The Wimbledon Championships are the oldest and most prestigious of the four tennis Grand Slam tournaments. (The other three are the Australian, French, and U.S. opens.)
As such, Wimbledon is awash in long-lasting traditions and features, such as the habit of calling the men’s and women’s competitions “Gentlemen’s” and “Ladies’,” respectively; the Royal Box, which has been reserved for members of the English nobility since 1922; and the iconic (and still advertisement-free) Centre Court.
But arguably the most notable aspect of the event is the all-white dress code for all participants. Why does the tournament specify that its players dress “predominately in white” or “almost entirely in white?”
The short answer is “because it’s in the dress code.” But it’s in the dress code for a reason: namely, when the code was written in the genteel 1880s, sweat stains were considered so improper and unsightly that it was decided that white should be worn to minimize their visibility, as sweat is more apparent on colorful clothing.
From that period on, “tennis whites” were considered the standard attire for well-heeled tennis players, which described everyone who played in the first Wimbledon tournaments. Once that rule was prescribed in the dress code, the tradition-loving Wimbledon was loath to remove it.
While it has been a part of Wimbledon for well over a century, the all-white dress code has not always been popular with players. The most extreme case of this was when superstar Andre Agassi refused to play at Wimbledon from 1988 to 1990 in part because the dress code prevented him from wearing the flashy clothing that he was most comfortable wearing (and that was a large part of his personal brand at the time).
Even the person widely considered to the best men’s tennis player of all time, Roger Federer, was not above the dress code, as he was reprimanded in 2013 for wearing orange-soled white shoes that he was forced to replace in his next match.
The following year, fellow tennis legend Martina Navratilova said that tournament officials had “gone too far” when they told her that her blue-striped skirt was not up to code.
When the criticism of some of the greatest players of all time is not enough to get Wimbledon to soften its dress code, there is a good chance that we will continue to see Wimbledon participants clad in all white for a good long time.
