HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP via Getty Images
By 
Chris Lavergne
At Wimbledon this week, Naomi Osaka stepped onto Court 3 wearing a white kimono-style dress by Tokyo designer Hana Yagi, embellished with cherry blossoms and cranes and finished with an embroidered obi sash. She told reporters afterward that she was thinking of Lucy Liu’s snow-white kimono in “Kill Bill.” She then won her first round match against Elsa Jacquemot.
It is the third Grand Slam in a row that has turned the walk-on into couture. For the 2026 Australian Open, Robert Wun created a wide-brimmed hat with a full floor-length brim and white feathered butterflies, inspired by his daughter Shai’s love of jellyfish. At the French Open, Kevin Germanier donned a black beaded corset over a glittering gold Nike dress, with a Victorian-style gold stone for the next rounds.
Osaka said she doesn’t talk much, so she lets the clothes do it. The look carries her Japanese and Haitian heritage, her mother, and her tennis history all at once. The Melbourne butterflies got a nod so far in 2021 when one landed on their face mid-game and went viral.
Osaka has been a global ambassador for Louis Vuitton since January 2021, launched a swimwear collection with Frankies Bikinis in May, and has released several denim collections with Levi’s. In 2020 she created a 10-piece capsule for Japanese-American designer Hanako Maeda’s label ADEAM during New York Fashion Week.
Critics called her clothes “extravagant” and “classless.” His response: “I’m not doing this for them, though, they’ll never find out, and I don’t want them to find out. I’m doing this for people like me.”
Pushback is not new. Andre Agassi spent the late 1980s getting the same treatment of acid-washed denim shorts at the 1988 US Open, a hot pink and black kit at the 1990 French Open that reportedly pushed the ITF to tighten dress codes, and boycotting Wimbledon from 1988 to 1990 with its white rule. The Williams sisters also held a version of it. Agassi finally played Wimbledon in 1992 and won it.
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