Still Popular Today
See the newest pleated skirts & skorts by clicking here
Every time you step out on court you are making a fashion statement, and you're not the first. Women tennis players have been at the vanguard of women's tennis apparel style for decades. It is not that women just want to look good, they want to play better, and with the latest designs and fabric technology, they get what they want. WTA Stars get more than a good deal of money for wearing the latest tennis clothes, they also get the most up to the minute styles with enhanced ventilation and superior moisture wicking. Watch and learn, as they say.
Early women's tennis players had to stay with their age's style as well, and it wasn't easy or good for their game. Women came on the tennis scene around 1860, and the order of the day was some huge, stylish hat, and a full-length dress made of some heavy material such as flannel. This was not all, though; at the time 'bustles' were in fashion, a strange shaped petticoat that made your rear look bigger! Fact is stranger than fiction, for sure. They wore long, heavy stockings, and their shoes were certainly not good for playing tennis. The reason many prestigious tennis clubs (including Wimbledon) require players to play in mostly white is an old throw-back from these days. White does not show perspiration stains as much as colors, thus the 'Wimbledon Whites'.
Around the turn of the 20th century the very first women's tennis designers started to appear, much like the Williams sisters. They did this from necessity rather than vanity. Mary Sutton caused a stir at Wimbledon 1905 by wearing one of her father's shirts, rather than the constricting female blouses of the day. Why was this so shocking? Because it revealed her wrists!
These gradual 'fashion statements' started to come thick and fast. Soon after the First World War, one the greatest French women's Champions, Suzanne Lenglen, pushed the frontier further, wearing a daring calf-length cotton tennis dress swathed in colorful silk chiffon. She also had the nerve to roll her stockings up to her knees and wear a head-band! Very shocking indeed for the Wimbledon Championships.
The first example of the classic pleated tennis skirt appeared just before the Second World War when Helen Moody played in what appeared to be school uniform, a pleated tennis skirt and a short-sleeved white blouse. Thankfully, this is also the time when stockings were not mandatory tennis apparel for women.
An interesting note to all of this is the connection between Wimbledon 1949 and Wimbledon 2007; both events were almost eclipsed in the world's media by the subject of young ladies 'knickers'. In 1949 Gertrude "Gussy" Moran unveiled a regulation tennis dress, but wore beneath a pair of frilly underpants. The world's media was set a 'buzz' again at Wimbledon 2007 by a 'fashion statement' by Tatiana Golovin and her red shorts. Since Wimbledon still has a strict tradition of dress code, it was questionable that Tatiana's tennis outfit was sanctioned by the club. It was lucky for Wimbledon that she never got past the first round, but it would have been probably more interesting if she had.
What have we learned? I'd say never worry about pushing back the boundaries, but only if you think your tennis clothing will enhance your confidence and your game. Never go on court in any clothes that make you feel in anyway uncomfortable. You have enough to concentrate on, first being your game. This is what it is really all about, and our ancestors knew that.
