THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, London — The all-white dress code Wimbledon has enforced for nearly 150 years is exacting. It extends to nearly every part of a player’s outfit, meaning shoelaces, socks and arm bands must be white. Colored trim around a collar or shirt cuff is permitted, so long as it does not measure wider than a centimeter. Women were only allowed to wear mid- or dark-colored undershorts starting in 2023.
Luckily for Naomi Osaka, the dress code says nothing about embroidered cranes or 3-dimensional cherry blossoms.
Osaka, the No. 14 seed at this year’s Wimbledon, debuted her latest work of fashion Monday when she walked onto Court No. 3 for her first-round match against Elsa Jacquemot in an outfit inspired by Japanese ceremonial dress, as reported in British Vogue.
Osaka has made a point to use her walks onto court at Grand Slams as opportunities to make high-fashion statements. Working with designers to dream up detailed fashion creations is an important form of self-expression to the four-time Grand Slam champion, and coming up with an outfit for famously buttoned-up Wimbledon didn’t cramp her style. It simply pushed her to be more imaginative.
“I’ve never thought of the color white as restrictive,” Osaka said in a news conference Sunday. “There’s so many different patterns, fabrics, textures that you can use. So I’ve never even thought of it as something that restricts me.”
Osaka’s clothes usually, though not always, correspond thematically to the tournament in question.
At the French Open, a series of cascading overskirts — a different version for every match she played — echoed the silhouette of the Eiffel Tower when she paired them with dramatic corsets she wore over her custom, shimmery Nike dresses. At the Australian Open, she opted for a floaty, flowy jellyfish-inspired ensemble.
For Wimbledon, the most tradition-laden of all tennis tournaments, she nodded to the formality of the All England Club while cloaked in her own Japanese heritage. Tokyo-based designer Hana Yagi worked with Osaka to create an elaborate, kimono-style dress with cherry blossoms and cranes embroidered across luxe fabric. A waist detail adorned with oversized bows flows into a dramatic train, and Osaka topped the outfit off with a hairpiece for her bun.
The Nike dress underneath at first appears streamlined in comparison. But the art lies in its simplicity, which draws the eye to the precision of the pleats bordering Osaka’s skirt and the meticulous floral appliqués creeping up the side.
It debuted in Osaka’s opening match against France’s Elsa Jacquemot, with the four-time Grand Slam champion coming off the back of her best performance at a grass tournament. And despite pulling out of the Bad Homburg Open final with a foot injury, Osaka turned on the style to win 6-1, 7-5 against a canny and dangerous opponent.
Every inch of the meaningful ensemble she did it in, of course, is white.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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