Love-Love
Tennis aesthetics for the design elites vs. the American bourgeoisie.
Happy Wimbledon to those who celebrate.
I am not a player or follower of the sport, however, I am an able pretender. As in, I will gladly wear a tennis skirt out of context, say that I “played” tennis in the Luxembourg Gardens (once; I angered many French people, including an ornery man in an ascot), and buy into any tennis-themed collection (although the only one really worth consideration is Clare V’s).
Tennis is one of the few sports that has informed a continuous stream of design output, possessing both a cultural language and a design language that speaks to certain subcultures.
Tennis as Intentional Design
As a design influence, tennis offers some of the simplest of aesthetics: the lines of a court, the grid of a net, and the curves of a ball. Straight lines. Curvy lines. It’s basically the recipe you find for most modernist design and architecture. Of course, the grid motif in general has been a design guidepost throughout the ages — from Bertoia’s Diamond chair to the precision-tile bathrooms that dominated the ‘80s.
As far as furniture (with an actual tennis theme) from any of the design greats, there’s this chair that Swiss leather manufacturer De Sede designed for the 1985 Zurich Open, on sale on 1stdibs for $2,900.
There’s also a small 1972 Knoll collection by Gae Aulenti, which featured a “Tennis” bed and chairs. Sadly the internet can’t really explain why she named it this.
And although I can’t find the designer of this amazing ceramic tennis lamp from the ‘80s, they are surely underappreciated.
As for more recent tennis design explorations, Pieces caught a lot of attention a few years ago with their “Court” series.
(Pieces Clay Court Rug)
(Pieces Fence Coffee Table)
(Pieces Net Rug)
For actual players there’s also The Courts, a clubhouse destination in the Anza-Borrego desert, which opened in 2019 (we covered it on Hunker).
Tennis as Kitsch Design
On the cultural front, tennis is a sport of the elites (WASPs mostly; it’s for sure a goy activity) and because of its association with wealth and privilege (even the Titanic had a tennis court), it has been inscribed in the book of classicality. We can look to the brilliant but sadly out of print Preppy Handbook (1980) to school us on tennis as a “status quo institution” of the American bourgeoisie.
So when we look to Etsy to find trinkets of the tennisonian variety, much looks like it may have come from the estate of a Tripp or a Miffy — but that’s part of the pleasure of these items. Some picks:
Until next time!