woman clothes: Match Game: 1920s-30s Ladies' Tennis Fashions

Tennis fashions for ladies, like other forms of athletic dress, changed rapidly in the early 1900s, coinciding, not surprisingly, with the rising popularity of the sport. American tournament tennis goes back to 1880, with the founding of the Newport Casino at the summer resort of Newport, Rhode Island; the first Tennis Week (forerunner of the U.S. Open) took place on its lawn in 1881. Edith Wharton writes of the period just prior to this, briefly, in The Age of Innocence (1920): The Newport Archery Club always held its August meeting at Beaufords’. The sport, which had hitherto known no rival but croquet, was beginning to be discarded in favor of lawn-tennis; but the latter game was still considered to rough and inelegant for social occasions…” With fashionable socialites taking up lawn-tennis, this would soon change. By 1915, the tournament had outgrown the casino and moved to Forest Hills, New York.

Dorothy Dale, the heroine of Margaret Penrose's long-running series books for girls, dressed in the height of feminine tennis chic, 1910.

Joan Crawford, 1925

In the ‘20s, tennis skirt lengths rose from ankle to knee, a trend that California-born women’s tennis champion Helen Wills (later Helen Wills Moody Roark) attributed to her French rival, Suzanne Lenglen. “Since she appeared, skirts have risen from the ankle to the knee, and the tessnis dress has become simple and practical.” Wills declared in her 1928 book, Tennis. Lenglen’s dresses were of heavy white silk – though in Wills’ opinion, white linen or cotton material would be “far more practical, especially where summers are warm.”

Top, From Modes & Manners magazine, spring 1925. Above: 1926 ad

Sleeves were the next battleground. As Wills recounts in Tennis:

“Within the last few years there have been radical changes in women’s dress for tennis. Not four years ago an incident occurred in the West Side Club at Forest Hills that is amusing now. One of the members, an attractive young woman, appeared one day on the courts without any sleeves whatsoever on her tennis dress. Some of the more conservative members of the club happened to be sitting on the veranda. Later, as a result, a special meeting was called by the club committee, and one member was chosen to tell Miss -----, tactfully but firmly, that completely bare arms could not be allowed. In the last tournament on which I participated at Forest Hills, there was hardly a sleeve to be found among all of the players!”

One the arms were bared, stockings were the next to go. Wills still wore white silk stockings with her white shoes in 1928, but noted that some players were starting to adopt short wool socks that came just to the top of their shoes, rather than stockings, an idea that Wills admitted was sensible. In fact, sportswriter Al Mitchell credited Wills with popularizing this trend, writing in the August 11, 1934 edition of his column, Out of the Pressbox

“At Wimbledon, the holy of holies in the net world, the idea of going without stockings was considered too déclassé for discussion until Helen Wills Moody, then world champion, adopted the style. Socks were shed all over the world after that.”

Then came tennis shorts revolution in ladies’ tennis attire. At first, they were seen here and there, causing a similar reaction as sleeveless dresses. It took another champion Helen, Helen Jacobs, to bring them into the mainstream. She caused a sensation when she appeared in shirts at Wimbledon in 1933, the year the Associated Press named her Female Athlete of the Year. As Mitchell also wrote in 1934: “Helen Jacobs….stepped out on the Forest Hills, L.I., courts to defend her national championship clad in the scanty attire. You can get your answer to the question of tennis shorts’ popularity by visiting ‘most any court now.”

Helen Jacobs at Wimbledon, 1933.

Carole Lombard. From Life, 1938.

Many women, however, still preferred skirts. Divided skirts (literally) split the difference. Wrote a fashion reporter on May 25, 1931:

“If you are one of those slim young things who went in for shorts and polo shirts last year, you are probably wondering where they stand in good tennis form this year. Frankly, they’re not the rage they were, although you may see them occasionally. Much better, if you’re an acolyte of the trousers system, is the new tennis dress with a divided skirt.”

Tennis players, 1931

The same anonymous AP press writer went on to say: “Two drastic changes have volleyed into the structure of the new tennis dress. The desperately low sunback has practically disappeared from the smart courts… even the lowest back rarely descends farther than midway between your shoulder blades.” A bright belt was another new note in tennis fashion. By summer 1936, culottes were very popular for tennis, as well as for biking and golfing, with divided skirts still more favored than shorts and a shirt.

Jean Harlow

Helen Wills (left, with rackets) and Helen Jacobs, 1939.

White remained the only correct color for formal tennis wear. Color, Wills suggested in 1928, “could be introduced in a sweater, worn to and from the court – solids preferable over patterns, and gay colors such as brilliant yellow or rose shades being better than dark shades.” You could match the color in your headband (unless wearing a white visor or “eye-shade”). Mlle Lenglen’s trademark was the bandeaux. To imitate this look, Wills suggests taking a piece of chiffon about 2-yards long by 5 inches wide and pressing one end tightly to your head, winding it firmly until you can tuck the remaining end snugly under the bandeau at the back of the head. The color should match your sweater.