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AI garment reconstruction: Serena Williams, Roland-Garros 2018. Serena Williams’s black full-length Nike catsuit with a red waistband at Roland-Garros in 2018

Match kit · AI garment reconstruction.

Serena Williams · 2018

The superhero catsuit

A compression garment became a superhero silhouette for Williams’s return to Grand Slam tennis.

Athlete
Serena Williams
Tournament
Roland-Garros
Date
29 May 2018
Design
Nike · Custom for Serena Williams
Documented round
First roundSingles
Match result
Wonvs Kristýna Plíšková
Tournament finish
4R · WDSingles

The original look

Serena Williams in her black catsuit with a red waistband at Roland-Garros in 2018.

si.robi / Flickr · CC BY-SA 2.0 · CC BY-SA 2.0; resized and converted for web.

View original photograph & source ↗

The story behind the look

Williams returned to a major after childbirth in a sleek black Nike catsuit with a red waistband. She described its Wakanda and superhero associations, dedicating the image to mothers who had endured difficult recoveries.

The compression construction also served a practical purpose after Williams’s history of blood clots. Function, symbolism and an unmistakable silhouette converged in a look that immediately became part of the debate around who gets to define appropriate tennis dress.