From The Rack To The Court: Jocelyn Hu's WNBA All-Star Bucket Hat Collaboration

Indianapolis, Indiana is full of WNBA stars, sports icons and excited fans this weekend as the WNBA All-Star festivities take over the city. Among them is an up and coming designer who has already seen wild success with the WNBA and got the chance of a lifetime thanks to Ally, the league’s newest bank partner.

Jocelyn Hu is no stranger to the sports scene. Since she started pursuing her career in fashion and design, she has worked with sporting material and pulled inspiration from sports as a fan herself to create incredibly unique pieces. Some of her most well known (and viral) projects have been the iconic split jersey Angel Reese wore courtside for the last game of the WNBA season last year, a custom jersey vest Spike Lee wore to a Knicks game during the 2025 playoffs, and an entire collection with the Phoenix Mercury. 

Courtesy of Jocelyn Hu via Instagram (@jocehu)

Now, she’s partnered with Ally to create a limited edition bucket hat for the 2025 WNBA All-Star weekend. It’s Ally’s first public merch collaboration that’s available to purchase and each hat’s price of $50.50 is symbolic of Ally’s 50/50 Pledge to spend equally on paid media in both men’s and women’s sports. Ally will be integrating into the WNBA's media coverage as part of this initiative, investing with the league's current and future broadcast partners as part of its media commitment and are aiming to “achieve their goal to reach parity with its paid media spending, positioning the company to hit 50/50 in 2026, a full year ahead of schedule.”

For Hu, this opportunity and collaboration means a lot considering she is an Ally customer and she relied on them when she started taking up design as her career.

“It’s the first time that Ally has done a custom collaboration like this so that itself is a pretty big honor. In a lot of my pieces, I really try to incorporate little details or easter eggs to help tell the story. I was able to incorporate that into this bucket hat as well and even with merch, there are ways to hide little details or tell a story that’s bigger than the product itself,” Hu explained. “This is not just a bucket hat, it’s really a symbol of celebrating women’s sports and how far we’ve come and Ally’s commitment to invest in women’s sports too. By supporting this drop, you’re being a part of history and also investing in women’s sports.”

Courtesy of Ally

When asked about her favorite part about working with Ally and the WNBA on such a unique collaboration, Hu circled back on how special it is to work with Ally, a company she trusts and had a major impact on following her dreams, as well as how the challenge was exciting.

“With the project itself, this is the biggest drop that I’ve ever done. I’ve never made 50 pieces at one time available for the public to purchase so that was really exciting to me. Actually making a huge collection like this, it took a lot of time obviously, but it’s so rewarding seeing it on the website, on sale for people to actually purchase and buy. I’m really excited about that.”

As Hu stuns everyone at WNBA All-Star weekend with her thoughtful, talented and one-of-a-kind bucket hat that will surely empower other women in sports in many ways, she does have advice for other women who are looking to break into the sports industry.

“It’s never too late to pivot. For me, I always thought that the corporate life was the only way forward, especially for breaking into sports. Sometimes those unexpected moments kind of force you to hustle and change your perspective and to pivot,” Hu said. “Don’t give up on your interests and your passions. It’s never too late to rebrand and figure out what you actually want to do and figure out how to make your passion into your career if that’s what you want to do. Don’t ever feel like age is a restriction or a limit. Don’t ever feel like other people’s expectations hinder you from where you want to be.”

So go grab your limited edition bucket hat from the Ally brand store and get ready for all the action of WNBA All-Star weekend in Indianapolis. See if you can spot any of Hu’s bucket hats in the crowd as well.