30-Love: Fashion For the Next Generation - Tennis Magazine

Since its beginnings as a pastime for Europe’s upper crust, tennis has been embedded in the fashion world. Champions like Rene Lacoste and Stan Smith are remembered as much for their contributions to style as their on-court achievements, while the legendary Suzanne Lenglen helped pioneer sportswear for women. Fashion comes and goes, of course, but tennis remains an inexorable link to today’s looks—though now perhaps in a new way.

Sportswear and ‘athleisure’ have become America’s go-to uniform, especially as more people work from home due to the pandemic and its effect on society. Thanks in part to social media and a host of new American fashion brands, tennis and its aesthetic are now more in vogue than ever before.

Part of this is another effect of COVID-19: a growing interest in tennis. Played outdoors and at a safe distance, participation has surged in the last two years, with the USTA reporting a 22 percent increase in 2020 from a year earlier and bucking a long-term decline. That trend continued into 2021, with equipment sales also up 40 percent, according to the Tennis Industry Association.

And because these days it’s impossible to take up a new hobby and not tell the world about it, tennis is thriving on Instagram and TikTok as much as on the public courts. The sport’s nostalgia-tinged aesthetic found a home alongside the sourdough starters and Animal Crossing islands that featured heavily on social media feeds. The global visibility of superstar Naomi Osaka hasn’t hurt.

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