The World’s Most Fashionable Judoka Is Looking for Clothes in His Size

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The World’s Most Fashionable Judoka Is Looking for Clothes in His Size

If you’re 6-foot-8 and 300 pounds, it can be hard to find fashionable clothes.

This is true even if you’re one of France’s most beloved, most decorated and most fashionable athletes.

Teddy Riner, a French judoka and style star who has been featured on multiple magazine covers, is an 11-time world champion, has won five Olympic medals (three of which were gold) and five ********* championships, making him the most decorated judoka in the world. In Paris this month he will take part in his fifth Olympic Games — this time in his home country — with a chance of burnishing these records even further.

But, as Mr. Riner says, he is more than just an athlete. He was the cover model of the summer issue of

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, modeling outfits by Balenciaga, Dolce & Gabbana, Rick Owens and more. In March, he attended a Balenciaga show at Paris Fashion Week. Known as Teddy Bear or Big Ted, he has also been

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At a conference on sport and fashion that was sponsored by The New York Times in Paris earlier this month, Mr. Riner, who was wearing a Burberry button-down shirt and a wide smile, said that one day he would “100 percent” create his own ready-to-wear clothing line.

Now 35, Mr. Riner said that as a teenager he vowed he would not work for someone else once he had earned his high school diploma. At the time he told his father, who had insisted he stay in school even though he was already winning medals in judo, “I am my own boss, and that’s it.”

Mr. Riner already has a fashion brand, Fightart, which he founded two years ago. It sells kimonos for judo, as well as sweatpants, T-shirts and other leisure wear that a judoka may need before and after practice. He has also designed a shoe with the French sporting goods retailer Decathlon and was a

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When he was a younger man and did not have the means, connections and fame to wear custom-made pieces, it was much ******* to find clothes, let alone stylish ones, that fit him.

“I have a lot of pain when I don’t find my size,” Mr. Riner said. “But for me now,” he said with an in-on-the-game smirk, “if I want the size, they have the size.”

Some fashion houses have started making clothes in his size, including high-fashion ones like Givenchy. Athletes could help more brands do the same, Mr. Riner said at the Times conference.

A future clothing line of his own would take different sizes into account in a way that many high fashion and high street houses do not, Mr. Riner said. He would also design for men and women, for whom he said he already had some ideas. One of his role models? ********** Louboutin.

For now, Mr. Riner is focused on the mat rather than the runway as he prepares for the Olympics. Speculation about his retirement has swirled for years, but Mr. Riner said he expects to compete in the 2028 Summer Games as well.

“Los Angeles is a beautiful city,” he said, “and I want to go.”

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