Tennis Fashion Fix: Venus Continues To Baffle Me

Venus promised us more skin for the 2011 Australian Open and she is definitely delivering.

So here's her first round dress:

Images by Ben Solomon

When I saw this, I thought, “Okay, I get it. The see-through mesh panels. The zipper that goes all the way from the top to the bottom on the front. That's more skin.” The design itself seems somewhat juvenile but I get where she's going with this.

But get a load of her second round dress:

Images by Ben Solomon

Are you understanding this dress? Because I'm not. There are yellow strips of some kind of shiny polyester (?) fabric woven together to allow quite a bit of skin to show through. I have no earthly idea what is going on with the skirt area, which doesn't seem to have anything to do with the top area, so I'm not going to try and explain that.

Now, as I'm writing this, I'm watching a replay of this second round match and seeing the dress in action is even more uncomfortable than looking at the photos. I see a lot of problems – the color is not flattering, Venus is tugging at the skirt (which I'm starting to think is just a nervous habit she has since she does it with every outfit she wears) and the fit is just atrocious. In my non-fashion-school-trained mind, if you're going to have skin showing through like this, the dress should be very closely fitted. I mean its almost like wearing a bathing suit so it should fit like a bathing suit! Instead, this dress seems to bag around Venus' torso.

I really can't explain what logic, if any, is behind Venus' tennis fashion designs. If she's designing tennis wear just for herself – fine. Wear whatever. You're one of the top two American women playing tennis these days, the top American woman and a heavy contender at the Australian Open, so if you're happy in it, I'm happy for you to be in it. But she claims that this stuff is part of her overall post-tennis-career fashion empire. I just don't see anyone else, no matter how good their game or their body might be, wearing this stuff. Am I wrong? Your thoughts?

© Kim Selzman 2011 All Rights Reserved