Instagram is still flooded with photos of celebrities from Spike to Swift, Tina to Timothée sitting front row at Madison Square Garden. But while watching the NBA Finals at home, you may have noticed a dapper older gentleman in an outrageous suit among the stars.
Walt Frazier at the 2025 NBA Eastern Conference Finals, Indiana Pacers v New York Knicks. Photo: Getty Images.
For the uninitiated, that’s Walt Frazier, the legendary Knicks point guard who led the team to their only two championships – until 2026 – in 1970 and 1973. Frazier retired over 40 years ago, but has appeared regularly on Knicks broadcasts since. There, he’s become known for his wit and affinity for a rhyme, describing players on the court as “dishing and swishing,” or “stumbling and bumbling,”— but most importantly, for the purposes of Vogue readers, his passion for fashion.
For years, on broadcasts and in the floor seats, Frazier has worn suits of every stripe (and dot and pattern). His cow-print blazer is a fan favorite, but he also has garments in cheetah, zebra, and python prints, plus a slew of plaids, paisleys, not to mention, flower jacquards, which he puts together in eye-catchingly clashy combinations. His singular approach to dressing has been carefully chronicled and graded (on a letter scale) by the site “ClydesoFly.com,” going back to 2013.
Naturally, he doesn’t buy off the rack. Frazier’s suits were made by tailors in New York, mostly from fabric he plucked from shops in the Garment District and Lower East Side.
Frazier became a fashion star while playing for the Knicks, wearing a recognizable slate of turtlenecks, oversized fur coats, capes, gold chains, and a wide-brimmed hat that earned him the nickname that’s stuck, “Clyde,” because the hat reminded his teammates of the 1967 film “Bonnie and Clyde.” To top it off, he had a habit of driving around Manhattan in a Rolls-Royce.
Today, athletes have stylists, tunnel walks are hotly-watched, and signature shoes abound—but back then, players didn’t even get paid to wear sneakers. Frazier was the first to sign an endorsement deal with Puma that ultimately resulted in the release of the “Puma Clyde” shoe.
The Knicks-themed orange-and-blue suits Frazier wore throughout the Finals, including the floral patterned blue blazer he wore with a multi-color tie to watch the Knicks clinch the championship in San Antonio last night, are a New York story. Those were made in just a week by the fifth-generation family fabric shop and clothing maker Beckenstein Men’s Fabric, which opened in 1919 on the Lower East Side’s historic Orchard Street. After the Knicks beat the Philadelphia 76ers in the conference semifinals, Jonathan Boyarsky (great-grandson of founder Samuel Beckenstein) and his sons Max and Andrew (still in college) got a call: Frazier needed some new suits.
The Boyarskys quickly put together a selection of “crazy fabrics,” said Jonathan, including some furniture upholstery, to show to Frazier. They whipped up a few suits out of his favorites the next day, and filmed a Finals hype video for the Knicks the following.
They was a suit planned for all seven games, but the Boyarskys only made five to start. Turns out that’s all they needed.
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