Naomi Osaka Wears Custom Hana Yagi Look in Tribute to Japanese Heritage at Wimbledon

2 min read

No one makes an entrance at a Grand Slam quite like Naomi Osaka. The tennis ace didn’t disappoint on the first day of Wimbledon as the No. 14 seed took to the grass court in a floor-length, all-white look by Japanese designer Hana Yagi before her first-round match against France’s Elsa Jacquemot.

The walk-on piece, titled “Evolving Ceremony,” was inspired by the silhouette of a traditional kimono and the jūnihitoe, a 12-layer garment worn by noblewomen during Japan’s Heian period from 794 to 1185 and occasionally worn by the Japanese royals for formal events today. (Both Empress Michiko and Empress Masako, for example, wore jūnihitoe gowns during their respective enthronement ceremonies.)

Osaka walking onto the court.

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Osaka at the net before the match.

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Constructed from vintage kimonos, a traditional shiromuku bridal kimono, and a deconstructed western-style wedding dress, the gown seen at the All England Club was a tribute to Osaka’s Japanese heritage. She also accessorized with jewelry from Japanese pearl house Mikimoto. “It’s one of the few places in sport where ceremony still feels inseparable from competition,” Marty Harper, Osaka’s longtime creative director, told British Vogue. “We wanted to acknowledge that while creating a dialogue with Japanese ceremonial dress.”

Underneath, Osaka wore a custom Nike performance dress featuring floral appliqués and a micro-pleated hem inspired by Japanese kirigami, a traditional artform of paper cutting and folding similar to origami. “One of the key concepts was that the look would evolve as Naomi progresses,” Yagi said in the statement, per The New York Times. “I experimented many times to make sure it could happen naturally.” The dress also comes with an adjustable 10-foot train.

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A close-up of Osaka’s Nike performance dress.

Osaka shared a video of herself to social media while wearing the dress in a bucolic setting, with a brief caption written in Japanese that translated to one word in English: “Culture.”

The Wimbledon outfit is the third in a series of grand slam walk-on looks Osaka has developed this year, each working with a different designer and each rooted in a specific narrative. Most recently at the French Open, she arrived at Roland Garros in a black sparkling look designed by Kevin Germanier, constructed from upcycled versions of her previous Nike competition kits. The piece featured a structured corset with snap closures and a cascading pleated skirt hand-set for movement, worn over a custom tan sequined Nike tennis dress. Osaka dubbed the look “Court-ure” on Instagram.

At the Australian Open in January, where Osaka emerged in a gown by Robert Wun designed to evoke a jellyfish, an image she said came to her while reading a book to her daughter Shai. “When I look back at the players who came before me, I think about how those moments—those looks—have become memories that live forever,” Osaka told Vogue. “So much of the time, other people get to write our stories for us. This felt like a moment where I could write a little bit of my own.”

Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.