{"id":426274,"date":"2026-01-20T21:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T21:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/426274\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T21:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T21:23:08","slug":"naomi-osakas-jellyfish-inspired-outfit-steals-the-show-at-australian-open-naomi-osaka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/426274\/","title":{"rendered":"Naomi Osaka\u2019s jellyfish-inspired outfit steals the show at Australian Open | Naomi Osaka"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naomi Osaka\u2019s renowned 125mph serve is positively slow compared with a jellyfish\u2019s sting, which can cover 10 to 20 micrometres in less than one-millionth of a second<\/a>. But it wasn\u2019t just the invertebrate\u2019s speed that the tennis player was calling on when she wore a jellyfish-inspired outfit to face Antonia Ruzic of Croatia in their first-round match at the Australian Open.<\/p>\n

Entering Melbourne\u2019s Rod Laver Arena, the 28-year-old tennis player\u2019s look consisted of a pleated miniskirt over wide-legged trousers, a wide-brimmed hat with a white veil and a parasol. Jellyfish-esque elements were also incorporated into her on-court outfit, which featured a watery turquoise and green palette and soft frills on the warm-up jacket and dress, alluding to tentacles.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Naomi Osaka enters the court. Photograph: Joel Carrett\/EPA<\/p>\n

As Osaka told Vogue<\/a> before the match, which she went on to win 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, the inspiration came when she was reading a storybook to her two-year-old daughter, Shai: \u201cReading to my daughter, discovering beauty in unexpected places like the underwater world, working with artists who care about meaning \u2013 those moments have all shaped the way I see this expression now.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is the outcome of a collaboration between Nike, Osaka, her longtime creative collaborator Marty Harper and the London-based couturier Robert Wun, who has previously dressed stars such as Beyonc\u00e9, Cardi B and Ariana Grande.<\/p>\n

Wun, who is reportedly a big tennis fan, had been inspired by Osaka for one of his previous collections. \u201cOne of the looks from my fall 2024 collection<\/a> was inspired by her moment at court, when a butterfly landed on her face mid-match<\/a>,\u201d he told Vogue, referencing the moment during the 2021 Australian Open, a tournament she went on to win, when a butterfly landed on her face during her third-round match against Tunisian Ons Jabeur<\/a>. Wun described it as \u201ca simple, beautiful scene that went viral as she gently placed it aside. I wanted to revisit that story and weave it into this design and collaboration.\u201d The design features butterflies on top of the hat and parasol.<\/p>\n

Over the years, tennis has had its share of noteworthy fashion moments. From Serena Williams in a Virgil Abloh x Nike tutu dress at the 2018 US Open to Suzanne Lenglen and her hemlines to Anne White, who wore a white catsuit<\/a> to play at Wimbledon in 1985, and was told not to wear it again<\/a>. In recent years, heralded by Jannik Sinner wearing a duffel bag covered in Gucci\u2019s GG monogram<\/a> for his changing room to court walk at Wimbledon, the idea of tennis having its own version of a catwalk has been cemented. The NBA has its \u201ctunnel fashion\u201d<\/a>, with players dressing to the designer nines to walk into the arena before a game, the Premier League has its bus-to-dressing-rooms runway, and all tennis tournaments have the changing-room-to-courtside saunter.<\/p>\n

Serena Williams in action at the 2018 US Open. Photograph: Juergen Hasenkopf\/BPI\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Osaka is aware of tennis\u2019s sartorial chops. Speaking to Vogue<\/a>, she said: \u201cWhen I look back at the players who came before me, I think about how those moments \u2013 those looks \u2013 have become memories that live forever. So much of the time, other people get to write our stories for us.\u201d Of her jellyfish-inspired ensemble, she added: \u201cThis felt like a moment where I could write a little bit of my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

But this feels like it broke new ground. As Vogue noted: \u201cHaute couture has never been worn in this way in a live sports setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite having toyed with style in the past \u2013 perhaps most playfully via bedazzled Labubu<\/a> doll keychains worn to her matches \u2013 this feels like Osaka\u2019s most dramatic style moment yet. Speaking to Vogue of a newfound confidence with clothes, Osaka said<\/a>: \u201cFashion, for me, really opened up when I stopped thinking about how it would be received and started thinking about how it made me feel. The biggest shift really has been realising that style doesn\u2019t have to be loud to be powerful. It can be quiet, emotional, layered. That realisation changed everything for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naomi Osaka in acton against Antonia Ruzic. Photograph: Joel Carrett\/EPA<\/p>\n

But, Osaka to one side, the jellyfish is also a (supporting) star of the show, and it\u2019s not the first time the otherworldly ocean creatures have had a moment of heightened popularity on land. In 2024<\/a>, jellyfish inspired everything from haircuts to lamps to makeup and couture dresses.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Their silhouettes are a gift to spectacle. As scientist-turned-science writer Juli Berwald, author of Spineless: the Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone<\/a>, told the Guardian in 2024, around the time of the \u201cjellyfish trend\u201d: \u201cAnyone with a sense of aesthetic would have to pause and say: \u2018Wow, what is that?\u2019\u201d Plus, their grace of movement feels like something a tennis player might want to replicate \u2013 not to mention that signalling you have a sting \u2013 which can\u2019t be bad from a sports psychology point of view, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Naomi Osaka\u2019s renowned 125mph serve is positively slow compared with a jellyfish\u2019s sting, which can cover 10 to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-426274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}