According to the official scorecard, Naomi Osaka served nine aces in her first-round match at the US Open. But she’d already scored a precursory 10th before she even stepped onto the court in New York City – thanks to her outfit.
Osaka’s warm-up look on Tuesday, US time — a collaboration between her long-time sponsor, Nike, and Korean designer Yoon Ahn, founder of Ambush and Dior’s men’s jewellery design director — featured a ruffled lime green mini skirt with a tulle petticoat and a jacket with an oversized bow on the back. Her Nike sneakers also featured bows at the heel.
For the match, Osaka stripped down to a more streamlined – but only slightly – version of the outfit.
Ahead of the US Open, Ahn dubbed a black-and-white iteration of the outfit as “Lolita Goth”, telling The New York Times: “It’s about really owning the cutesy-ness and the girly-hood.”
The genius of the outfit, which invoked so many fashion codes, was that it offered something – aspirationally speaking, aesthetically speaking, or simply vibe speaking – for everyone.
Naomi Osaka’s eye-catching US Open outfit hit multiple fashion codes.Credit: AP
Its lime shade gave brat girl summer (Osaka is a woman who knows what’s going on), while its ruffles leant into the coquettish aesthetic synonymous with brand-of-the-moment Miu Miu. Playful to the extreme, the outfit also paid homage to Harajuku girls and Osaka’s Japanese homeland, and its slight garishness signalled that Osaka, who returned to competitive tennis this summer after a two-year mental health and maternity leave break, had come to play.
Canadian tennis writer Stephanie Myles, who covers the WTA tour, posted on X that although she had reservations about the outfit’s comfort factor (the top temperature in New York City was 28 degrees on Tuesday), “it looks pretty cool”.
The tutu silhouette in Osaka’s look is also a subtle ode to another fashion great of the tennis world, Serena Williams, who announced her retirement from competition in 2022. During her career, Williams ascended the fashion throne, most memorably wearing catsuits and a special tutu designed by Nike and the late Off White designer Virgil Abloh.
With Williams out of the picture – professionally speaking at least – Osaka is now tennis fashion’s reigning monarch.
The overskirt featured a tulle petticoat.Credit: AP
But it wasn’t always that way. In her earlier career, Osaka wore more traditional (read: conservative) tennis outfits, and some of her more daring outfits haven’t always been well received. At this year’s Wimbledon, fans were divided over her white sheer dress with an asymmetric ruffle, which in the least charitable reading looked like bad napkin origami.
In 2022, Osaka told this masthead that she enjoyed taking risks with on-court fashion, even if they didn’t always play favourably to the crowd or critics.
“For me, there have been a lot of mishaps and a lot of failures,” Osaka said. “I feel like with my style on court, I am OK being bold and daring, and I’m also OK with being a bit too daring.”
Still, not even the occasional misstep can dent Osaka’s standing in the fashion world. Brands including Louis Vuitton, Tom Ford and Acne regularly flock to dress the four-times grand slam event champion, who in 2021 attended her first Met Gala as one of the event’s co-chairs. Last year, she appeared in a campaign for Victoria’s Secret, as the lingerie company tries to resurrect its image after a series of sexual harassment scandals.
Serena Williams in some of her most memorable on-court outfits.Credit: Getty Images
In May, Osaka possibly teased her US Open look when she wore a tiered ruffled Louis Vuitton skirt to the brand’s cruise show in Barcelona on the eve of the French Open.
In the lead-up to the tournament, Osaka openly shared some of her anxieties about returning to competition, especially the mixed feelings about her home tournament. “My biggest issue currently isn’t losses,” she wrote on Instagram earlier this month. “My biggest issue is that I don’t feel like I’m in my body.”
As far as this US Open goes, it’s Osaka: 1, fashion fear: 0.
Oh, and she won her first-round match in straight sets.
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