More than a decade and a half ago, Calyann Barnett was working a temporary gig in the music industry while trying to establish herself as a fashion designer. These days, he’s a renowned stylist for countless NBA players, a creative consultant for the Utah Jazz, and the driving force behind the team’s lifestyle apparel brand “Counterpoint.”
A few chances encounters in 2007 set the events in motion.
First, she was working with someone who was working with LeBron James, and she marveled at both his chiseled, physical form and how to show it off, and at the same time rock-star Also boosted the vibe and gravitas, which apparently lent itself well. Marketing opportunities – although he believed athleisure styling was an untapped niche area.
Then, that June, she invited him to rapper Kanye West’s 30th birthday party, held at the Louis Vuitton store in New York City, where he spotted Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade. He thought that, like many of his NBA contemporaries, he had great off-court looks.
And he decided to tell her so.
“I walk in and I’m like, ‘You need a stylist, take my card,’ and off I go,” Barnett recalled with a laugh. “Then I came back and I was like, ‘You know what, you’re gonna lose my card — get my number, put my number in your phone.’ And I left. And then I was like, ‘You know what? You’re not going to call me. Give me your number.'”
They texted a few times, he told her he had a suit-maker he was happy with, and dared her to be bold and take some risks – namely on him. She was nowhere to be found. That December, he made one last attempt to persuade her.
Videos of runway-style players walking in the arena pregame, showing off their outfits, were becoming increasingly popular. And Wade’s Christmas Day matchup of the Miami Heat is scheduled to play James’ Cleveland Cavaliers will have millions of eyeballs on them.
“I was like, ‘Hey, let me set you up for this game, and if you like it, we’ll talk; if not, I’ll leave you alone,'” Barnett said. And behold, he likes the way he looks.”
This was just the chance she needed to pursue her fashion career.
She has since worked with myriad athletes trying to get them to “drop that oversized [style]—the white T-shirt, the baggy pants as much as possible. For me, it was like, you have to get a There was a need for tailored looks that actually showed, first of all, the epitome of masculinity. He has been able to bring in more customers by showing that embracing fashion is not just about admiring clothes, but also when situations arise. To redeem yourself is to set yourself up.
“As we see now that NBA players can go into it, there are a lot of different marketing opportunities,” Barnett said. “And that was my goal: ‘What do you want to do? What’s your goal? What’s the future? How do we get to it? How do we dress for that?'”
In addition to styling individual athletes, she also became the driving force behind The Shop Miami, where she hosts pop-ups for brands that want to shop without taking on all the overhead associated with staffing and a physical, brick-and-mortar store. Want to test the market without finding a mortar. Store location.
Now, nearly 16 years later, Barnett is bringing her design skills and entrepreneurial expertise to expand Utah Jazz’s brand.
Ironically, it wasn’t his long-term partnership with Wade — who bought a minority stake in the Jazz in 2021 — that brought him into the team’s orbit.
“Yeah, everyone thinks Dwayne got me here, but he didn’t. God got me here!” Barnett said with a smile.
Well, Wade was tangentially involved anyway.
Barnett was working independently with ex-Jazz star Donovan Mitchell and current Jazz guard Jordan Clarkson. But it was her friendship with Clark Miyasaki (to whom she was introduced by Wade) that introduced her to Jazz owner Ryan Smith and wife Ashley.
Miyasaki is a BYU graduate whose business start with Utah County-based software startups and a venture capital firm put him and Ryan Smith on the same board. From there, he joined Skullcandy, a Park City-based headphone company, and then became head of business development at Stance Socks, which is where he met Wade.
After Barnett developed a friendship with Miyasaki and converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he introduced him to the relatively new owners of jazz, the Smiths, who were new and eager to develop jazz. Perhaps looking for inventive ways. Team footprint.
Ryan Smith said that the combination of Barnett’s talent and force of personality made him someone he felt he had to work with in some capacity.
“If you know Caelynn, he’s contagious, he’s a whirlwind,” he said. “…with Callie, when you have talent like this, you try to figure out where you put it. There is no one within the Utah Jazz to fit something like Callie’s background.” The position wasn’t there. How do you? You try to figure out who are the best people around us, and how do we find the role?
