How Tennis and Polo Shirts Came About

When someone says a polo shirt or a golf shirt, he or she would be referring to a tennis shirt. This type of t-shirt comes with a collar, a few buttons in the front slit and two side slits on the bottom. It may or may not have a pocket. The most commonly used knitted material to make a tennis shirt is pique cotton. Sometimes silk, merino wool or synthetic fibers are used.

It was a Frenchman called Rene Lacoste, a 7-time tennis Grand Slam winner, who first created the tennis shirt. He thought of bringing changes in tennis apparel because during the nineteenth to early twentieth century, tennis players were wearing long-sleeved shirts, trousers and ties to the court. These type of attire were more suitable for people working in the office as the dress shirts were simply too stiff and the ties too heavy. Lacoste’s design, named after himself, comprised of a thick collar, a loose non-starched pique cotton shirt with side slits at the bottom, a longer shirt-tail at the back. The main reason to have an easily upturnable collar that was thicker than the shirt was to protect the tennis player’s neck from sun burns. The interesting thing was the polo players had already been using this design since the late nineteenth century. Before Lacoste’s tennis shirt design made its debut in 1929, polo players were wearing thick Oxford-cloth cotton made long-sleeved shirts and button-down collar. Although the collar design kept the wind from constantly flapping it, the polo shirt then was generally inconvenient to wear. Therefore when they discovered Lacoste’s line of tennis shirts in the 1930s, they did not hesitate to adopt his design.

It was not long before the term polo shirt became synonymous with tennis shirt. By the 1950s, polo shirts were commonly considered as part of the formal tennis attire in America. Even the tennis players themselves referred to their attire as a “polo shirt”. In actual fact, this type of t-shirt was first worn in a tennis court rather than in a game of polo and had a longer history in the tennis sports world.

In 1967, the popularity of polo shirts sky-rocketed when Ralph Lauren incorporated polo shirts as a leading product into his original clothing line called Polo. Though this type of shirts were not designed to wear for polo games, Lauren’s polo shirts were a good imitation of the then formal polo attire.

As golf attire become more easygoing and less formal in the twentieth century, golf also adopted tennis shirt as its standard attire. Most golfers today, male and female alike, are wearing tennis shirts. For the ladies, tennis shirts can be custom made in different kinds of colors. But because golf is an entirely different game from tennis, it requires different design of cuts on the tennis shirt, resulting in the monicker “golf shirt”. Now that tennis shirt is so commonly worn in today’s society, it has its own niche in the market. Since both men and women wear it in any and every occasion, almost every fashion producer started to invent at least a version or variation of Lacoste’s tennis shirt for non-athletics purposes. At the same time, tennis shirts are just the perfect substitute attire for jobs where round collar-t-shirts are deemed unacceptable and yet formal business wear is deemed overdressed, such as for semi-professional and retail workers. Tennis shirts are widely accepted as smart and casual wear.

Its rough and ready style also makes it a favored shirt for those working outdoors, such as field guides and labourers. During the 1990s, the tennis shirt became the standard business informal/casual attire for the high tech industry and then spread to other industries. Company logos are often printed on these tennis shirts to be used as custom corporate apparel. Some government officials in India wear tennis shirts as standard work attire.

Tennis shirts are without doubt very fashionable in sports. Officials such as caddies, some retired golf professionals, umpires and sports announcers wear tennis shirts on a regular basis. Besides that, tennis shirts are also popular in many schools, especially junior schools. Both boys and girls wear tennis shirts as part of their compulsory uniform to schools. Because tennis shirts are closely associated with sports, they come in all sorts of light colors. The most typical color is white.

The modern tennis shirt has a special feature called a “tennis tail”. This design is taken from the original Lacoste, whereby the back is cut a few centimeters longer than the front so that when the tennis player leans forward, the shirt will still stay tucked properly in his shorts. In addition, a tennis shirt’s collar can be easily upturned to protect the player’s neck from the sun.

The tennis shirt or polo shirt will continue to occupy a niche in the fashion industry, regardless of the changing trends and times. It has become an essential wear in our daily lives.

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