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If there was any doubt about tennis’s current influence on fashion, a walk around Wimbledon will put it to rest. There have been some nail-biting matches at the grand slam so far this year, but for Wimbledon attendees, the stakes were also high off court, as members of the public and celebrities upped their fashion game amid the tenniscore boom.
Attendees paired tennis skorts and polo dresses with blazers and heels, slung white knits over the shoulders of shirt dresses, or sported tennis shoes and baseball caps with striped, preppy suiting. Celebrities like Nicole Scherzinger, Kaya Scodelario, Shygirl and Brittany Mahomes, wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, rocked all-white, tennis-inspired looks and preppy co-ords from brands including Ralph Lauren and Gucci. Actor Jodie Turner-Smith wore a full layered look in Wimbledon’s signature colours, purple and green.
To ride the wave, fashion brands are tapping the new generation of tennis stars as ambassadors, launching their own tennis collections in line with tournaments, and dressing a new breed of tennis fashion influencer.
As public interest in tennis grows, Wimbledon attracts an increasingly broad audience, says Wimbledon head of retail and merchandising Daniel Ashmore. Sales through the Wimbledon online shop — which includes Wimbledon-branded clothing and an extensive range by Polo Ralph Lauren — were up 54 per cent during the five months from January to May, compared to the same period last year, and are “flying” as the tournament progresses, Ashmore says. Wimbledon responded to the spike in demand by expanding and refurbishing its No.1 Court Store on-site, to increase capacity and create “a more premium retail experience”, Ashmore says.
“Amid the tenniscore, sportlux moment that feels like it has been growing for a number of years, we’re seeing really positive sales,” Ashmore says. “Particularly the last couple of summers, and after the [April release of Luca Guadagnino’s] Challengers film, you see people come to the championships in beautiful clothes. We’re very pleased to be one of those events where people really want to dress for the occasion.”
While non-fashion merch or more basic styles used to lead sales, Ashmore notes a shift in sales towards classic white performance clothing, like skorts, “reflecting the broader market trend for sport-luxe and tennis whites”. Another bestseller that’s “flying” this year both online and at Wimbledon stores is a cream knit with a strawberry motif on the front, riffing on Wimbledon’s strawberries and cream tradition, Ashmore says.
How brands are tapping in
When 22-year-old Italian player and Gucci ambassador Jannik Sinner stepped onto Wimbledon’s Centre Court carrying a non-regulation monogrammed duffle bag from the brand last summer, it felt like a watershed moment in the luxury-tennis tie-up. Since then, Sinner has been ranked World No. 1, and the tenniscore trend has gained steam following the release of Challengers, which took the sport into the pop culture stratosphere.
On 9 May, Gucci released a new campaign starring Sinner, featuring photographs from his on-court appearances over the last year, with the tagline “Gucci is a feeling”. In the first two days, the campaign generated $1 million in media impact value (MIV), per Launchmetrics. Sinner’s post about it generated 13.5 per cent of the total value. In the run-up to Wimbledon, the campaign took over screens in London’s Piccadilly Circus. The brand also held a star-studded dinner on 26 June in London, to celebrate Sinner’s new #1 ATP ranking ahead of his Wimbledon run. Then, a week before Wimbledon, Gucci launched a new tennis capsule collection worldwide, featuring tennis whites, a white monogrammed duffle, and new styles of Gucci tennis shoes.
It’s not just Gucci: Boss, the millennial-focused arm of Hugo Boss, first tapped Italian tennis player Matteo Berrettini as an ambassador in 2022, following the company’s rebrand. It releases a Boss x Berrettini tennis fashion capsule every summer to “great commercial success”, says SVP of global marketing Nadia Kokni. Italian tailoring brand Kiton launched its first luxury tennis collection at Pitti Uomo in June, inspired by the new generation of Italian players and their “positive attitude” to the sport, CEO Antonio De Matteis told Vogue Business.
While it’s yet to release a full tennis collection, Loewe leads the tenniscore trend in terms of media impact value, because designer Jonathan Anderson designed outfits for the Challengers film and press tour, releasing the iconic “I Told Ya” T-shirt from the film to buy, WeArisma CEO and founder Jenny Tsai adds.
Ralph Lauren has been a Wimbledon partner for 19 years, providing uniforms for all on-court officials, creating collaborative collections, hosting a Ralph Lauren-branded cafe at Wimbledon and transforming its own London flagship and cafe into a Wimbledon-themed activation for the duration of the tournament. The capsule collection evolves each year, and this year features 105 styles, from more formal knits and shirts to tracksuits and caps. Wimbledon began selling Ralph Lauren pieces in 2006, and the collection has scaled up considerably in recent years, Ashmore says.
“The perception of the style of Wimbledon has become inextricably linked to [our brand],” says David Lauren, chief branding and innovation officer at Ralph Lauren.
The tennis aesthetic
Part of the reason for the heightened Wimbledon buzz this year is the young tennis stars rising the ranks. This includes Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe (US), Sinner and Berrettini (Italy), Dior ambassador Emma Raducanu (UK) and Iga Świątek (Poland). “Tennis has really grown in the US in the last couple of years because of the breakout stars that we haven’t had in a long time,” says Morgan Riddle, the girlfriend of rising American player Taylor Fritz. Fritz, who is a Boss and Rolex ambassador, also walked for Hermès last September in the brand’s AW23 show.
Riddle has become known as a tennis fashion creator, posting content of her courtside outfits to her 500,000 followers on TikTok and 300,000 on Instagram. She also hosts Wimbledon’s YouTube series Wimbledon Threads, speaking to attendees about their outfits during the tournament. Luxury labels like Miu Miu, Burberry and Balmain have dressed her for this year’s tournament event.
“Wimbledon has an incredible level of glitz and glamour that is synonymous with high-end fashion brands. The site is beautiful, everything’s very aesthetic. So for luxury labels, it’s a seamless fit,” she says, speaking on the phone from Wimbledon on Tuesday, shortly before Fritz was defeated by Lorenzo Musetti in the quarter-final. “Now the other grand slams are becoming more about fashion too. There’s been such a shift over the last four years. Before, there were so many tournaments that I used to attend that were super casual. People wore T-shirts and shorts and sneakers. Now, people get way more dressed up.”
TikTok content
Conversation on social media around tennis-influenced fashion typically builds momentum from March every year and peaks during Wimbledon in July, according to media value data from influencer marketing and intelligence platform WeArisma, which measures the value of social media posts and article mentions, based on estimated acquisition costs per post/engagement. In May 2024, as the Italian Open kicked off the European grand slam season, influencers, celebrities and press shared over 4,500 posts mentioning tennis and fashion on social media — an 18 per cent increase year-on-year, the platform says.
"Brands like Loewe and Gucci have wholeheartedly embraced this trend and leveraged collaborations with celebrities, athletes, and influencers, propelling this movement to new heights,” says Tsai. “Our data underscores the pivotal role of strategic partnerships with tennis stars or tennis culture stars like Zendaya, in allowing brands to harness trends and become synonymous with tennis.”
Boss’s Kokni attended Wimbledon last Wednesday, to watch Berrettini take on Sinner in the second round. He was ultimately knocked out, but she said the match speaks to why he’s a key ambassador, and why tennis stars and Wimbledon align with Boss’s brand messaging.
“Berrettini has gotten to the top, had an injury, overcome adversity, trained, got back to Wimbledon, connected with the fans, and delivered a performance that was final worthy, and did his post-match interviews with such good grace and humour, that’s what the Boss mindset is about,” she says. “That emotional connection and the power that you can get from athletes and from sport events like this, you can’t replicate that with anything else.”
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