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" In today&amp;#039;s world, it&amp;#039;s all about the side hustle. Which is why it&amp;#039;s not surprising so many athletes embark upon ventures outside the sports world, especially when it comes to fashion. The NBA is a league that has come to embrace fashion wholly, from star athletes attending runway shows to designing their own collections.  But this didn&amp;#039;t happen overnight. It took a core group of figures, like LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, and of course, Dwyane Wade, to come forward and prove that their flair wasn&amp;#039;t only reserved for the hardwood. Now we&amp;#039;ve seen style become a crucial aspect off the court, and few do it better than the Miami Heat&amp;#039;s Wade. The three-time NBA champion recently translated his superb sense of style to a design career, turning out collections for Hublot, Stance Socks, and most recently, The Tie Bar. For his sixth collection with the Chicago-based tie company, Wade sought to capture the essence of summer travel. The result is a collection of ties, bow ties, and pocket squares that embody the vibrant spirit of &amp;quot;The Flash&amp;quot; without ever being too much. Esquire recently chatted with Wade about his latest collaboration, summer essentials, and plans to launch his own clothing line. This is your sixth collection with The Tie Bar. How did your approach vary from past collections? You always try to find inspiration from different places. Some are personal; some are just where fashion is at the moment. This one was more about the summer\u2013vacation spots, where you like to go, where you like to visit, where you&amp;#039;ve been. In the summer, I go to California. My wife and I have a house there. We go to the Hamptons, so we tried to think about things revolving around that. You always try to think of something creative and try to do something a little different.  What kind of man do you have in mind when designing a collection like this? I have many. I have the kind of man who goes to the office everyday, who runs companies, who likes to look good. Then there&amp;#039;s the real sleek man that loves to be stylish and he&amp;#039;s going to use his tie and pocket square to give his suit that extra pop. The hardest part is thinking of the younger generation, because they didn&amp;#039;t grow up wearing ties. So you try to make it cool enough so that when they have to they will want to wear your tie. What are some of your favorites from this collection? The one thing that we tried to do with this collection is to dial back and make use of certain colors. So the theme we used with Stars &amp;amp;amp; Stripes\u2014instead of using red, white and blue\u2014we used black and silver. Those are some of my favorite palettes. We did a Native American theme, but we didn&amp;#039;t use so many colors. I have one tie that&amp;#039;s a nice silk red and then there are blue stripes going through it.  I was recently watching the Iverson documentary and it&amp;#039;s interesting to see how the league&amp;#039;s dress code affected players. Initially, they felt it took away their creative expression. You joined the league in 2003, a very transitional time when fashion suddenly became relevant to athletes. How crucial is style to the NBA now? It&amp;#039;s huge right now, and I think it&amp;#039;s huge now because other athletes and I are now accepted in the fashion world. I mean, you see New York is getting its own Men&amp;#039;s Fashion Week, finally. So now it&amp;#039;s just the perfect timing for everything to happen. I want to be the one that steps out to be bold. It wasn&amp;#039;t easy to do, because in the athletic world you&amp;#039;re talked about. &amp;quot;Why are you wearing pink?&amp;quot; But I was comfortable, because I had a bigger goal in mind. It&amp;#039;s cool to be one of the players in my era to step out and take that risk. Now you see fashion is so big around not only our league but also in other sports. Who are some fellow NBA players at the top tier of style?  I think LeBron does a great job of being diverse in his style. Obviously [Russell] Westbrook does a great job with it as well, and he&amp;#039;s carved out his own niche. He really lives fashion, and it&amp;#039;s good to see someone authentic being able to do what they love. There are other guys that can dress well, but I look at them as the two guys who do it best. What&amp;#039;s your favorite part about offseason? When I&amp;#039;m not traveling or out on business, I get to spend time with my kids. I get to be more of a father: go to their AAU games, go to more plays, and more parent-teacher conferences since the seasons been over. So that part of my life is getting fed. Now I can go support my wife when she&amp;#039;s working, that part of my life is being fed. Then I go and I work. I want to do things I&amp;#039;m passionate about like fashion. There are so many things that I want to do but haven&amp;#039;t had the time. So now my schedule goes from family time to work time and it leads me right back into the season. I take two vacations in the summer for about a week each. But besides that I&amp;#039;m just working.  What&amp;#039;s the best style advice you&amp;#039;ve ever received? I would say what I&amp;#039;ve learned, more than advice I&amp;#039;ve received, is to be comfortable in whatever it is you want to do. I always tell kids that it&amp;#039;s okay to be different and to be you. That&amp;#039;s something I&amp;#039;ve learned through fashion. Some people don&amp;#039;t get it. They don&amp;#039;t see what you see, but that&amp;#039;s okay. They might be late to the party, but the door will still be open when they&amp;#039;re ready to join. There are no rules in fashion. Who are some of your favorite designers at the moment? I&amp;#039;m a big fan of Dsquared2. I love those guys. They come to my house and we have lunch; it&amp;#039;s that kind of relationship. Outside of that, I love Tom Ford. I have this thing in my closet, The 15 Things You Must Have by Tom Ford. I&amp;#039;m a fan of multiple brands, especially the brands that have been around for a long time. Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein\u2014I wear it all. What are some of your summer essentials? Am I packing a bag? (Laughs) There are three pairs of jeans I need to have: white jeans, grey jeans, and black jeans. They need to fit the right way, lay over the sneakers the right way. If you&amp;#039;re a person who wants to present yourself a certain way and you&amp;#039;re into business, you should always carry a suit jacket when you carry a bag. Go-to suit jacket is a navy blue, can&amp;#039;t go wrong. I need crisp white and black T-shirts, I always pack four when I go somewhere. If all else fails, I&amp;#039;m going to throw on this black tee that fits right, and I&amp;#039;m set. But then I&amp;#039;m an athlete as well, so I need my sneakers and athletic gear with me. When you&amp;#039;re getting dressed, how much input does your wife Gabrielle [Union] put in? Not a lot, we both let each other do our thing because we&amp;#039;re different. But she&amp;#039;ll ask for my opinion on certain things. She&amp;#039;ll be like &amp;quot;Bae, what do you think about this?&amp;quot; Cause I&amp;#039;m a man, so she wants me to be happy with what she&amp;#039;s wearing. We have his and hers closets in our house in Miami. We shut the door, we both get dressed, and come out and we&amp;#039;ll be strangely coordinating. And I&amp;#039;ll tell her, &amp;quot;We look good, let&amp;#039;s go.&amp;quot; (Laughs) But we&amp;#039;re there for each other, if need be. With retirement looming and several accessory collections to your credit, do you have plans to launch your own clothing line? I do, at the right time. I have so many things going on, and I have some good years left in basketball. But that&amp;#039;s eventually where I want to go. Right now I&amp;#039;m building my vision from the body up: I have watches, socks; I have ties, and some other things coming down the pipeline that I can&amp;#039;t talk about just yet. But eventually the Holy Grail is to have my own line. It&amp;#039;s just about doing it at the right time and with the right people. I don&amp;#039;t like to rush into anything. I want it to be as authentic as it can be, so when the time is right, I hope we can do it.  The Dwyane Wade for The Tie Bar Summer 2015 Collection hits stores and the Web on May 26. 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