Players including Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova and Agnieszka Radwanska are among the players who sported brightly colored tennis underwear at Wimbledon. If the tournament banned Roger Federer from wearing sneakers with orange soles, why are women’s players allowed to flout Wimbledon’s all-white dress code?
The underwear is seen far more often than the underside of sneakers, so its presence would appear to be the most direct contradiction of Wimbledon’s dress code. Is there a reason for the fashion double standard?
There is, in fact, and it shows that Wimbledon has a come a long way from 1949 when American Gussie Moran caused an uproar by wearing lace-trimmed tennis panties that were said to be “bringing vulgarity and sin into tennis.”
“The rules state that players can wear any color underwear they like provided it is no longer than their shorts or skirt,” a Wimbledon spokesman told Reuters. “Anything else must be white.”