How Dennis Rodman, ’90s Outcast, Became Dennis Rodman, Style Godhead
In this universe, prophets get a tough shake. The passages dedicated to history’s most transgressive figures are almost always punctuated by exiles, burnings at the stake, crucifixions, cancellations. This, in part, explains why, during the peak of his notoriety, Dennis Rodman — the NBA’s rainbow-headed rebound savant — was unfairly dismissed as America’s strange, recalcitrant, septum-pierced nephew. It also explains why, today, he’s better understood as an insurgent, wildly ahead-of-his time style visionary. In the little over two decades since Rodman’s Madonna-courting, wedding dress-wearing celebrity zenith, the sartorial quirks that for the longest time saw the power forward-turned-pro wrestler-turned-walking Ed Hardy billboard-turned-diplomat relegated to the realm of pop culture sideshow have made him a sort of contemporary Patron Saint of Cool.
This revelation was recently enshrined in a tweet—a screengrab of Rodman’s August 1996 appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. The then-Chicago Bull is wearing a