Jeff Hamilton on His WNBA Jacket, Favorite Athletes, and Legacy

State Farm and the WNBA tapped Jeff Hamilton to create another legendary jacket.

Jeff Hamilton teamed up with the WNBA and State Farm. | State Farm

The 2026 WNBA All-Star Game delivered plenty of highlights in hoops, footwear, and fashion. One of the most memorable parts of the night was State Farm and Jeff Hamilton gifting a custom jacket to 3-Point Contest winner Azzi Fudd.

Hamilton has spent decades creating iconic designs for the NBA and WNBA's best. Sports Illustrated's Jerseys ON SI spoke with Hamilton about his latest State Farm collaboration, best projects, and favorite athletes.

Jeff Hamilton for the WNBA and State Farm. | State Farm

When did you start working on the WNBA All-Star Jacket?

Probably about three months ago, just after the success that we had with the first collaboration that we did with Damian Lillard for the NBA All-Star Game. I was approached by State Farm again just to go out and kind of duplicate those moments, and I think it was very successful.

What were some of the biggest challenges in the design process?

There's reasonable challenges in this process. It's just try to make sure that we emphasize the WNBA. Because, obviously, that's what we want to promote, and that's what we care about. But also, it's just being very true to State Farm, and keeping the commerce, and the branding on point, and making sure that the effort of them supporting women's sports is very well heard, and through my voice, and through my design, if I'm able to accomplish part of it, it's a success for me.

Jeff Hamilton's jacket for the WNBA and State Farm. | State Farm

What's your favorite part of the jacket?

It is all about putting all the pieces together. So, every time I have a project, I basically look at what the best way for me to tell a story is. So we're in Chicago, it was important for me to include the Chicago skyline. Obviously, the red and the black is a natural Chicago color. Even though it's not necessarily the sky color, people know that red and black are Chicago.

So, making sure we knew it was a basketball jacket. So I created an oversized basketball with all the details, and made it out of Python, making sure to break down the WNBA logo and put some of the elements of the woman shooting the basketball was very important to me, as well.

And also honoring State Farm and the All-Star game. Just having the actual logo part of it, and mixing up some of the orange for the WNBA, with the red, and trying to blend everything together, and trusting you to come up with something that has my DNA, but also resonates with the WNBA fan more than anything.

Jeff Hamilton's jacket for the WNBA and State Farm. | State Farm

Do you have a personal favorite jacket from your catalog?

I really don't (laughs). I create everything with all love and passion, so it's not like I'm calculating when I do it. Some of them are more career-defining for me than others. Usually, people know me for the Kobe Bryant one, but really, most likely the Michael Jordan ones.

Who are your favorite athletes?

It has to be MJ, no matter what. But he's not the only one. I love Kobe, I love Magic [Johnson], to this day. When I grew up as a kid in France, I had a poster of Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), Jerry West, and Wilt Chamberlain. And I love Larry Bird, so when I came to the country in 1980, it was Larry Bird and Magic.

But I've had guys like Tim Hardaway or Jason Kidd. I love Steph Curry. There's something about certain athletes, their personality, their aura, their talent. But most of it, I get more attracted to, more based on their personality, how they treat people, how they behave themselves, how their humility, and for me, it's an important part of who I love to work with.

Jeff Hamilton's jacket for the WNBA and State Farm. | State Farm

What does your mood board look like?

Fortunately, I've been doing it for 46 years. So it's just taking it from Point A to Point B. It's a journey. Sometimes the journey may take a little longer, sometimes I take faster, but I have the blueprint, and I have the roadmap of how to do it.

Certain things resonate more with me, and fortunately, my ultimate goal is that whatever resonates with me, because I put all my love, heart, passion, sunshine, and that I can put on it. I want the ultimate fan to feel the feeling that I have, once they see it, once they buy it, once they wear it.

Last question: Who is one athlete you want to work with?

I'm pretty blessed to be a kid at heart and always love sports, knowing that I still have the ability to reach the people I love. And for me, I am always gonna be a groupie in my mind. I'm turning 71 in two weeks, and I'm still a groupie. I'm excited when I'm around LeBron [James], or when I'm around Michael, because I love it.

It's just not like I'm not an autograph seeker or a picture chaser. For me, it's just about the moment, and knowing that they're aura, and for them to see the beauty that they have in their craft. They are artists in their own way, and they have that God-given talent that rewards us and gives us so much joy.