{"id":15175,"date":"2025-07-07T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=15175"},"modified":"2025-07-02T12:47:59","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T12:47:59","slug":"wimbledon-white-dress-code-tennis-fashion-tradition-athlete-uniforms-july-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wimbledon-white-dress-code-tennis-fashion-tradition-athlete-uniforms-july-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Why white clothing is so widespread in sport \u2013 and a requirement at\u00a0Wimbledon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\n\n Roger Fagge<\/a>, University of Warwick<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

When Carlos Alcaraz beat Jannik Sinner at the Roland Garros men\u2019s final on June 8 2025, in what is already seen as a classic match<\/a>, there was some comment on the sartorial choices of the two players.<\/p>\n\n

They both wore Nike tops<\/a>. Alcaraz\u2019s was collarless, with horizontal blue bordered green and black stripes, and black shorts. Meanwhile Sinner wore a green polo-style shirt with collar, blue shorts and a blue Nike cap. Sinner\u2019s shirt bore more than a passing resemblance to an Irish rugby union top, and was seen by some as somewhat incongruous on a tennis court. <\/p>\n\n

In the women\u2019s final<\/a> on June 7, meanwhile, Coco Gauff brilliantly defeated Aryna Sabalenka, the number one seed. Gauff<\/a> wore a custom New Balance kit with a dark blue marbled effect, finished off with a stylish grey leather jacket worn to and from the court. Sabalenka<\/a> wore a colourful Nike tennis dress.<\/p>\n\n

Technology, design and fashion all play a role in a player\u2019s choice of tennis kit, as does their commercial potential \u2013 Sabalenka\u2019s exact dress can be bought from the Nike website. But things are different at the Wimbledon championships, where \u201calmost entirely white\u201d kit<\/a> is still a requirement. <\/p>\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

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Founded in 1877, making it the oldest and most prestigious tennis tournament in the world, at Wimbledon, any colour must be limited to a 10mm strip. <\/p>\n\n

White clothing was enforced at Wimbledon from the 19th century, in part because it covered up unwelcome signs of sweat. White clothing was also seen as cooler in the summer heat. But as time went on it became tied in with a sense of history and tradition, and the uniqueness of the Wimbledon tournament. Though there have been some occasional notable revisions. <\/p>\n\n

Many women in the tennis community,<\/a> including Billie Jean King, Judy Murray and Heather Watson, have argued that women players find white undershorts problematic when they are menstruating. As a result, the All England Club revised the rules in 2023 to allow dark undershorts, \u201cprovided they are no longer than their shorts or skirt\u201d.<\/p>\n\n

There had been earlier controversies over clothing at Wimbledon, sometimes over propriety, as in 1949, when Gertrude Moran<\/a> challenged dress codes with \u201cvisible undergarments\u201d. More recently in 2017 Venus Williams<\/a> was asked to change during a rain break in a match because of visible fuchsia bras straps. The following year, Roger Federer<\/a>, chasing his eighth Wimbledon title, was asked to change his orange-soled Nike shoes. They all acquiesced.<\/p>\n\n

This history of all-white kits<\/h2>\n\n

All-white clothing is also linked to cricket, which shares elements of class and tradition with tennis. Playing in the summer sun meant cricket \u201cwhites\u201d were a sensible option. However coloured caps of a player\u2019s county or nation, were allowed by the cricket authorities, and cricket jumpers for the not so sunny days typically had the colours of the team on the v neck. <\/p>\n\n

\n \"Man\n
\n White clothing is also associated with cricket.<\/span>\n Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n

By 2020 the international Cricket Council (ICC) allowed larger sponsorship<\/a> on shirts. The move to limited overs games played under floodlights saw the introduction of coloured kit, sometimes displaying a garishness that surpassed football shirts. However Test matches and longer-form cricket like the four-day county championship matches are still played in cricket whites.<\/p>\n\n

And white shirts and kit have played a role in other sports, including football. If white shirts suggest respectability and style, somewhat ironically, the powerful white-clad Leeds side of the mid 1960s-70s, managed by Don Revie, earned the sobriquet \u201cdirty Leeds\u201d<\/a> for their feisty approach to the dark arts of football. History and tradition matter as much in football as any sport, and fans of a certain age at other clubs, still refer to the Yorkshire club by this moniker. <\/p>\n\n

But that\u2019s enough football, as we\u2019re firmly in Wimbledon season. So break out the Pimm\u2019s, scones and jam, and let\u2019s enjoy the tennis. Thankfully for the traditionalists among us there will be no marbled, green or blue kit on the centre court.<\/p>\n\n

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org<\/a>. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org<\/a> The Conversation UK may earn a commission.<\/em>\"The<\/p>\n\n

Roger Fagge<\/a>, Associate Professor in the Department of History, University of Warwick<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roger Fagge, University of Warwick When Carlos Alcaraz beat Jannik Sinner at the Roland Garros men\u2019s final on…\n","protected":false},"author":1267,"featured_media":15177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/9\/92\/Wimbledon_2019_%285%29_-_geograph.org.uk_-_6269455.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[14004,14016,14006,14005,14021,14029,14008,14011,14013,14024,14018,14030,14019,14017,14032,14026,14007,14012,14031,14023,14027,14014,14028,14025,14009,14015,14020,14010,14022],"class_list":{"0":"post-15175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-history","8":"tag-aryna-sabalenka","9":"tag-billie-jean-king","10":"tag-carlos-alcaraz","11":"tag-coco-gauff","12":"tag-cricket-whites","13":"tag-gertrude-moran","14":"tag-jannik-sinner","15":"tag-new-balance-tennis-kit","16":"tag-nike-tennis-kit","17":"tag-roger-federer","18":"tag-sports-and-tradition","19":"tag-sports-branding","20":"tag-sports-uniforms","21":"tag-sportswear-evolution","22":"tag-tennis-and-fashion","23":"tag-tennis-apparel-design","24":"tag-tennis-fashion","25":"tag-tennis-history","26":"tag-tennis-kit-controversies","27":"tag-tennis-sponsorship","28":"tag-tennis-tournament-style","29":"tag-venus-williams","30":"tag-white-sportswear","31":"tag-wimbledon-2025","32":"tag-wimbledon-dress-code","33":"tag-wimbledon-dress-code-change","34":"tag-wimbledon-tradition","35":"tag-wimbledon-white-clothing-rule","36":"tag-women-athletes-and-menstruation","37":"cs-entry","38":"cs-video-wrap"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1267"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15176,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15175\/revisions\/15176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}