Luxe Sportswear
The Look Bejewelled visors, tube socks and chic fencing gear. Marni took the practicality out of sportswear with flatform sandals and several bejewelled tennis visors, which ranged from emerald to black stone. The Row followed suit, matching visors to dress fabrics or draping a headscarf over top. At Prada, tube socks were worn over heels with a thick lug sole. Balenciaga did a gym shirt and short combo in handwoven leather braids that, from afar, embodied the conductive silver lame seen in traditional fencing gear, the shirt cut similarly to a plastron.
The backstory Suzanne Lenglen. French tennis player Suzanne Lenglen, who won 31 championship titles between 1914 and 1926, was the original tennis diva known for her aggressive playing style. She was also often wearing fur coats, short skirts and her trademark bandana and flapper bob on the court, which coincides with this current idea of removing the practicality out of athletic wear. We can’t help but imagine Lenglen serving up competition in a visor-headscarf from The Row, the scarf blowing in the wind as elegantly as her trademark pointed-toe tennis jumps.