After NFL player Tyrod Taylor and his fashion consultant, Dex Robinson, launched their innovative fashion brand DIALLO, they dropped Acts I, II, and III. All three collections were specifically designed for athletic builds. The brand was named for Taylor’s middle name, which also loosely means “bold,” “confident,” or “courageous” in the West African Fula language.

Both raised in Virginia, the New York Jets quarterback and the celebrity stylist crossed paths when they started working together after the former was drafted into the NFL in 2011. Over the years, Taylor’s game-day looks have caught the attention of many and continued to be a conversation starter, thanks in part to Robinson’s styling expertise.

When it came to collaborating in business, they built a natural friendship that easily translated over to launching DIALLO in 2021. Their cropped practice jerseys quickly became popular, especially with stars like Future and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wearing them, according to Complex.

For the brand’s third release, the entrepreneurs dropped their "Act III: Echoes of Legacy" collection in August 2025. The month before, at ESSENCE Fest, REVOLT spoke with Taylor and Robinson about how they joined forces, what differentiates their brand from others, the difficulties that men with athletic builds can face when buying clothes, and more. Keep reading to find out what the duo had to say.

The results of the fashion disruptors' partnership expanded into a high-end lifestyle brand that blends vintage and present eras of Black culture, but they were unsure exactly how they wanted to present themselves in the fashion arena when they first began their collaboration.

"He has a stylist background, [and] me being into sports, going to Fashion Week, seeing different brands, the conversation started as to how we would show up if we wanted to get into fashion," the pro-football veteran told REVOLT.

Robinson sees the working dynamic with his longtime client as a rare opportunity, especially in the sports sector, because Taylor truly believes in his creative views.

"It says to someone who wants to work in the sports space that you can have a client that believes in you. And I didn't say, 'Hey, let's start a brand.' He said to me, 'I think I want to start a brand.' And him even asking me, I felt honored," Robinson shared. "I felt empowered to do more than just style people. It shows me as a businessperson that someone trusts my vision beyond just making a look to go to game day arrival."

Although Taylor has been fortunate enough to find clothing that fits, discussions about finding apparel tailored to athletic builds during locker-room banter and in general conversations often revealed just how tough it was to source flattering styles.

"In the sports world, you have guys that are built so many different ways. I'm fortunate [that] although I've played sports, I can shop off the rack. That's not the reality for a lot of guys. A lot of guys get clothes that they spend hundreds, thousands of dollars on, and still have to get it tailored," the athlete said.

This led to them curating luxury collections that are ushering in a new renaissance of dignified clothing, offering a diverse range of items including T-Shirts & polos, jerseys, hoodies, sweatshirts, shirts, pants, shorts, and outerwear.

"Ultimately, we can reimagine what it looks like for African Americans, athletic-built bodies to show up in the fashion space because not a lot of brands out there, I would say, put us at the forefront when being creative," Taylor expressed. "We wanted to create a platform or create a line, a lifestyle brand, that speaks to how we could show up and what makes sense for us from a comfort, fit [and] design perspective."

The mission of DIALLO is about representation, catering to fashion-forward individuals who want top-of-the-line craftsmanship. "We try to think from a lens of what does that look like if you're opening up different seams... just making it fit more comfortably, but still present as fashionable as well," Taylor noted.

"I feel like they focus on us [Black people], like our culture, when it comes from a marketing standpoint, but not from the POV of 'Why is his waist a 32 but his thighs are 36 or 34?' We have to go all the way up two sizes for $2,000 trousers and then go back and put another $200 into it because they're not being thoughtful of a Black man's physique," Robinson chimed in to note. "They're using their simple sizes, [which] are mediums or smalls, and their models are 30 waists and straight and narrow. We got thighs. We got back sides. That's really why we want to be intentional about that, so we kind of mitigate that problem."

Taylor recognized that while the brand continues to expand its reach to various athletes, its core community remains aligned with the audience it was initially created to serve. "Obviously, there's still room to grow within that from tackling every different form of athlete, but I think that we're spot on when it comes to the target market of who we built a community around."

Check out their third collection, "Act III: Echoes of Legacy," on DIALLO's website.