Wimbledon has changed its traditions before, so why not shift on the all-white?

In 1949 a 26-year-old American tennis player called Gertrude “Gussie” Moran qualified for Wimbledon for the first time in her career. To mark the occasion, she asked the era’s most renowned designer of tennis dresses and longtime tournament ambassador, Teddy Tinling, to make her a bespoke outfit.

The dress Tinling designed for Moran had to abide by Wimbledon’s all-white dress code, as enforced by the tournament’s organisers, the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. But that’s pretty much where tradition ended. Moran’s dress was cut above the knee, to allow for greater movement on the court. For many spectators that was outrageous enough, but it was Moran’s silk underwear with two inches of lace that really scandalised British high society.

It was an era before television, and photographers had chosen to lie on the ground behind Moran hoping to capture pictures of her underwear as she served. The published images provoked an extraordinary backlash. All England Club officials declared the dress was “vulgar” and condemned Tinling for drawing “attention to the sexual area”. He was banned from the tournament for three decades. Wimbledon also banned short dresses and the precursor tournament to the US Open prohibited lace underwear and revealing necklines, just in case anyone tried a similar move in Queens. Moran never wore the dress again, but she could never shake off her reputation as “Gorgeous Gussie”, the woman who shocked the tennis world.

In a sign of how even the most staid traditions can shift over time, in modern tournaments tennis dresses cut above the knee aren’t just allowed, they’re ubiquitous. But Wimbledon’s all-white rule remains, and it’s back in the spotlight after Australian Nick Kyrgios was pulled up for daring to wear red sneakers and a red hat after the conclusion of his fourth-round match.

Kyrgios is far from the only player to have fallen afoul of the rule. Between 1988 and 1990 Andre Agassi refused to play at Wimbledon because of its dress code and traditionalism, but most of those who have been accused of breaching the all-white policy have been women. In 1985 American Annie White wore an all-white one-piece lycra bodysuit onto the court. It wasn’t an obvious breach of the rules, but she was told by the umpire she couldn’t wear it again.

Eugenie Bouchard and Venus Williams have both been scolded for wearing non-white bras onto the court, with the latter even forced to swap her underwear midway into a match.

In 2016 Nike’s Premier Slam dresses, worn by 20 players including Victoria Azarenka and Bouchard, had to be recalled after Wimbledon officials said they didn’t cover enough skin.

Rules governing how much, or how little, skin an athlete can show, and what colour their underwear is, seem deeply bizarre in 2022, but they’re completely in line with the history of Wimbledon, and the traditions its fans venerate. The reason the all-white dress code was introduced was to avoid unsightly sweat patches on coloured clothes. The damp spots were considered particularly unsightly on women.