Brooklyn Nets Star Ben Simmons Models the Team’s Chinese New Year Merch

On January 10, American professional basketball team the Brooklyn Nets and fashion label Wah Yan Ching Nin jointly announced their new Chinese New Year clothing series, which will drop at the Brooklyn Fanatics retail store at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York on January 26.

January 22 marks the start of the Chinese New Year or the Year of the Water Rabbit in the Chinese lunar calendar, hence the recurring rabbit motif in the collection, which includes sweatshirts, sneakers, and T-shirts.

Towering above the average NBA player by four inches, Benjamin David Simmons, who plays point guard for the Brooklyn Nets, was chosen to showcase the collection on Instagram.

For those not in the know, Wah Yan Ching Nin is a streetwear brand whose young Chinese owners span China, Japan, and the United States. It was founded in 2017 with the mission of spreading a love of Chinese culture, and usually features designs with Chinese cultural elements and eastern aesthetics.

The Brooklyn Nets is one of the most popular NBA teams in China, and has almost 7 million followers on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo. The basketball team has been gaining even more traction in China ever since it was acquired by Alibaba co-founder Joseph Tsai.

Cover Image via Weibo