“I feel like it’s hitting me right now that in a few hours I’m going to be drafted,” said Kiki Iriafen from the glam chair. A few hours ahead of the WNBA draft, the USC player was in her hotel room at the Equinox Hotel in Manhattan having her hair and makeup done in her sweats, an iced matcha in hand. 

Iriafen flew in from Los Angeles on a 7 a.m. flight Friday morning and had spent the weekend with the rest of the draft class. 

“We’ve just been hanging out, getting to know each other a lot more,” Iriafen said. “I know Georgia Amoore pretty well; we did a camp this summer together. And then some of the other girls we played against each other and have been in similar circles, so it was nice to connect with people on a deeper level and not be playing against each other.”

After a weekend full of commitments, she spent the night before draft day walking around Times Square with her friends and ended up at Raising Cane’s until 1 a.m.

“They actually turned it into a mini club. There was a DJ, so it was really fun,” she said. “And then to get back here instead of Ubering, my friend and I took one of those [pedicab] bikes. I thought ‘that’s very New York.’ We had a lot of fun.”

The schedule of the WNBA means that after being drafted, players have only a short while before needing to relocate to their new home cities for training. The 2025 season kicks off on May 16. 

After the draft, Iriafen will fly back to L.A., pack up her apartment and move to wherever she is drafted — even though she’s technically still a student at USC.

“I graduate in May, but I’ll be finishing the rest of my classes online,” she said. 

“I feel like this is the beginning of my adult journey,” she added. “I know I am an adult, but it doesn’t feel real until I start my job. This is going to be my job and I have a lot of responsibilities to take care of. So I think once I finally pack up my apartment, it’ll be real.”

For draft night, she worked with designer Nneka Alexander to create a custom dress by her brand Brides by Nona, after seeing Chiney Ogwumike in a custom wedding gown by Alexander. 

“It’s been a few months in the making, but I knew I really wanted to have my Nigerian culture incorporated in some way,” Iriafen said. “Nneka’s worked with Chiney before, so there’s a connection there, and I loved her work, so I decided to work with her. We’ve been collaborating, going back and forth and just figuring out what the perfect Kiki dress would be. Something that’s showstopping, but also super true to me. And then she put all her flair on it and her expertise, and we came up with something super special.”

She tried on the encrusted bronze gown for the first time last week in L.A. and “was at a loss for words.”

“I was like, ‘oh my gosh, this is the dress. This is amazing.’ And we hadn’t even put everything together in terms of accessories. But just seeing it, I was like, ‘this is going to be a showstopper.’”

During the collaboration process, the one thing Iriafen knew she wanted was a leg slit. 

“I feel like leg slits and I go together hand in hand,” she said. “And then I liked the idea of having to snatch the waist. So we’ve added some corset action and then having an asymmetrical top look. And I feel like those are my three heavy hitters.”

Glam-wise, Iriafen wanted to pay homage to the blond braids she typically wears when she plays, so opted for a blond wig. 

“Blonde has become sort of my signature look,” she said. 

Off-court, Iriafen loves skirts, dresses and sets — “I’m very girly girl” — and is looking ahead to exploring her style more once she enters the WNBA. 

“I feel like I’m still finding my style and what I want that to be, but I think there’s so many fashion icons in the W[NBA],” she said.