Golf Fashions for Men
They say it’s not fashionable until someone breaks the rules, but in the world of professional athletics, it’s definitely not a new fashion if the rule breaker isn’t one of the biggest names in his or her sport. Where the players on top dare, so follow the rest. And no more is this in evidence than in the turbulent, ever-changing world of professional tennis.
Tennis historians speak constantly of the “Open era” and “pre-Open era”, but in fashion terms tennis was truly defined by the pre- and post-shorts era. The division occurred in 1933 when British tennis player Bunny Austin decided to drop the cricket-uniform long pants style (championed in the Big Bill Tilden era and thought to be a permanent fashion fixture on the court) and switch to shorts. The sport, as they say, would never be the same again.
When the subsequent and predictable heat died down, players and audience alike adjusted well to the change: players claimed a better sense of movement on the court, and, well, spectators had more of a physical spectacle for their ticket buck. Shorts were on the tour to stay, but changing fashions would not be denied, and one of the driving forces helping along the change was the emergence of a parallel trend dominating sports today: sponsorship and marketing of the top stars.
Arguably the first color TV-era tennis superstar was Bjorn Borg, the Swedish giant of the game whose cool demeanor and genius shotmaking paralyzed the opposition through the 70s. One of the first international sports celebrities to embrace brand marketing, Borg’s entry into corporate sponsorship took the fashionable form of added color coding to his tennis uniform. This began with his sponsorship of a European brewery by sporting its colors on his headband; other players, from professional to amateur and sandlot, suddenly began to sport colorful headbands. Color coding on shirts, shorts and sneakers followed, first as a branding strategy for the top pros, followed by others taking the lead and running with it. Suddenly tennis whites were a thing of the past – it was a color show and everyone wanted to do things a bit differently to separate themselves from the rest of the pack.
Another barrier was smashed more than a decade after Borg’s domination, when a brash and day glo-colored figure entered the tennis world, announced he was the next big thing, and proved it with more than just his fashion innovations. This was Andre Agassi, whose on-court color explosions started with streaked hair and finished with lycra bicycle tights worn underneath his tennis shorts. Agassi is now retired, but such was his influence that no one has yet appeared on the landscape to push a new fashion era onto the tennis world. Rafael Nadal’s apparel is just another shade of terrain already blazed by Agassi; perhaps soon we will have a fashion innovator at the top of their game and, eventually, our game as well.