Why tennis wear will be the only thing you will want to wear
All the development of a trend that will be huge for Spring/Summer 2024
It all started last summer, if I recall correctly. We began seeing cryptic Instagram posts by Jonathan Anderson, promoting a movie called 'Challengers'. We now know that he designed the costumes and that Zendaya has the lead role. It was also the time of the European Tennis Opens, and it happened that I was in Paris during Roland Garros, when the whole city was celebrating the big event. Roland Garros kiosks were placed all over the city, selling merchandise for the grand tennis event.
At the same time, Miu Miu organized the 'Miu Miu Tennis Club' in multiple locations, including Saint-Tropez and New York. This event was essentially the playground for Instagram content by the influencers who were invited. Last but not least, Lacoste, under the creative direction of Pelagia Kolotouros, became popular again. Lacoste has seen an increase in sales since last year and has also introduced some concept stores called 'Lacoste Arena' in the market, which have generated a significant amount of revenue for the fashion brand, which has tennis wear at its core. The peak of this reputation was probably reached the moment Zendaya wore a beautiful Lacoste set for the promotion of 'Challengers' last week. This set shows that Lacoste is not only about streetwear but can also pull off a red carpet look at any moment.
I think you see the pattern here. We have two of the most popular brands of 2023, promoting tennis wear and aesthetics. As you can understand, it only took a couple of months for this to become a snowball and sweep through the entire fashion industry, which is what we are observing right now. And that's exactly what happened. References keep appearing like mushrooms in the forest of fashion brands. Skims launched a tennis campaign, selling out most of the tennis skirts. Celine launched a Triumph bag for your tennis racket (!) and Casablanca Paris did the same. All this led to a total increase of 80% in tennis wear searches in the last 30 days alone. I only needed to do a quick ‘tennis skirt’ search on google and I had in front of me all the brands that have invested time and energy to bring in life their version of this new tennis vague.
So, what do you think? Have you already taken your racket out of the closet? Are you on the Miu Miu website, adding the New Balance collaboration straight to your basket? If not, you are a strong one.