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Exclusive: Angel Reese's Stunning Hooded Bronx and Banco Dress at the 2024 WNBA Draft Was a Super Last Minute Choice
Angel Reese is a girl's girl. If you didn't know this by her fearless leadership of LSU's women's basketball team, how her teammates fight for her, or her fierce and relentless empowerment of all young women, then you know it by her perfectly blushed cheeks, laid baby hairs, and how she consistently gives the girls Look! After! Look! on Instagram. So when she let Cosmopolitan in her dressing room for a behind-the-scenes peek at how she prepared for the 2024 WNBA draft, I expected nothing less.
It was the scene of some of my favorite girls' weekends: fresh flowers in one corner, ensembles laid out in another, and beauty products both neatly organized and chaotically scattered about in the bathroom. But before the Bayou Barbie made her way to the Barclays Center last night—and was ultimately drafted to the Chicago Sky as the seventh pick in the first round—she chatted with Cosmo in between eyeshadow sweeps and perfume spritzes (she wore Valentino Born in Roma for the curious minds!) for a quick vibe check just before the biggest moment of her basketball career so far.
What was she thinking?! How was she feeling?! Keep reading for the full convo, and to hear how Angel originally wasn't planning to wear *that* gorgeous hooded dress that had everyone looking at her like IRL heart-eye emojis.
This dress is insane. What was the inspo behind your look tonight?
This was a very last minute look, actually. I got a dress made a month or two ago, but it didn't fit, and then my backup dress got lost in the mail. So when I got to New York, I was panicking. Luckily, I worked with Vogue to go into the draft, so that stylist Naomi Elizee was thankfully in the city and she pulled my look all together for me, like literally two days before the draft. So this dress is a backup-backup, honestly. But it looks so good! And I showed other people my first dress, and they were like, 'Yeah, this this was number one for sure.'
I have a hunch you'll be best-dressed for sure. What are you most looking forward to tonight?
Honestly just the breath of fresh air that comes when hearing my name called and being able to get that relief off the back of my shoulders. As a little girl, I always dreamed of that moment, of being able to actually put the dress on for it, and then hearing [WNBA Commissioner] Miss Cathy [Engelbert] call my name. So I'm just taking it all in right now.
You mentioned dreaming of this moment since you were little. What does Younger You feel right now? What would you say to your younger self?
First, I would say, 'Girl, you look good!' And two, I would say, 'Just take it in.' I used to always watch the draft with my grandma, and she was always like, 'Whatchu gonna wear? Whatchu gonna wear? That's gonna be the most important thing!'
Grandma isn't wrong! I loved that moment of sisterhood between you and your teammate Flau'jae Johnson during the press conference after your last college game. What will you miss most about your time at LSU with that team?
I'll miss my teammates and the culture there. LSU really inherited me as their own—they took me in and made me feel never away from home. I'm from Baltimore, which was like 17 hours away. So being embraced there and loved there, and also bringing the 2023 National Championship to a program that never won one before, was everything. Seimone [Augustus] and Sylvia [Fowles] were really great to me while I was there, too. They went to Final Fours during their time at LSU, and they told me, 'Thank you for getting it done for us' because they worked so hard to do it and they couldn't quite get there. I had great people around me at LSU and I'm always gonna remember that place. I'll always be the Bayou Barbie.
That's really special. Your professional career hasn’t started yet, but I’m wondering if you’ve given any thought to what you want your legacy to be in the W?
Just to be a winner. I want to win a championship in the WNBA. I've won at every level. So being able to just leave my mark as a winner and do whatever it takes to win. One goal for my first year is that I want to get the most rebounds as a rookie.
I love that! Are there any vets you're looking forward to playing against in the W?
I'm super competitive so I'm just really excited to play against great competition. All the vets are great players, and I know they're not gonna just let a rook come in and think that I'm gonna walk over them. I'm looking forward to the challenge. I like everything in my life to be hard—if it's not hard, it's boring. So I'm excited for what's next: for a new beginning, being able to be a new player, to kind of leave everything I did in college there, and to continue growing as a woman.
This interview has been lightly edited for space and clarity.
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