The Pro Golfer and Vintage Miu Miu Collector Transforming F1 Paddocks Into Runways

For too long, the world put athletes into singular boxes. Your sport is your priority, and anything outside of that is just a distraction. They said it to Lewis Hamilton when he first started to dip his toe into fashion. More recently, they said it to Paige Bueckers during her "summer world tour" before her senior year at UConn. In today's sports world, the best, most recognizable athletes aren't just one thing. Need more proof? Meet Lily Muni He.

He has been playing golf since she was 5 years old—her whole life. She's 26 now, and the sport her father introduced her to as a toddler in Chengdu, China, where she was born, is now more than just a hobby. "It's my job," she tells me over Zoom at the end of September. "Having it as a job and loving it as a sport can be very different at times." He got serious about pursuing a career in professional golf after her family moved first to Vancouver when she was 9 and then settled in San Diego. She continues, "The lifestyle is something you have to learn to adapt to and love, and that's something I struggled with at the beginning of my career."

Though He still calls California home, she's rarely there for long periods of time. Already this LPGA season, she's traveled around America, checking off Portland, Oregon; Maineville, Ohio; and Boston, Massachusetts as well as international courses in Shanghai and northern France, and that doesn't account for her stops along the Formula One calendar. As the longtime girlfriend of Williams driver Alex Albon, she's frequently spotted in the F1 paddock, usually wearing a perfect mixture of sought-after vintage Miu Miu and Roberto Cavalli and sold-out It items by Bottega Veneta and Hermès. He is a modern-day renaissance woman, juggling a professional sports career; long-distance relationships with her partner, friends, and family; and a budding career in fashion. Fortunately, when you love everything you do, finding ways to balance them all is a good problem to have.

ON GOLF: He tells me during our call that it's her first day home since early June. "I make sure to revisit and refine my love for the sport," she says when I ask her how she doesn't burn out. "What helps me is going out there and playing by myself. I really enjoy the peacefulness of it all. To me, it's a form of therapy." She'll also get a group of friends together to play when her schedule allows it but never anyone she typically competes against. "We get so caught up in it all," she tells me. "Golf is such a frustrating sport—if you don't hit the shot exactly how you want to, you often feel really disappointed, so it's important to remind yourself that it's just a game."

According to He, playing golf for the last two decades has taught her a lot, and it's not just which club to pull for each shot and the perfect angle for a foolproof put. "You start to learn that, actually, mistakes happen every round, every hole, and you can't control what's not within your control," she says. As a result, she's naturally become better equipped to deal with frustration, mistakes, and strong emotions. "It's helped me to become more patient in life as well," she says. "It's crazy [how much] golf has shaped my life." According to her, everything about who she is now is because of the sport she took up as a little kid. "Who I am now, what I do, everything in my life is so tightly connected to who I was able to meet through golf—my friends and even my relationship," she says. The fact that He will still have the ability to play the game that she's always loved when she eventually retires is even more rewarding. "It's such a cornerstone of my life, and I'm so grateful for it," she continues.

That's not to say that golf doesn't come with its pain points. Being a woman in such a male-dominated, traditional sport hasn't always been easy for He. "We have country clubs, and a lot of these country clubs restrict female members, or there are very strict dress codes," she tells me. "There seem to be double standards when it comes to males and females within the sport, and it's taken me many years to realize that and unlearn a lot of those double standards." Although difficult, doing so has been an empowering process. "Proving the stigmas wrong has been a big journey for me," she says. Now that women's sports and women's golf, in particular, are growing, visible changes are happening. "I see a lot more young girls and women in general getting into golf," she tells me. "That's the ultimate goal: to get more women involved and interested in playing golf and [all] sports." There's still a long way to go, according to He, but "that doesn't mean we're not getting anywhere."

ON LIFE OUTSIDE OF GOLF: Golf isn't He's only priority, though, and finding balance in life is something she's constantly thinking about, even if she doesn't have it down 100% of the time. "I do realize that the life I live right now is not very normal, and it's probably not sustainable in the long-term," she tells me, but that's okay. "I love everything that I do. I love my sport, I love my relationship, [and] I love having a brand outside of golf, and because I value all these things in my life, it has been a bit hectic." Maybe it's the patience or serenity she's learned through her craft, but He understands that, while she's doing a lot now, that won't always be the case. Certain weeks, months, and even years will see her priorities shift in different directions, but at this second, she's okay with a bit of chaos.

"Next year, I will be prioritizing my personal time a bit more," she admits. "Spending time at home, resting up, and being with my family and friends—that's something that's been neglected in these past two years that I came to realize is a very important part of my life." If giving time to that means sacrificing a little bit here and there, it's worth it to He. Like with her golf game, her life off the course requires just as much continuous self-reflection. "Listening to my own feelings and trusting [them] and letting [them] guide what [I] should be doing is important," she says.

