Aiava in the Archives
Destanee Aiava has found fashion and freedom by bringing back vintage tennis outfits.
MELBOURNE, Australia — It’s a common experience for me at a Grand Slam tournament to see a face I haven’t seen in years but can still recognize from having watched tennis closely more than a decade ago; usually, it’s a former player who has returned to work at the event in a new role as either a coach or commentator. If you’re the sort of tennis fan who would get a rush from spotting an Ai Sugiyama or an Igor Andreev, there are plenty of thrilling sightings to be found around the grounds.
Tennis players hang around. But before Australian Open qualifying this week, I had never before spotted recognized tennis clothing from past decades back on the courts at a major again.
Pulling from fashion designers’ archives has become an increasingly prominent trend on red carpets in the entertainment industry’s red carpets, led by Zendaya’s stylist Law Roach. “Designed by Lee McQueen for his autumn/winter '99 Givenchy collection, it was what the fashion commentariat have come to recognize as an insane pull,” Vogue wrote last year about the grey suit Zendaya wore to the Seoul premiere of Dune: Part Two.
Zendaya’s performance as a tennis player on screen in Challengers is unlikely to inspire any pros to mimic her technique, but her archival fashion instincts have been replicated here by Destanee Aiava, an Australian 24-year-old who is seeking to qualify for a second straight major.
Ranked 195th, Aiava has had some “insane pulls” of her own at this 2025 Australian Open (not to mention beating two former top-100 players in Ana Bogdan and Panna Udvardy in straight sets to advance to the final round of qualifying).
In Aiava’s first match, she wore a pink-and-grey dress that I recognized from one of the first majors I covered in-person, the 2012 U.S. Open, when Maria Sharapova wore it in her run to the semifinals.
Aiava stayed in a similar era but switched brands for her second round win in qualifying, wearing a pink-and-purple Adidas dress that Ana Ivanovic had worn at the 2010 U.S. Open.
Fascinated by where she found these items, which were first worn on court before she was even a teenager, I asked Aiava how she was acquiring these pieces. Aiava told Bounces that she’s sourced the vintage looks herself, and that it’s hardly a bargain.
“I’ve found them on eBay—for double the price that they were originally for,” Aiava said. “But yeah, I just like looking—on Depop, Facebook Marketplace, eBay—to find the old, vintage outfits that I loved when I was little.”
Aiava said her wardrobe of archival fashion looks is growing slowly but steadily.
“I think I’ve got, like, six now,” she said. “I was actually looking before my match for another couple; just in case I did make main draw, I’d have a new one to wear. Hopefully I can get through.”
Fashion is a form of self-expression for many, but most tennis players at the Grand Slam level will have little say in what they wear on court. Especially in the singles main draws, most looks are assigned by a handful of apparel sponsors, kitting out dozens of players in identical items from their most recent collection. It’s not uncommon for two players who share a sponsor to play against one another in identical outfits, which can be annoying for television viewers, especially if the two players physically resemble one another.
Aiava, going against the current of what’s current, gets to feel like less of a clone.
“I just like wearing my own things, and it’s nice not to see everyone wearing what I’m wearing,” Aiava said. “Even if it is twenty years old.”
Aiava isn’t the only player who feels more comfortable getting to choose their own clothes. For most of their careers, Hsieh Su-wei and Adrian Mannarino both shunned possible sponsors in order to wear what made them feel best.
Sometimes, that freedom is only discovered when a sponsorship runs out, or stops suddenly.
Terence Atmane’s abrupt change of clothing, Bounces readers may recall, was the subject of a question I got from a reader for a mailbag column last month.
Atmane, as a refresher, announced that he had been “fired” by his sponsor Asics last October, and began wearing Nike clothing with his own sponsor logos adhered onto the sleeve.
After his own second round qualifying win Wednesday at the Australian Open—beating Mattia Bellucci in front of vocal French fans—Atmane declined to detail to Bounces why he got dropped by the Japanese brand.
“It’s kind of private, but let’s say that I got fired from Asics; I had a couple issues with them,” Atmane said. “So now, I can wear whatever I want.”
Until the next deal comes along, Atmane said, he’s choosing to wear Nike, which he used to wear as a junior, but without any new contract from the brand.
“Now I try to bring the new Nike stuff, and yeah, I’m really happy with that,” Atmane said.
His current arrangement, 156th-ranked Atmane hopes, is only a stopgap measure between deals.
“I’m waiting for some sponsors, but that goes with the results, so I’m waiting to have a better ranking—I dropped a little bit,” he said. “After sponsors come, I’ll play with something new. But for now, I just like staying with my Nike stuff.”
This period isn’t the most lucrative for Atmane, but he also puts a high price on freedom.
“I can wear whatever I want, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want— that’s pretty rare,” he said. “So I’m waiting for sponsors to knock at my door, but for now I’m just trying to play tennis, trying to do what I have to do on court. And then after, we’re going to see.”
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