Dress Codes: Why do tennis players wear white?

Tennis whites have persisted for centuries, influencing fashion on and off courts. At Wimbledon, an centimeter of color can get a player’s outfit banned, but why?

Pristine, crisp and all-white — tennis whites have been a tradition dating back centuries. The distinctive look has not only made the racquet sport stand out, it has also become a sartorial mainstay off the courts, too. And even though most of the major tournaments have done away with the hueless uniformity, Wimbledon, the very first of them, has remained strict in its policy (as have many private clubs around the world). The prestigious championship even clamped down on the rule a decade ago, prohibiting colorful accents that had become increasingly common —  the year after Roger Federer’s now-infamous pair of orange-soled sneakers were banned after his first round in 2013. The rules once called for “predominantly white” outfits, allowing some competitors to play with color combinations, such as Serena Williams’ tribute to Wimbledon treat strawberries and cream in 2010. But the crackdown changed the wording to “almost entirely white,” per the organizers: no off-white, no panels of color, no varying colorways on sneakers. The only recent loosening of rules was in 2023, to allow women to wear dark-colored shorts on the court following criticisms that the rules weren’t accommodating for menstruation leaks. But why did tennis whites become the standard? The reasons often cited are practical ones, from heat reflection to sweat-masking. But senior curator Kevin Jones of the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM) museum in Los Angeles, who organized the recent traveling exhibition “Sporting Fashion: Outdoor Girls 1800 - 1960,” said it really comes down to a long history of clubs enforcing social status, starting when lawn tennis skyrocketed in popularity in Victorian-era England as a leisure sport — and a rare one that allowed women, too. “It’s completely elitist because white clothes are difficult to maintain,” he said in a phone call with CNN. “And the types of materials that these dresses were made of, which were cottons and linens, creased easily, so to keep them nice and freshly starched was also an aspect of that care.” Of course, tennis style has drastically changed in a century-and-a-half since it first became a recreational sensation for the upper class, hot off the heels of croquet (and utilizing the same neatly trimmed lawns). Early tennis attire was more akin to 19th-century leisurewear: women wore striped and patterned garments with long skirts, corseting and wide-brimmed hats; men donned wool pants, button-downs or sweaters.