The year is 2014. The soundtracks of the summer are Pure Heroine by Lorde and Channel Orange by Frank Ocean. You’ve just dropped off your resumé at Urban Outfitters and grabbed a disposable camera while you were there. Now you have to walk three miles home in your Adidas Stan Smiths, listening to Pandora on your cracked iPhone 5c, wishing your life was more like the one described in “Super Rich Kids” rather than “Royals.” But it’s okay—the Instagram photo you posted of your best friend lying on a tennis court in full American Apparel has racked up 60 likes. You may not be able to afford private tennis lessons, but the tennis aesthetic matters more to you than having a strong backhand.
"As the appeal of cosplaying as working class or Ivy League waxes and wanes, so does the tennis aesthetic"
There’s no questioning the beauty of tennis. The smooth, grippy green court adorned with bold white lines, white leather sneakers, short shorts, sweatbands and Lacoste polos. But the draw of tennis as an aesthetic seems more closely tied to the sport’s association with the elite class—the Upstate, Ivy League, white-collar players who dominated the sport in the 1970s and 1980s—than it does to the minimalist Americana clothing. As the appeal of cosplaying as working class or Ivy League waxes and wanes, so does the tennis aesthetic.
Ivy League style has been taking over Pinterest and TikTok for the last couple of years, probably as a reaction to the Realtree and Carhartt craze that started around 2019 and still refuses to die. As the rise of Affliction tees and torn, bootcut jeans continues, we’re going to need a posh alternative. For this reason, I wouldn’t mind if a healthy obsession with tennis and its elegant wardrobe followed us into 2025.