On the subway early this summer, I noticed a 20-something in a cropped top, scuffed-up black Converses, and pristine white tennis skirt. I’m not one to gawk, but I kept sneaking glances: I grew up watching tennis thanks to my dad and was struck by how cool the fussy white tennis skirt suddenly looked off the court, in the wild.
At a crosswalk the next week, I spotted another swirl of a skirt, in crisp Lacoste white (but no racquet in sight). Two doesn’t make a trend, but throughout the summer, I’d spot more and more tennis skirts than I’d ever seen, along with looks popping up in my Instagram feed and on TikTok on a regular basis.
In June, Lyst reported that searches for tennis attire were rising by 33%, and searches for tennis skirts spiked by another 328% that month after Kendall Jenner posted a picture of herself in an Alo Yoga ad wearing an all-white tennis ensemble. All signs point to tennis street style, or, what some have dubbed tenniscore, picking up steam quickly—and not going anywhere soon.
Caitlin Thompson, the cofounder of Racquet magazine (which has been documenting tennis culture and style since its launch in 2016), loves this moment of appreciation for tennis. “I feel like my aesthetic has now become the norm, which makes me so happy because finally people don’t give me looks when I walk around in my tennis skirt,” Thompson says.
She pinpoints this greater consciousness of tennis (and specifically tennis style) to a time around the start of the pandemic, when people—bored and desperate for exercise—began taking up tennis in droves. An annual study commissioned by the Physical Activity Council estimates that more than 21 million Americans picked up a racquet in 2020, and nearly 3 million of those were first-time players.
“All of this bubbled up around the same time, and now I can’t log onto Instagram without seeing ads for five new brands with the idea of using tennis as a style template,” Thompson says.
And it’s easy to see why. Tennis skirts can be effortlessly styled with sneakers or boots, button-downs or sweatshirts. Grab a bucket hat or a graphic tee, and you’ve got a look that’s become both ubiquitous this summer—and still entirely your own.
However you want to style it, just don’t feel you must invest in a racquet to try out tenniscore for yourself. Tennis pleats are selling fast pretty much everywhere, but we’ve assembled some of the best tennis skirts to get in on the trend. We’d suggest scooping one up while you can.
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