DeAndre Hopkins of the Kansas City Chiefs, pictured arriving in New Orleans last weekend.

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NEW ORLEANS — DeAndre Hopkins has long been on the vanguard of fashion in the NFL. So it was no surprise that someone would ask the Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver what he planned to wear for Sunday’s game.

The surprise was the answer.

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“My dad died in 1992, and he left me a couple things. And one of the things he left me was a mink jacket,” he said. “And so I always said I would wear that mink jacket to my wedding or to the Super Bowl, whichever one happened first.”

But as Hopkins told NPR, family, fashion and sports have always been part of his story. And now, his Sunday gameday outfit — for the first Super Bowl appearance in an otherwise decorated career — was a chance to hear that story.

“My mom was always a fashionista diva”

Hopkins was an infant in 1992, when a car accident killed his father. It left his mom — who was only 23 — to raise Hopkins and his three siblings on her own in Clemson, S.C., working two jobs to get by.

Still, he said, his mother always took pride in her appearance.

“My mom was always a fashionista diva. She kept her nails done,” Hopkins said. “Growing up on Section 8, having to take care of everything in the house, you’re growing up in the projects but still having to make sure your living room is nice.”

It was his mother who got him interested in fashion, he said. When he was in elementary school, she took he and his siblings to a local mall to put them in a children’s fashion show. “We didn’t have a lot, but what we did have she put it together,” he said. “So I think it started there.”

He loved sports, too, and was soon a standout athlete in both football and basketball. The local university — Clemson — offered him a football scholarship to play receiver. Then, in 2013, he was drafted to the NFL by the Houston Texans. And soon, he was planning an outfit for each Sunday’s game.

Fit for the runway

At the time, Instagram was still in its early years. And photographers weren’t yet lining up to shoot the players and their clothes as they arrived to walk the stadium tunnel, he said. “I was one of the first athletes in football to wear, I would say, interesting things — unique things,” Hopkins said.

In his rookie year, he was modeling for Club Monaco, and felt that his arrival to the stadium each Sunday was an unrealized opportunity. So he asked the Texans’ PR team to position a camera to catch his locker room arrival.

These days, fashion has much bigger presence in the NFL. Every team photographs and posts their players’ gameday outfits. And stars like Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow and Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson have walked at Paris Fashion Week (Hopkins has too, of course). And this week, Hopkins announced a collaboration with the online menswear retailer boohooMAN.

He didn’t have a stylist when he started — and still doesn’t. He shops for himself, inspired by fashion in Japan and Europe.

“In this world, playing football, you can’t show who you are so much. You got a helmet on and jersey,” Hopkins said. “When I step in the fashion world, it’s moreso who I am outside of there, and I try to let that show.”

His first Super Bowl

In the 12 years since his rookie season began, Hopkins has become one of the NFL’s top wide receivers. He’s been named to five Pro Bowls and led the league in receiving touchdowns back in 2017.

But before this year, he’d never played for a franchise that had ever won a Super Bowl, let alone played in one himself. He’d only been to the postseason four times before he was traded to the Chiefs in October in the middle of this season.

“Going into my 12th year, there was thoughts where I was like, ‘Man, am I ever going to have a chance to play meaningful football?'” Hopkins said. “The Chiefs organization believed in me, and I’m thankful.”

That brings us back to his father’s vintage mink jacket. It had been hanging in his closet all these years, waiting for the right moment, he said. Hopkins had it fixed up for Sunday’s occasion. “It means a lot being able to have a little bit of him with me,” he said.

A look back at a few of Hopkins past gameday outfits

DeAndre Hopkins of the Kansas City Chiefs arrives prior to the AFC Championship Game against the Buffalo Bills at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on January 26, 2025 in Kansas City, Missouri.

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DeAndre Hopkins #8 of the Kansas City Chiefs arrives prior to a game against the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium on November 17, 2024 in Orchard Park, New York.

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DeAndre Hopkins #8 of the Kansas City Chiefs arrives prior to a game against the Denver Broncos at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on November 10, 2024 in Kansas City, Missouri.

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Wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins #8 of the Kansas City Chiefs arrives to the stadium prior to an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders, at Allegiant Stadium on October 27, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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