At the Met’s press conference Monday morning, which christened the opening of the Costume Institute’s 2026 exhibition “Costume Art,” Met Gala co-chair Venus Williams, another tennis great, addressed the crowd. In her speech, she said fashion “allowed me to connect to myself” more than anything else—than to fans, than to brands, than to the pop culture conversation. I asked Osaka if she felt similarly.
“I think for me, obviously, I appreciate that people like the fashion,” said Osaka. “I would say, yeah, I primarily do it as a way to express myself. I think, you know, growing up, I lived in New York and Florida for my younger years, and then I went to Japan one year and it kind of blew me away how people were able to express themselves so well, and I always took that with me. I realized early that on the tennis court, you know, we’re kind of limited. So I would say the fashion is really just to have fun and spice it up a bit.”
That may be true, but Osaka does take fashion—and its peripheral industries—more seriously than most in her profession. She’s studied in it, and cites Yoon Ahn, of the label Ambush, as someone whose style she reveres, along with the aesthetics cultivated by Rihanna and Solange Knowles. She collaborated with Takashi Murakami, the artist (a man himself with multiple fashion crossovers) on a Yonex tennis racket a few years ago; Osaka knows what she’s talking about when it comes to creative fields. Her demonstration of it, though, hasn’t come without flack; her Australian Open outfit, and to a degree her look at the BNP Paribas Open a few weeks later (which featured facial piercings and ear clips designed by Chris Habana), drew ire from armchair Instagram and X commentators. The chorus cried that Osaka should focus on her court game, not her closet’s, in large part because she hasn’t yet found her rhythm in full since returning to tennis in 2024 after a 17-month hiatus after giving birth to her daughter, Shai.
Naomi OsakaArturo Holmes/MG26/Getty Images