ON FASHION: One of the non-golf-related ventures she's been focusing on is fashion, an industry she never thought she'd pursue as a career growing up but found herself in simply due to genuine interest. "I never knew I wanted to get into it, but fashion was something I was always very passionate about since I was a kid," she says. Her sister studied fashion design, so He was raised around clothes. They'd come up with fun outfit ideas together and make their own DIY Halloween costumes. "Before I turned professional, I got on social media, and I started to gain a bit of a following. I realized that maybe this is my niche," she says of fashion. "A lot of my followers often would comment how they enjoyed my looks on and off the course, so I started to share a bit more of them." Eventually, brands that didn't usually partner with golfers began reaching out, opening He up to new opportunities and introducing these labels to an entirely different landscape in women's professional golf. In recent years, He has worked on campaigns for Miu Miu, David Yurman, and Calvin Klein. ["Women's sports are] a huge market that [nontraditional sports brands] haven't tapped into, but now, they are," she says. "I love it!"

ON PADDOCK STYLE: There are limits to what she can wear on the golf course, but there is another sporting arena where she's been able to flex her style and growing collection of rare designer vintage. Soon after she began dating Albon in 2019, He started attending races on the F1 calendar to support him in her free time. "It's given me an opportunity to dress up more often, which is fun," she says. "[F1] has always been a very glamorous sport, but at certain races—for example, Singapore or Abu Dhabi—people tend to dress up like it's a party, and I find that very cool for me, inspiration-wise."

Accessories are her bread and butter, something you'll notice the second you scroll through her Instagram feed. "I know what works for me, and sometimes, I like very clean silhouettes," she explains. Because she's not very tall, she says, they just work better for her frame. "But I love fun accessories, whether it's handbags or shoes or just little details. I feel like they add so much personality and uniqueness to my personal style." There's the JW Anderson Pigeon Clutch she's regularly spotted with around the paddock as well as the Coperni F/W 23 hand emoji tank she wore in a photo posted on IG. Maison Margiela Tabis in all heel heights and styles are frequently seen on He—as are crafty Bottega Veneta bags and shoes in unexpected shapes (like a wristlet in the form of an Intrecciato-wrapped orange). And then there's her rare Hermès Bolide on Wheels Bag. "I've had my eye on it for so long," she tells me. "I've turned down some very nice bags that people would typically want just to have that bag, which I'm very happy now to own."

ON VINTAGE: Collecting archival fashion items has been a passion of He's since high school. "I could talk about it forever," she says. "It used to be just thrift finds or whatever I could find on Depop—not necessarily designer—but then when I turned professional, I rewarded myself with the vintage Chanel surf dress from 2002." It was her first big purchase back in 2016 or 2017, and she paid $600 for it. It was a lot of money to her, but when Kylie Jenner wore the dress a year later, its value on the secondhand market skyrocketed to upward of $6000. "That started my whole obsession with finding really good vintage pieces and deals and collecting them," she says. "I joke and say it's like an investment, but it's also kind of true."

He plays favorites not only with brands but also with specific seasons from those labels. "I have a lot of vintage Prada and Miu Miu from 1996, 1997, 1999, and then into the early 2000s," she tells me. "I tend to go down a rabbit hole of runway photos of a brand or a season that I like and then just go out there and scout the internet for whatever pieces from those seasons." At the moment, He's parents' house has three closets full of just her clothes, including her vast collection of vintage, as well as all her golf gear. "I just hoard them," she jokes. For He, digging through the internet's vast world of vintage fashion is an escape from her hectic and hypercompetitive lifestyle. It's a way to unwind when she's on the road that not only calms her and takes her mind off whatever tournament she's playing in at the moment but also satisfies her other off-course interests. "It makes me so happy," she says.

When she can, He likes to shop for vintage in person, too, mostly during breaks in her international travels. "Europe, in general, is very good for sourcing," she tells me. In her opinion, Americans have started to realize just how much vintage designer pieces can be worth, so they tend to significantly mark up prices. In Europe, they're still selling just from their closets instead of reselling for a big profit, so you can find rare vintage pieces for a fair price. "I spend quite a bit of time in Monaco and the South of France, and I know there's always really nice vintage markets on the weekends in Nice, so I've dragged Alex there a few times," she says. "Shopping is not his favorite hobby, but he loves to come with me."

He and Albon supporting each other's interests is something that came up a lot during our 30-minute call. It's one of the reasons why she's often jetting around the world during her off weekends, and the same goes for him. It's also why she doesn't mind being called a WAG, a controversial term used to reference the wives and girlfriends of athletes. "Alex and I always joke that we're each other's WAG because, to us, [a] WAG or HAB [husbands and boyfriends] is just the partner of a professional athlete, and that's how I feel when I go to races," she says. She's there to cheer on Albon, period. "We feel really lucky to just support each other in both of our sports. If that's to be called a WAG, then yeah, I am a WAG," she adds. But Albon is just as much her WAG as she is his. "Now, everyone calls him a WAG, which he's very happy to be," she says. At the end of the day, He always remembers who she is—a professional athlete—and no catchy nickname is going to change that. "Never for a second do I forget my own career and my own sport," she tells me. "It's [what] I've dedicated my whole life to."