One day, Barnett was walking around the Vivint Arena with Smith discussing options. Team owners were expressing that they wanted the Jazz to become a global brand, and for Utah to be a more welcoming and diverse place. How to accomplish this though? Well, her background made for a simple solution: “I don’t know which of us said it, but it was like ‘fashion!’ I’ve used fashion to tell stories with players throughout my career, so It was like, OK, how do we use fashion as a platform to tell the story of Utah Jazz?
The team had already made an infamous foray into sartorial notoriety with its new set of highlighter yellow and black jerseys.
Barnett was not involved in that process, noting that it was well underway before her arrival. That said, she took a contrary view of popular opinion and declared herself a fan of the look.
“Honestly, I love it, because I feel like it’s a color that I haven’t really owned,” she said. “…and then honestly, it pops—that yellow pops on the court, it pops on any branding that you do, so it really allows for a fresh start.”
Despite the controversial jersey, Smith felt the Jazz had an opportunity to once again try something different: Utah, with the youngest population in the country, attracted local fans to a growing “drop culture” within clothing and sneaker companies. Made very friendly for.
There was data to suggest that Jazz could take advantage of this more widely than some of the earlier meager efforts.
Smith said, “We did say collabs with brands, where we would do a sweatshirt or a T-shirt, or a hat … but there was no ownership.” “We had to work with people and slap a jazz [wordmark] or [J-] note.”
The in-house alternative became the counterpoint. The apparel brand started with two distinct branches: the core collection consists of very simple, sleek, logo-driven designs with a tailored approach; The All-Star collection (to capitalize on the NBA’s showcase game returning to Salt Lake City for the first time in 30 years) is more graphic-driven and has more of a streetwear vibe.
Counterpoint is trying to strike a balance between presenting a streamlined look that sports the team’s J-note logo and a mass appeal beyond hardcore fans – “as you can see, it’s [these clothes] everywhere. but] it’s such a cool logo,” Barnett said. “Honestly, we have the best logo in the entire NBA, so how do we get it out into the world?” – Only tied to the team without feeling like a bland and generic design.
So are a lot of small, additional details scattered throughout the piece, such as “Property of Utah Jazz,” “Established 2023,” “Private Label,” or “Made to Take, Designed to Rise Up.” Slogans like and “Made for fans, designed for the streets” appear either printed on the clothing, or on the included “jock tag”.
Items as simple as a tonal black-on-black or white-on-white shirt with a big, solid J-note are what make people say “I’m a fan!” Allow me to rep my favorite team without yelling! Or even non-fans would be fine wearing one just because they like the design.
There are items as complex as the Cityscape Jacket; or T-shirts that are call-backs to 1993 All-Star Game tickets, or that evoke the laser-light show that opened the ’93 ASG; Even a sweatsuit that includes the 2023 All-Star logo but in the classic colors from 30 years ago.
The Counterpoint collection was given a soft launch in the Vivint Arena event-level store, available to courtside fans in early February. The brand made its official debut during All-Star Weekend, when Barnett brought his “The Shop Miami” concept to Utah with “The Shop Salt Lake City” pop-up stores at The Gateway Shopping Center, which included Counterpoint, MRKT, was characterized by Cactus Jack, Stock X, Threthhood, Slam, Mitchell & Ness, NBA Closets, Bastille, JSM Custom, Cards & Coffee.
“The response has been phenomenal. I’m always telling Callie, ‘Hey, I’m getting [so many] requests for free counterpoint gear,’ or [asked], ‘Hey, how do I get that?’ ‘ Smith said. “Gayle [Miller] came up to me when I was wearing the white Counterpoint [sweatshirt]: ‘Where did you get that? I love the way the note goes, and how it’s not in your face. ‘ So I gave Gail one of those sweatshirts.
Counterpoint will continue to evolve, he said, as franchisees analyze sales trends and Barnett adapts to the offerings.
Indeed, Counterpoint will introduce additional collections in the near future and will be available to all Jazz fans through the arena’s concourse-level Team Store starting with the team’s next home game on March 18.
“[We’re just] trying to find fun and interesting ways to present the brand and keep it original and fresh [with things you haven’t seen in Utah],” Barnett said. “That’s why I was brought here.”