The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 Wimbledon Championships.
THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, London — The all-white dress code Wimbledon has enforced for nearly 150 years is exacting. It extends to nearly every part of a player’s outfit, meaning shoelaces, socks and arm bands must be white. Colored trim around a collar or shirt cuff is permitted, so long as it does not measure wider than a centimeter. Women were only allowed to wear mid- or dark-colored undershorts starting in 2023.
Luckily for Naomi Osaka, the dress code says nothing about embroidered cranes or 3-dimensional cherry blossoms.
Osaka, the No. 14 seed at this year’s Wimbledon, debuted her latest work of fashion Monday when she walked onto No. 3 Court for her first-round match against France’s Elsa Jacquemot in an outfit inspired by a combination of influences equal parts serious and fun, artistic and poppy. She drew from Japanese ceremonial dress — and also the assassin-slash-crime boss character Lucy Liu plays in one of her favorite movies, “Kill Bill.”
“She has an all-white kimono, and I remember thinking that was really cool and amazing,” Osaka said in a news conference after beating Jacquemot 6-1, 7-5.
“Then it just kind of went from there. It was like my interpretation of that while also paying a lot of respect and love to Japan.”
Not one for outfit repeating, Osaka arrived at her second-round match, a 6-3, 6-2 win over Russian qualifier Anastasia Gasanova, having swapped the full kimono for a lightweight jacket dotted with the same floral designs that adorn her tennis dress. The detailed waistband and ruffled train of the original outfit remained.
Naomi Osaka walked out at Wimbledon in a stunning white ensemble. (Robert Prange / Getty Images)
The four-time Grand Slam champion has made a point to use her walks onto court at Grand Slams as opportunities to make high-fashion statements that reference everything from famous landmarks to the animal kingdom. Working with designers to dream up detailed fashion creations is an important form of self-expression for Osaka, and coming up with an outfit for famously buttoned-up Wimbledon didn’t cramp her style. It simply pushed her to be more imaginative.
“I’ve never thought of the color white as restrictive,” Osaka said in a news conference Sunday. “There’s so many different patterns, fabrics, textures that you can use. So I’ve never even thought of it as something that restricts me.”
Naomi Osaka’s Wimbledon entrance at Court No. 2
Caoimhe O’Neill, Sports Writer at Wimbledon
Osaka’s clothes usually, though not always, correspond thematically to the tournament in question.
At the French Open, a series of cascading overskirts — a different version for every match she played — echoed the silhouette of the Eiffel Tower when she paired them with dramatic corsets she wore over her custom, shimmery Nike dresses. At the Australian Open, she opted for a floaty, flowy jellyfish-inspired ensemble.
For Wimbledon, the most tradition-laden of all tennis tournaments, she nodded to the formality of the All England Club while cloaked in her own Japanese heritage. Tokyo-based designer Hana Yagi worked with Osaka to create an elaborate, kimono-style dress with cherry blossoms and cranes embroidered across luxe fabric. A waist detail adorned with oversized bows flows into a dramatic train, and Osaka topped the outfit off with a hairpiece for her bun.
Naomi Osaka’s Wimbledon dress hewed to its strict rules with floral patterning. (Robert Prange / Getty Images)
The Nike dress underneath at first appears streamlined in comparison. But the art lies in its simplicity, which draws the eye to the precision of the pleats bordering Osaka’s skirt and the meticulous floral appliqués creeping up the side.
It debuted in Osaka’s opening match against France’s Elsa Jacquemot, with the four-time Grand Slam champion coming off the back of her best performance at a grass tournament. And despite pulling out of the Bad Homburg Open final with a foot injury — she said Monday it was the bottoms of her feet that were a bother, feeling stiff in the morning but loosening as the day goes on — Osaka turned on the style to win 6-1, 7-5 against a canny and dangerous opponent.
Every inch of the meaningful ensemble she did it in, of course, is white.
The match came with the added delight of walking through the crowd with her getup because she was playing on No. 3 Court, which has no dedicated tunnel or secluded walkway for players. They travel to court surrounded by security.
“I could feel when I walked by someone, they would physically turn their whole body,” Osaka said. “I thought that was really fun.”
Her kimono also provoked reactions around the locker room, where Osaka said she routinely gets questions about her creations.
“I got asked if I only have one, because it’s all white, and what happens if I stain it. She was like, ‘If you stain it, do you have to, like, dye it after that?’ Some people were like, ‘Is it against the rules if you dye it, and then is that considered not wearing all white?’”
Osaka welcomes the questions, even as she laughed Monday about being at Wimbledon, talking about clothes. She hopes she keeps winning — and gets to continue the show.