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 European 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 GQ France, 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 the subject of a documentary.

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.”