Forget the Front Row—The Most Exciting Fashion Moments Are Happening at Tournament Walk-Ins

From the jubilant Arsenal parade to the verdant scenes at Wimbledon to the rallying cry of “it’s coming home” that echoed around every corner of the UK, it really is the summer of sport. The summer of sweat and power and persistence – and, lest we forget, fashion.

Hang on, you may be thinking. Fashion? Of course, for the uninitiated, the sporting arena may not seem like the most obvious terrain for couture. All of that snarling and grunting and grime! Think of the tulle!! But sport and fashion have always been strange bedfellows.

After all, Chanel has its origins in tennis dresses. In 2012, Vivienne Westwood drew from London’s hosting gig and served up a Spring Menswear collection inspired by the Olympic Games. Dior’s Resort 2021 collection presented modern athleisure silhouettes. And, of course, the likes of the Williams sisters have been pushing the boundaries of sportswear for years, with everything from a fierce tennis catsuit to a delicate tutu and embellished nails.

This article is part of our 2026 Women in Sport special. For the full cover interview with Lioness Chloe Kelly, click here.

However, the trend is, without a doubt, on the rise—and morphing into something bigger and bolder than before. This summer, more than ever, these seemingly disparate worlds collided at full pelt as athletes and fans alike embraced the strength and power of a good sartorial moment, opting for fashion that is more elevated, more intentional, more avant-garde—more, if you’ll excuse the pun, ballsy than ever. It is, in other words, the summer when sport met method dressing.

In case you’ve somehow missed every A-lister press tour over the past few years, method dressing is all about reimagining the red carpet gown as a larger-than-life costume by making intentional sartorial nods to the project at hand. See, for instance, Margot Robbie recreating iconic Barbie looks for the 2022 Greta Gerwig film or Zendaya draped in goddess-worthy garments for Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Odyssey film.

In sport, we’re now seeing a similar trend. American tennis star Naomi Osaka, for instance, transformed the grass and clay courts into red carpets with her headline-grabbing couture walk-on moments: a gilded, sequinned tennis dress with a cascading tulle train by Germanier at the French Open, followed by a draped, custom-couture white embroidered kimono by Tokyo designer Hana Yagi at Wimbledon.

"She’s not simply participating in fashion; she’s using it as a tool to express different facets of herself – her heritage, her creativity, her emotions, and the many identities she holds beyond the court," explains Osaka's stylist Marty Harper. "That’s what makes her style resonate so powerfully: it feels authentic, but it also expands the way we think about athletes and who they’re allowed to be."

This is new territory. "Naomi brought fashion into a space where traditionally athletes have been expected to minimise self-expression and focus solely on performance. By bringing that level of intention and creativity onto the court, she challenged the idea that athletic excellence and personal style exist separately," he continues. "The kimono moment was especially powerful because it wasn’t just visually striking – it carried meaning. It connected culture, identity, history, and performance in a way that felt deeply considered. It transformed a uniform into a statement."

Meanwhile, Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk put a dainty spin on the classic tennis dress in the balletic white lace Wilson dress in a nod to the iconic lace dress worn by Chris Evert during the 1971 US Open.

In the football world, players have made their own fashion statements on and off the pitch with “tunnel ‘fits” becoming the footie version of a tennis walk-on. At the World Cup 2026 just last month, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s team swiftly went viral when they arrived in Houston wearing matching leopard print suits by Congo-born, Paris-based designer Alvin Mak. Last year, at the 2025 Euros, Denmark’s ladies arrived in oversized embroidered Rotate Birger Christensen two-pieces, while Poland’s team rocked three-piece red tailored suits by Lancerto.

And although couture moments actually on the football pitch aren’t yet as common as they are in the tennis world, Arsenal and England player Declan Rice quite literally turned his pitch into a red carpet, when he walked in Labrum’s London Fashion Week Show at the Emirates Stadium.

In addition to all of these viral IRL fashion moments, there are the endless collaborations. Ralph Lauren and Wimbledon. Gap, Aerie, American Eagle have all got their piece of the World Cup cake. Loewe recently announced a four-year partnership with Spain’s national teams, while Jacquemus has collaborated with France’s team. Indeed, cast your eyes up towards any billboard, and you’ll likely find your favourite footballer fronting a designer campaign.

According to Harper, this is just the beginning. "Right now, many of the most memorable fashion moments happen around arrival, entrances, or major events – those 'before the game' moments. But there is an opportunity to expand that storytelling ecosystem much further," he says. "The future is about creating a more complete visual narrative around an athlete: how they dress for competition, how they celebrate, how they travel, how they train, how they engage with fans, and how those moments collectively build their legacy."

