Let the ATP x WTA fashion wars begin
A sneak peek at the WTA’s new fashion show is promising. Plus, what some ATP players think would make ‘athlete arrivals’ better.
When the WTA announced in the Daily Express that it was launching a new fashion series called, “Style Unpacked,” I was curious to learn more.
Last year, while reporting a story about the increasingly fashion-forward year-end portraits for the WTA for The Financial Times, I asked the organization’s chief brand officer Sarah Swanson whether they’d be launching a similar fashion marketing initiative to the ATP’s, which I covered last August for Vogue Business. “It’s so inherent in everything that we’re doing that we don’t need to announce that we’re fashionable or doing a fashion initiative, it’s part of our brand,” she told me.
At the time, I found the response a bit shortsighted—assuming the audience just knows that fashion is part of the brand is a big leap. But the WTA had been trying to make fashion happen longer than its male counterpart with programs like “Off Court Fits” in 2024—in which players like Aryna Sabalenka and Qinwen Zheng were given a brief to arrive to the Canadian and Cincinnati Opens in outfits that would be photographed—and a collaboration with Duke + Dexter on a capsule collection in 2025. The problem is that it didn’t receive the same level of attention, whether due to a faulty rollout, the increased attention the ATP tour often (and unfairly) gets, or, from my POV, a mix of both.
“If you look at our athletes, fashion is so clearly important to them, so we’re really focused on how we can highlight that,” Swanson said back then.
The new series, debuting its first episode on May 15th, is the WTA’s biggest effort yet to do that. Produced in partnership with the creative agency Run Deep, the aim is to film players getting styled by local fashion experts for different events, whether it’s an awards show or a simple lunch with friends. Each player gets to choose the theme and is asked to bring an accessory that’s meaningful to them to help weave some of their backstory into the look. Victoria Mboko, Camila Osorio, Oskana Selekhmeteva and Xinyu Wang all filmed episodes for the first rollout.
It had a fairly quick turnaround time—they filmed four episodes on April 20th, the same day as the Laureus Awards and media day in Madrid. The first episode will feature world No. 83 Osorio getting styled for the awards show by Antonia Peyaras in an outfit by Silvia Tcherassi, who shares her Colombian roots.
Hosted by Andrea Neiras—somewhat confusingly the chief platform and strategy officer at Billionhands, a ranking platform for movies, sports, and tech—the first episode has a nostalgic, ‘90s-era makeover feel to it (minus all the toxicity of that time) that I actually appreciate. They do a great job of introducing Osorio to viewers who might not be as familiar with her tennis; the chemistry between host, star, and stylist is, at least in this first episode, natural and riddled with humor; multiple languages are used, with handy subtitles; and the set is a makeshift fashion closet filled with colorful garments (a great start, but I think they could up the ante on the glamour factor with more time—think of the podcast sets currently in vogue that feel as if you’re stepping into someone’s home).
Whereas the ATP has relied largely on static imagery and personality-free video, I think this series could be a really great way to bring current fans further into the world of players they love or introduce them to new ones if executed correctly. But what they’ll need to really pull fans in initially (whether we like it or not) is bigger star involvement—Vicky Mboko’s episode is likely to be the most viewed, and I’m also told by a source that Amanda Anisimova was interested but had a conflict.
The four episodes are set to roll out over the next few weeks, but right now the series is a test, a spokesperson for the WTA tells me. If their audience responds well to it, they’ll keep it coming. In the meantime, they’re also working on other video content formats like one that focuses on food in an effort to bring fans into the wide world that the tennis tour and its players represent.
Sign up for a paid subscription to hear how the ATP Players feel about the tour’s “Athlete Arrivals” initiative so far and what they’d like to see changed. Plus, some hints about content on the docket…
