At this year’s New York Fashion Week, Kyrie Irving proved once again that his creative vision extends far beyond the basketball court. The global basketball star and ANTA took over 214 Lafayette Street for an all-day activation celebrating the debut of HÉLÀ Season 2 and the highly anticipated HÉLÀ Code shoe line.
The experience gave media, fans, and invited guests an inside look at Irving’s expanding design universe. From a daytime public preview to an intimate evening showcase, the event positioned Irving not just as an athlete with a signature shoe but as a full-fledged cultural architect.
Building on the momentum of his first collection, the HÉLÀ Code shoes reflect Irving’s commitment to fusing heritage, creativity, and function. Available in five colorways—including “Kairoglyphics,” “Astral Eye,” and “Monotone Codes”—the designs nod to ancestral knowledge, spiritual vision, and family legacy while still prioritizing technical performance.
Each pair combines ANTA’s engineering with Irving’s skateboarding influences, featuring EVA midsoles for comfort, multidirectional grip outsoles, and bold, board-inspired laces. For Irving, the shoes are more than gear; they’re wearable culture.
An equally ambitious apparel collection matched the footwear launch. HÉLÀ Season 2 embraces oversized silhouettes and modular layering, designed for adaptability and purpose. Transformative pieces, like jumpsuits that become shorts or puffers with integrated vests, showcase the collection’s guiding pillars: resilience, provision, and metamorphosis.
Grounded in a palette of earthen clay, ember orange, and feather blue, the line embodies Irving’s philosophy of function meeting style.
During the event, The Quintessential Gentleman correspondent Ashlee Brown caught up with Irving, where he explained how his role as Chief Creative Officer at Onset Basketball shaped his entrepreneurial vision:
“Being Chief Creative Officer gave me an opportunity to be in a new role, have new leadership around me. Power comes with that leadership role as well, that I’m very responsible with. I’m nothing without my team… I wanted individuals to feel that equity and not just buying the inventory, but seeing the story play out, seeing the connectivity there, and then seeing how we activate live in-person engagement like this.”
When asked about mixing basketball, skate culture, and fashion, Kyrie said it was natural:
“It was easy to merge those worlds because it’s just the attitude, it’s the mentality, it’s the connectivity that we all have as young people… whether it’s dressing like them, speaking like them, whether it be the lingo, whether it be just the swag… that should represent your family and who you are.”
On symbolism in his designs, he explained:
“For me, it’s just about frequency and making sure that I’m hitting those hits of a lot of my ancestral knowledge and where I come from, and making sure that this gets passed on to the next generation in one way or another. Kairoglyphics may have the youth go ask questions: what is Kairoglyphics?… It’s a nod to all my ancestors.”
Looking forward, Kyrie said his focus is simple:
“It’s just driven forward; like we’re just going to keep driving forward, that’s it. Like no trends, nothing that’s unauthentic, inauthentic, nothing, just straight discipline, focus, and focusing on the people and building to see what they want.”
For Kyrie Irving, HÉLÀ is more than another athlete-led collection. It’s an evolving platform for cultural storytelling, community, and purpose-driven creativity. By bridging basketball, skateboarding, and fashion, Irving is reshaping not just performance footwear but the role athletes can play as entrepreneurs and cultural leaders.
Check out more images from the event.