On one hand, the growing alliance between sport and fashion feels like a logical capitalist inevitability. It's no surprise that, with all eyes on Wimbledon and the World Cup this summer, fashion houses and athletes alike were cashing in on the moment with theatrical, viral-worthy sartorial displays. Then again, perhaps there's another explanation.

As Zendaya explained during a BBC One Show interview, her relationship with method dressing helps her step into character. "Fashion is something I've always used as an outlet, a tool,” she said. “Ultimately, I think I am a more shy person so it allows for me to create this persona, this character that I get to live in for the day.” And after all, are the pressures and demands of a sporting arena really all that different from those of a red carpet? Perhaps turning to high fashion, athletes are able to craft their own costumes that help them to get into character – to get ready to perform. Stepping into a moment so grandiose demands an outfit worthy of the occasion. And draping oneself in a costume can have a real psychological impact.

“An athlete is no different [to an actor],” says Jennifer Michalski-Bray, celebrity stylist. “Tapping into their alter-ego before a competition helps create a powerful, confident mindset to match.”

Osaka herself has explained how embodying a character helps her perform. “For me, my Japanese heritage means a lot. They say all white at Wimbledon and I thought it would be really cool to come out in a kimono,” Osaka said in an on-court interview of her latest look, adding that she took inspiration from Kill Bill. "So I really love Lucy Liu’s character, O-Ren Ishii, and she comes out in this really iconic white kimono. I always tell people I like to be like a video game character sometimes, I don’t want to be myself when I’m playing on the court. And I kind of try to embody her a little.”

So, while some traditional sports fans may bristle at Osaka’s layers of tulle or Bellingham’s crisp cashmere, fashion may just be another piece in the mysterious puzzle of sports psychology. And just as method dressing on the red carpet gets fans excited about a film, these moments in sport can also draw in new fans.

"Audiences are craving a deeper connection," Harper says. "They don’t just want the statistics or the highlight reel; they want to understand the person behind the performance. Fashion is one of the most immediate and powerful forms of storytelling. In a single image, an athlete can communicate their values, their creativity, their heritage, or their mindset."

Adds Michalski-Bray, “I love seeing athletes express themselves through fashion because it brings an entirely new audience. People who might normally only watch because their sport-obsessed partner has the game on suddenly have another reason to tune in.”

It’s true – just as the method dressing trend in the entertainment world has seeped into fan culture in cinemas, sports fans are similarly rising to the sartorial occasion this summer. Where once pubs and watch parties were filled with uniform team jerseys, increasingly, you’re more likely to be greeted with a sea of carefully curated, intentional fan looks, filled with personality and self-expression.

Wimbledon has always been a fashion-forward sporting event, with guests playfully adhering to the all-white dress code. But other sporting events are catching up, too. For the World Cup, fans are not only sporting their team’s jerseys but also making their own playful nods to iconic fashion moments in the sport’s history. Chances are, you’ve already seen plenty of Victoria Beckham-inspired England looks at your local pub. I can also attest that this summer’s Arsenal parade was, thanks to a lot of sartorial creativity, a jubilant celebration not only of the team but also of the fan base’s diversity and personality. Celebrities are also getting in on the action. Take Taylor Swift’s viral DIY Knicks pun T-shirts, or New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, in her Knicks T-shirt dress by 2026 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist Miss Claire Sullivan.

As Felicia Pennant, founder of football and fashion zine Season, explains, fans have always used fashion as a means of expressing their allegiance to a team, but in the past few years, it's become more visible (and more trendy) than ever. "From a football perspective, we've been seeing this trend for the past few summers with people being really unapologetically expressing their fandom or really embracing this so-called blokecore aesthetic. It's more visible," she says. "I just think more people have tapped into the zeitgeist. And there's way more merch, which means there are more options. We've diversified fanwear and merch so everyone has a choice. And obviously it's not just male-centric. Women have women designers and feel empowered to express femininity and creativity and different narratives in their designs."

Is this another brand of fan method dressing? "It's an expression of interest in fandom, so it's motivated by the same things," she says. But, when it comes to fan dressing, there's one key difference. "I don't think that being a fan is a different character – it's just who you are," she says.

This summer, sport has become more widely celebrated, more inclusive than ever. Amongst all of the bubbling sporting excitement, it does, of course, make a lot of business sense that fashion houses would be chomping at the bit to collaborate with the biggest sporting stars. But there’s a more positive side to the rise of sporting method dressing, too. High fashion is having a theatrical moment under the headlights of the sporting world – and this new brazen and bold love affair shows that sport really is more fun when it’s for everyone.