While tennis clothes were once all pretty similar, you have a lot of stylish options when picking out tennis attire these days. In the early days of tennis in England, tennis was played on lawns and the players wore formal clothing. Even women wore full-length dresses as they played tennis. Nearly all tennis players wore all-white, cotton outfits. Today, tennis players wear all sorts of stylish tennis clothes made of all sorts of synthetic fabrics and in all sorts of colors.



The changes in the tennis clothes being worn during each era could be matched to the fashions of each era. In the 1970s and 1980s, for example, most men wore short-legged shorts and a polo shirt. Females in this same era wore short tennis skirts. In the 1990s and 2000s, most men began wearing long-legged, loose shorts and loose shirts. Women have also been wearing a wide variety of tennis wear, including long-legged shorts with t-shirts or miniskirts with t-shirts. While in the major competitions there may be a color mandate for clothing, generally white, at most competitions tennis clothes can be found on tennis players in vary wide variety of colors.

The style found in tennis clothes is not just based on being fashionable. A lot of the design of the modern tennis clothes is based on allowing the tennis players to move in a fluid, free motion. Tennis has become a very competitive sport, where every conceivable advantage, no matter how small is taken seriously. Mentally this makes the tennis player feel more comfortable, even when the advantage is slight. Modern tennis clothes are designed to allow athletes to feel unencumbered as they jump, twist, cut, and swing simultaneously in various combinations. This is why modern tennis clothes fit well, yet loosely. They are lightweight and don't hold moisture. This also helps keep the tennis players dry and cool.

The more clothing technology advances, the more tennis clothes adapt to this technology to give the tennis players the greatest possible advantages. Most professional tennis players wear synthetic fabrics for their various advantages. Even recreational tennis players are beginning to enjoy the cooling effects and movement freedoms provided by synthetic tennis clothing. For amateurs, the difference may not be seen as directly in performance as in feeling more comfortable when they play, which indirectly leads to greater performance.

You can expect these trends in tennis clothes to continue. As new fashions hit the general marketplace, they will find their way onto the tennis court, but framed in the latest technologies to help the tennis player perform at optimal levels. It is about feeling comfortable when you are playing tennis. Part of feeling comfortable for many athletes is the ability to express a sense of who they are through their fashion choices. Even tennis equipment is beginning to influenced as much by fashion as it is by the latest technologies.