Willy Chavarria is a certified all-star. By the standards of the sneaker scene, we’ve hardly ever seen a rise quite like the one the CFDA-winning Mexican-American designer has experienced over the last year. His inaugural Adidas collection debuted in January 2025, and a year later he’s one of the Stripes’s premiere collaborative partners. And then there’s James Harden, a longtime Adidas athlete and 11-time NBA All-Star who’s now making waves on an ascendant Cavs team. Given their Adidas allegiances, it made sense when Harden took to the runway for Chavarria’s powerful “Huron” show during Paris Fashion Week last June. It similarly came as no surprise when the two teamed up on a collaborative colorway of Harden’s latest signature sneaker: The Harden Volume 10.
Harden’s signature line under the Three Stripes has seen a creative renaissance after a few dull years—a come-up that started with the 7, which sidestepped the pratfalls of modern signature sneakers and instead opted for something sleeker and simpler, prioritizing shape over color; his sneakers have mostly seen slick, monochrome iterations in every silhouette since. For the latest, Chavarria took the design ethos of his recent Adidas collection—whose campaign features the legendary Compton Cowboys and incorporates elements of rodeo and Westernwear into the new apparel and sneakers—and applied it to the 10, decking out the shoe’s upper in a silver material embossed with a rose pattern. It’s a banger, one that pairs well with the collection’s other standout: a black-leather Superstar with a rose-embossed steel-toe cap.
GQ caught up with Chavarria and Harden over All-Star Weekend to discuss their ongoing partnership and what it meant to both of them to debut their collab in Los Angeles.
James Harden: It was pretty organic. We had mutual people, I was a fan of his work, and we got connected. Fashion has always been important to me. So when we connected, it wasn’t forced. It was just two people talking about style and how sports and fashion overlap.
Willy Chavarria: It was really about James Harden. To do something with him for the court, I wanted it to feel like Los Angeles. And because I was working with Compton Cowboys at the same time, I really wanted to bring home this Western theme throughout the whole line, really bringing to the foreground the Black cowboy. And I feel like James Harden is a breaker of boundaries. He’s like a Black cowboy on the court. So I wanted to make it feel similar to what we see in leather tooling or in the metal of a lot of Western ironwork, like in belt buckles. So that was really the vibe of the shoe. There was also the thought of the black rose being a symbol of rebirth. I incorporate a lot of rose into my work, and I wanted that black rose effect to translate into the shoe.
Harden: It’s always dope for me when I can step out of what I do off the court. Again, fashion is a way for me to express myself, and that’s something that Willy has a vision on. He knew the story he wanted to tell and it all lined up for me being able to be part of it.
Chavarria: I spend a lot of time in the Adidas offices, and he spends time in the Adidas offices. So it was kind of inevitable that we would meet. So when I met him, I just felt like he would have a really good presence on the runway. He became a role model I wanted to have in one of my shows because I do like to pepper my shows with role models. And he was down to do it and he was a lot of fun to work with.
Harden: That’s the great thing about this: It wasn’t forced. There’s a mutual respect, so bringing an actual collaboration to life was sort of the easy next step. My guy Jalal [Enayah, an Adidas designer] did his thing with the 10s, so we already were starting from a solid place. Obviously they need to be able to support what I do on the court in terms of performance, but how they look with a fit or in my everyday life is just as important to me. We talked about how I move, how I live in sneakers, and went from there. I always have a point of view on what I want and then Willy brought his vision to it. That back and forth is what made it special.
Harden: It’s been a journey. Each volume is different but we learn from it each time. Now that we’re on Vol. 10, we have a process that helps us get to the best place possible. Like I said, I don’t want to sacrifice performance or style. Nobody is doing it like this. The goal every year is to top the last one.
Harden: Damn… So many. I mean I’d love to do something with Pharrell. He’s one of the GOATs for creativity and fashion. There’s others for sure, but I gotta say Pharrell.
Chavarria: I admire his tenacity and his commitment to excellence. You know, his commitment to winning. I really admire that about him.
Chavarria: Well, comfort is always priority because that’s like, the most important part of your whole look and you’ve got to feel good in your own shoes. Which is, you know, symbolic in a way. But utilitarian in the sense that they can be worn anywhere and there’s the idea of functionality before fashion is especially true for me when I’m doing athletic footwear.
Harden: [My time with the Clippers] means everything. LA made me. Growing up there, dreaming about the league, then actually representing the city on that level was surreal. No matter where I play, that time is always going to be personal for me.
Chavarria: I knew I wanted to play a big part in All-Star Weekend since it was here in Los Angeles. I proposed to Adidas that we celebrate not just the city itself, but the downtown community specifically. It was extremely important to me during a time when we’ve seen so many ICE raids and so much of the erasure of the downtown community, from [LA’s fashion district] Santee Alley to so many other businesses and restaurants downtown that have been affected. So I just wanted to bring a glimpse of hope and bring all of these amazing performers of colors and bring the community into the space.
All of this, the release event too, it’s very much being done with the community front of mind. For the [launch party hosted by Adidas and Shoe Palace in LA], we’ve got all of these pieces of the community down here. We’ve got a barbershop, a tattoo parlor. We’ve got a car club and a lowrider bike club. You know, really just trying to give people a moment to shine and celebrate our community in downtown Los Angeles.
This conversation has been edited and condensed. Additional reporting by Peter Lee.