The 2026 ESPY Awards brought the year’s most compelling athletes to Los Angeles for a night that has become one of the more reliable fashion showcases on the sports calendar. The red carpet offered a cross-section of how elite athletes are dressing now — tailored, expressive, and increasingly designer-led.
The prevailing approach this year leaned into structure, with sharp tailoring, strong shoulders, and clean lines, athletes wearing suits the way they wear uniforms — as equipment for the occasion.
The breadth of the red carpet reflected the widening pipeline between sports and fashion, where athletes now move fluidly between arenas and campaigns, front rows and magazine covers.
The ESPYs occupy a particular register, looser than the Met Gala, more deliberate than the locker room, a space where athletic achievement and personal style meet without ceremony.
