The Evolution of Tennis Fashion, from 1901–2011

Patricia Garcia

With the US Open currently underway in New York, a look through our archives reminds us that there was once a time when women practiced their backhand not in neon spandex, but wearing lace-up corsets, court-length skirts, ladylike slippers, and even, on occasion, a well-placed fur. Then there was Katharine Hepburn, taking to the green, racket in hand, in a pair of shorts, which one thought might be shocking until, a few years later, came the advent of the short tennis skirt (in pastels, no less). And what of the Williams sisters' defiant, exciting approach to tennis whites? In honor of fashion's long-standing role in this long-running sport, here are examples, decade by decade, of the most stylishly standout moment in tennis dressing.

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