

\n\tJess Smith, president of Golden State Valkyries, said about the team\u2019s partnership with Rakuten<\/a>, \u201cOur players bring so much personality and style to the game, and now fans will get to experience that up close through \u2018Rakuten Arrivals.\u2019 This partnership celebrates what makes the WNBA special \u2014 incredible athletes who bring their authentic selves both on and off the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the partnership, Billings has arrived at games wearing brands such as Retrof\u00eate, Ray Ban, Good American<\/a>, Michael Kors, Apparis<\/a> and more. One brand she\u2019s said she\u2019s continually eyeing is Andrea Iyamah<\/a> \u2014 \u201cI have a couple of her pieces. But if I was ever able to work with her on a custom piece, that would be amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe shared that her personal style is eclectic \u2014 she loves frequenting thrift stores to find cool pieces and mix them with designer bags or select upscale pieces to merge the aesthetics together. Billings has also been a partner of Athleta<\/a> for two years.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s so cool being able to show my personality through fashion,\u201d Billings told WWD. \u201cWhen people see me on the court, they see me in a jersey \u2014 and my personality is totally different. I\u2019m super bubbly, kind, positive and sweet. But on the court, I\u2019m fierce and it\u2019s a different energy. Being able to wear a really cute outfit and show my personality side, I think that it\u2019s a way that I can connect with fans. The fans can recreate these looks \u2014 either take the look and wear it exactly as it is or spice it up and put their own style on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBillings said that each game she comes up with a different style concept that allows fans to engage with them through shopping the players\u2019 arrival looks \u2014 \u201cadding a new type of interaction between us and our fans.\u201d She said the partnership gives fans the accessibility and opportunity to wear looks the three players selected and to connect with their fans beyond just being \u201cplayers, on the court but connecting with [them] off the court, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a women\u2019s professional athlete, I always wanted to show that you could be feminine and you can be soft and beautiful. And on the court you could be fierce and dominant \u2014 you don\u2019t have to choose between the two. When I was a young girl, I would go to Sparks games. I was a fan of these women on the court, but my muse and idol was Tyra Banks<\/a>. I wanted to be on \u2018America\u2019s Next Top Model<\/a>\u2018! To walk in the tunnel and wear a really cute outfit before going to work on the court is the best of both worlds for me. My younger self is so happy and smiling on the inside because I can be both things that I\u2019m really passionate about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the WNBA continues to grow in its reach, big-name brand partnerships<\/a> and strategic alignment have increasingly brought more people in to become mega fans.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is the moment, and brands like Rakuten are realizing and capitalizing on it. They\u2019re investing in us as players. This is my eighth season, [\u2026] there were no cameras and this was not a thing. The fact that we\u2019re in a different place now with the intersection of sports<\/a>, fashion and culture. And for us as players, brands are bringing in more opportunities for us to capitalize on these moments. I love seeing brands invest in women and the time is now,\u201d concluded Billings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first three years of Monique Billings\u2019 WNBA career, walking onto the basketball court in sweatpants was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[49483,49484,99,15692,434],"class_list":["post-67889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-athleta","tag-saks-fifth-avenue","tag-sports","tag-sports-marketing","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}