Tennis shirt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A tennis shirt, also called a polo shirt or a golf shirt, is a T-shaped shirt with a collar, (typically) two or three buttons down a slit below the collar, two small slits on the bottom of either side, and an optional pocket. They are usually made of knitted cloth (rather than woven cloth), usually pique cotton or, less commonly, silk, merino wool, or synthetic fibers.
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[edit] History
[edit] Origins in tennis
In the nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, tennis players ordinarily wore long-sleeved shirts, trousers, and ties. As one might expect, this attire presented several problems for ease of play and comfort on the court.
René Lacoste, the French 7-time Grand Slam tennis champion, was very keen to these problems. He decided that the stiff dress shirts and ties of the day were simply too cumbersome and uncomfortable for the tennis court. Instead, he started his own clothing line, aptly named Lacoste and designed a loosely-knit pique cotton shirt with an un-starched, flat protruding collar and a longer shirt-tail in back than in front (known today as a "tennis tail"; see below). Lacoste's original design also called for a particularly thick pique collar that one would wear upturned in order to block the sun from one's neck.
[edit] Application to polo and other sports
Before Lacoste’s 1929 invention of the tennis shirt, polo players wore thick long-sleeve shirts made of Oxford-cloth cotton. Interestingly, this shirt was the first to have a button-down collar, which polo players invented in the late nineteenth century to keep their collars from flapping in the wind (Brooks Brothers claims to have "invented" the button-down style in 1896 while still acknowledging that its origins trace to the occasion of John Brooks, grandson of the founder, seeing the buttons used at a polo match in England.[1] (Click on 1896 link.) Brooks Brothers still produces various styles of "polo shirt", both button-down and pull-over). Still, those clothes presented a discomfort on the field, and when polo players became aware of Lacoste’s invention in the 1930s they readily adopted it for use in polo.
The term "polo shirt" was so universal that, no later than the 1950s, it was in common usage in the U.S. to describe the shirt most commonly thought-of as part of formal tennis attire. Indeed, tennis players would more often refer to their shirt as a "polo shirt" notwithstanding the fact that its use in tennis surely outweighed its use in polo by a huge measure. The "authentic" shirt was, at least in that era, considered to be the "Chemise Lacoste" shirt, a universally-accepted brand name used even by English-speaking consumers unconcerned about even the translation of the word "chemise". Compared with other early imitators of the style, the authentic Lacoste product was widely thought to be of higher quality, assembled in such a way that the fabric would not begin to twist over time, resulting in a somewhat misshapen shirt. Chemise Lacoste was sold in "finer" clothing stores everywhere.
In 1967, Ralph Lauren included his "polo shirt" as a prominent part of his original line called Polo, thereby probably helping to further its already widespread popularity. While not specifically geared for use by polo players, Lauren’s shirt imitated what was by that time normal attire for polo players. As he desired to exude a certain "waspishness" in his clothes, initially adopting the style of clothiers like Brooks Brothers, J. Press, and "Savile Row"-style English clothing, he prominently included this attire from the "sport of kings" in his line, replete with a logo reminiscent of Lacoste’s crocodile emblem. This worked well as a marketing tool, for subsequently, due to the immense popularity of Lauren’s clothing, a majority of English-speaking westerners began to refer to Lacoste’s tennis shirt as a "polo shirt". Still, "tennis shirt" remains a viable term for all uses of Lacoste’s basic design.
Over the latter half of the twentieth century, as standard clothing in golf became more casual, the tennis shirt became adopted nearly universally as standard golf attire. Very few golfers today wear anything else. Moreover, producing Lacoste’s "tennis shirt" in various golf cuts has resulted in specific designs of the tennis shirt for golf, resulting in the monicker "golf shirt".
[edit] Today
Since 1929, the polo shirt has become so popular that it has become one of the standard categories of clothing. Virtually every major clothier makes some version or variation of Lacoste's polo shirt. It is today worn by both men and women in numerous non-athletic contexts. Notably, polo shirts are worn by many semi-professional and retail workers in settings where T-shirts are not acceptable, but formal business attire is not required. In contemporary Western fashion, polo shirts are considered more casual than woven button-down shirts while still being slightly dressy.
The polo shirt continues to have vast use in athletics, used even by non-athletes associated with a given sport in their employment, such as caddies, some retired golf professionals, and sports announcers.
It is also a favored shirt for those working outside, such as groundskeepers and construction workers due to its ruggedness. During the 1990's, the polo shirt became the standard informal business attire for the high tech industry. Many large companies such as retailers have their employees who interact with the public wear a form of polo shirt (often prominently branded with the company name and logo) tucked into trousers as part of their everyday uniform. In China, most younger government officials wear polo shirts (sometimes made of silk) as standard business attire.
In many schools that require students to wear uniforms, especially junior schools, polo shirts are part of a compulsory uniform for both boys and girls.
The most common way to wear a polo shirt is with the top button undone and with an optional undershirt underneath for warmth. One can find them in a wide variety of colors and patterns. Wide horizontal stripes are common, as are shirts with patterns. Due to the outdoor nature of the sports with which they are associated, the shirts are often made of "natural" colors. For tennis, one would normally wear a brighter-colored shirt, most often white.
As in Lacoste’s original shirt, sometimes a polo shirt is cut so that the back hangs a few centimeters lower than the front. As noted above, this is called a "tennis tail". The longer cut is designed to keep the shirt tucked into the back of a man's tennis shorts when he is bent over to survey the court. The easily-upturnable collar remains another athletic aid.
By the late 1990's, the polo shirt had started falling out of favor by tennis players. As of 2006, Roger Federer usually wears a T-shirt, but Andy Roddick still wears a polo shirt.
