The final of Wimbledon and the Euros both take place this weekend. But forget who is going to emerge victorious sporting-wise for a moment. What about the style champions? Here’s how tennis and football fashion score in 2024.
Players
Euros
While their style is somewhat hampered by the fact they all have to wear the same kit, footballers have amped up fashion connections recently. Jude Bellingham was recently the face of Kim Kardashian’s Skims while the French player Eduardo Camavinga was in a Balenciaga couture show in 2022.
Elsewhere, fashion points have been earned by players getting happy with the hair dye. The Romanian defender Andrei Ratiu went for blue while Germany’s Robert Andrich had an eye-catching – distracting? – pink crop.
Wimbledon
The players at the tennis tournament are hamstrung by the all-white dress code – a rule that has been in place since the late 19th century – but contestants have still managed to make a statement. Naomi Osaka’s ruffled top and wide skirt was a fashionable surprise.
Coco Gauff’s cut-out dress could easily have been worn off the court, especially with Tenniscore, the TikTok trend amped by tennis film Challengers, taking off. And then there’s Wimbledon’s fashion champion – Jannik Sinner, a face of Gucci since last year.
Score: 1-0 to Wimbledon. Who can argue with that Osaka outfit?
Fans
Euros
Noisy, often wearing face paint and sometimes without their tops, fans at the Euros have been hard to ignore. In terms of clothing, they vary between the kits of the team they’re supporting and some questionably on-the-nose dressing up. See three actual lions to watch England, and people dressed as matadors to watch Spain. The best style comes from retro kits, the kind that are now worn way beyond football matches. See French fans in the cult France 98 kit, German fans in their much-loved 1990 shirt and England fans in better-with-age grey kit from 1996.
Wimbledon
Tennis matches at Wimbledon are more likely to be accompanied by polite applause than the drums and chanting of a football match.
Beyond the inevitable stunt dressing – a suit printed with strawberries, orange wigs to watch Sinner – the fanbase is largely sartorially quiet – think the outfits more broadly associated with British summertime: florals, a blazer, baseball caps and, of course, the umbrella for the inevitable downpour.
Score: The Euros have equalised and it’s 1-1. Even with the dress-up, the retro kits give a fashion edge.
The sidelines
Euros
Manager style has become a much-watched fashion category among fashionable football fans recently. The quiet luxury style seen on managers such as Mikel Arteta and Pep Guardiola in the Premier League is very much the run of play with navy coming out on top. Best of these were Ronald Koeman’s chic boxy jacket and T-shirt, and knitwear from Julian Nagelsmann and Denmark’s Kasper Hjulmand.
Gareth Southgate’s quarter-zip ivory short-sleeved knit from M&S gently switches up the colour scheme while Murat Yakin’s retro glasses and swept-back hair are more glossy magazine art director than manager of Switzerland.
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Wimbledon
While Wimbledon has less style action on the actual sidelines, the coaching staff of certain players may have caught the eye of fashionable spectators from the stands – albeit in a likely unintentional way. Juan Carlos Ferrero, Carlos Alcaraz’s coach, wears summer 2024’s chosen headgear, the baseball cap.
Meanwhile, Brad Gilbert, Gauff’s coach, has been spotted in a fisher’s hat and wraparound shades, two items favoured by gen Z. There’s also, of course, the added bonus of the Ralph Lauren-sponsored ballboys and girls – a fashion ace for the tournament.
Score: This one is a tie, taking the scoreline to 2-2. Manager style has excelled at the Euros but the ballboys and girls’ outfits are bona fide classics.
Celebrities
Euros
Style wins on the stands have come from the former France player Lilian Thuram in a colourful scarf and hat and David Beckham in an immaculate suit.
Celebrity-wise, Ed Sheeran went literal by wearing an England shirt to watch the Slovakia game, while Adele kept it simple for the Netherlands game in a black blazer and white T-shirt.
Alternatively, look to a celebrity-in-the-making: the influencer Tolami Benson, the partner of England’s Bukayo Saka, who has impressed with a custom-made jacket by the designer Antonia Bronze, featuring Saka’s first shirt number for Arsenal, 87.
Wimbledon
Celebrities love Wimbledon – everyone from Salma Hayek to Stormzy, Keira Knightley and Beckham (him again) have attended this year’s tournament. There’s also Morgan Riddle, the influencer partner of Taylor Fritz, who has become a social media favourite for tennis-adjacent outfits and winky captions.
The best outfits go beyond the smart-casual – Grace Jones in a flying suit with hat, or Arlo Parks in a Thom Browne school uniform-ish outfit. The most unexpected was the smartest: an almost unrecognisable Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters in a smart suit, hair tied back in a ponytail.
Final score: 3-2 to Wimbledon. As an A-list destination, the tennis tournament comes out on top in the style championships.
