Alysa Liu Talks Her Bay Area Style and Going From the Olympics to Louis Vuitton’s Front Row

Alysa Liu is a two-time Olympic gold medal-winning figure skater with a style all her own. Anyone who watched her joyful, pure-hearted performance on the ice at the Milan Winter Games in February fell in love with her energy, along with her look. She’s known for her striped hair (which she likens to rings on a tree) and the “Smiley” lip piercing she reveals anytime she lets out a big, toothy grin (which is often). Both were on full display on March 10, when Liu made her first-ever trip to Paris to attend her first-ever fashion show with Louis Vuitton. The Oakland, California native sat front row with fellow attendees Zendaya, Lisa, Chase Infiniti, and Jennifer Connelly for fall 2026.

“I have no idea how fashion shows work,” Liu told W from France the day before the show. She’d touched down in Europe and immediately went to her fitting at Louis Vuitton, selecting the outfit she’d wear to the show—a brown denim-on-denim set with a classic monogrammed Express bag. “I don’t know what the scheduled program is, I’m really excited to just witness it and see the looks—as well as who’s going to be there.”

It turns out the iconic LV print bears a potent memory for Liu, who is 20 years old. “I was probably 11, at a competition in L.A.,” she recalled of the first time she saw a Vuitton piece in the flesh. “One of my competitors, she had a mini LV backpack, with the classic logo’ed-up monogram. I remember being like, ‘That’s so cute.’”

In fact, much of Liu’s personal sense of style is influenced by her upbringing as the oldest of five children, along with her Bay Area roots (she moved around Oakland, Richmond, and Alameda as a child). “The Bay in general has made my fashion sense what it is, it’s really shaped it,” she said, citing a regional uniform of baggy pants, a light jacket for the mild weather, and beanies. “Also, I love platforms, because I’m on the shorter side.”

When asked who she considers a fashion icon, Liu says “Honestly, my siblings. I’m sitting here right now in my brother’s jeans. And my sisters as well—three of them are triplets, but the triplets dress so different from each other.”

“One of my sisters is pretty emo, a little bit punk-scene, if you will,” she added. “And then my other sister likes the basics. She does denim-on-denim fits. I’m like, ‘Dang, you really pull that off!’ Of course, as an older sister, I give them my clothes, but in return, sometimes they’ll give me theirs. We share a lot, even though all of us have different fashion tastes.”

The athlete, who is of half-Chinese descent (her father, Arthur Liu, fled to the U.S. after organizing pro-democracy protests during the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, then raised the kids as a single dad in California) describes her style as “very eclectic.” She can usually be found thrifting, which she did while in Italy last month. “In Milan, I bought this doctor’s bag at a vintage store. It was my one purchase when I was at the Olympics,” Liu said. “The handle did break, but I’m planning on getting it fixed. I really like it.” There might be shopping in the cards for her Paris trip as well, but Liu said she’s mainly focused on getting crepes and visiting a friend who’s attending pastry school in the French capital.

Liu was unmistakable on Tuesday, snapping photos for paparazzi outside of the Louis Vuitton show at the Louvre, her striped hair flowing. The look has become something of a signature—but Liu reveals she doesn’t do touch-ups, nor does she use purple shampoo. “It kind of just stays like this,” she said. “Once it’s bleached and they tone it, it’s good. I’ve never thought about it as an option before, but now that touch-ups are being brought up...” She laughs, then gives words of advice to those who are aiming to achieve the same hairstyle: “Go to a professional, because that really helped me. And do whatever you want with your hair.”