How Venus Williams’ stylist choreographed the best tennis fashion moment of the year
Talking to stylist Ronald Burton III about that epic US Open run and what's to come.
It’s the season of best-of lists—a format so dull yet ubiquitous I’ve begun to resent it. But in thinking about how to wrap up this year, Hard Court-style, I knew I had to revisit the moments that helped put this little 5-month-old newsletter on the map, many of which involved fashion. My hope is to do it in the most interesting, new news way possible, rather than rehashing what you already know.
With that in mind, I reached out to Ronald Burton III, the stylist behind Venus Williams’ epic run of US Open outfits that turned our limited expectations for tennis fashion on their head. It was easily the most memorable tennis fashion moment of the year and I wanted to learn more about how it all came together (fast!) and what might be next for the duo.
Burton, who’s also the fashion director for the indie arts magazine Document Journal, sees himself as a facilitator of Black storytelling, particularly the beauty and dynamism of Black women. This comes through in all of his work—like the myriad covers he’s styled with stars like Solange Knowles and Erykah Badu—but it reached the ultimate off-set apex when he was brought on to work with Williams this summer.
They had met once before when she was on the cover of Document Journal but never worked together when Burton got the call from her team in late June while he was in Paris for Men’s Fashion Week. “The opportunity was so exciting,” he said. “What interested me most about the project was being able to bring fashion to a much more global audience than my editorial work does.”
He had roughly a month and a half to whip up eight custom designer looks—warp speed compared to the 6-12 months it can take fashion houses to design their collections. When you’re styling someone as renowned as Williams, the paradox of choice can come into play. “I started with a very—and I mean very—long list, so I needed to gauge feedback [from Venus] to understand exactly what the story could be,” explained Burton.
Creative ideation and brand outreach took about two weeks, he said, so that by the second week of July, he “more or less knew” the brands he’d be working with. That meant a very short window for design execution. Each outfit had a different turnaround time based on fabric sourcing and the intricacy of the look, with Burton saying that, on the short end, pieces took 3-4 weeks for completion once the sketch and fabrics were approved. With the US Open starting on August 18th, that meant things were being finalized up until the very last minute (although as anyone who’s worked in fashion will tell you, that’s pretty much par for the course).
When Williams showed up to play in the mixed doubles event with Reilly Opelka wearing a navy blue tennis dress with white piping and a Khaite logo on the built-in bra peeking through the back, fashion girls everywhere did a double-take, zooming in on the pixels to make sure they read the logo correctly. Khaite, for the uninitiated, couldn’t be further from a tennis brand—its known for clothes that convey a luxurious nonchalance that seem made for that effortlessly cool girl who “doesn’t work out.”
Although the design itself was pretty classic, the brand association was not, and from that point on, the fervor that follows Venus Williams no matter what she wears was accompanied by a race to ID her next look (one I tried my best to win, of course).
As Burton was developing the outfits with designers and deciding what message he wanted to send with each look, he had two goals in mind. For starters, he wanted Williams “to shine like the icon she is” in her first time back at the US Open since 2023. “This was a big return for her, and we wanted the fashion to have a point-of-view that she could morph through with each match,” he explained.
Paying homage to Althea Gibson, as they did with her first singles match look designed by the California brand ERL, was one of the most impactful transformations. Gibson essentially paved the way for Williams as the first Black woman to compete at the US Open and win a Grand Slam, and the tournament happened to be honoring her this year. Williams’ white short-sleeve polo and matching pleated skirt closely echoed the white separates that Gibson often wore, but a yellow shearling racket bag gave it a surrealist spin that got everyone talking.
The second aim of the project was to celebrate young designers, said Burton, particularly those who are “keeping American fashion exciting” like ERL, Khaite, Who Decides War, and Luar. The latter—which was largely missed by the media (I drove myself crazy trying to figure it out)—was responsible for the all-black look that Williams wore to play in the Stars of the Open event and her final doubles match. Designed by Luar’s Brooklyn-based founder Raul Lopez in partnership with The Woolmark Company, it featured a custom black Merino wool mesh dress and water-resistant wool messenger bag. They were topped off with a silky paneled track jacket from Luar’s collection. (Fun fact: she wore another custom kit-turned-outfit from Luar in the debut episode of her new podcast Stockton Street with Serena.) “Everyone commissioned was so excited, which made it all the more special to feature the younger brands on court,” said Burton.
The other looks were designed by 3.1 Phillip Lim—a very New York brand—and Pucci. The Italian luxury brand was the only real curveball of the bunch in terms of narrative, although its designer Camille Miceli is notably the first woman to lead the house. (BTW, you can buy a similar Pucci dress here for a cool $1500.)
“I looked at the unexpected that I thought could bring something unique [to the court],” explained Burton, who said he could never pick a favorite. “Each look represented something different, so I couldn’t really compare them.”
The US Open collaboration appears to have been the beginning of a beautiful working relationship. “Venus was very trusting through the entire process and allowed me to orchestrate the narrative as I saw fit,” said Burton, who has since styled Williams for select events and said, with a wink, that there are more planned for 2026. Could this mean another run of boundary-pushing designer outfits, perhaps at more tennis tournaments throughout the year? We can only hope.
Later this week, I’ll be touching on the other three most important tennis fashion moments of the year and what they signal for 2026. Can you guess what they are? As always, send any tennis news and tips to jessica@hard-court.com.