My sartorial interest in tennis, however, continued unabated. I filled my teenage closet with pleated white skirts, amassed a sizable Lacoste collection, and wore a racquet-embroidered Juicy Couture skirt and matching t-shirt with almost zero irony. Today, despite having only a vague familiarity with the current state of tennis, I can spend hours scrolling through photos of its Golden Age stars (Tracy Austin’s dresses! Chris Evert’s bows! Arthur Ashe’s aviators!) and find the U.S. Open to be infinitely more enjoyable than any other sporting event. I haven’t stopped thinking about Challengers‘ pitch-perfect Jonathan Anderson–designed costumes since I saw it in theaters (twice!), and while on a recent trip to Newport, paid a visit to the International Tennis Hall of Fame for purely aesthetic reasons. 

So, like any good sports story about overcoming adversity, mine ends with an important moral: When at first you don’t succeed, just throw in the towel—and keep the outfits.