According to the official Australian Open Web site, Rebecca Weinberg—the stylist who became “famous” (yeah, in whose world?) for dressing some actress named Sarah Jessica Parker in the television series Sex and the City—has ideas on how to make tennis players look more “fashionable.”
Her suggestion?
“I’d like to see more flesh,” Weinberg says. “More flesh, more skin, more bulging muscles, shorter pants, singlets, more bare arms. I’m into that.”
I’d like to see Weinberg get a cold shower. But I’m not at all surprised by what she proposes. Once you abandon a collective standard, everyone sets a personal baseline and you end up having to look at parts of Janet Jackson’s body that you may not want to see for any number of reasons.
So this is what passes for high fashion these days. This is what passes for creative thinking. More flesh? What a staggeringly original, brilliant idea! Has anyone told Madonna or Britney about this?
Gee, maybe we can get Tatiana Golovin to pull those hip-hugging shorts just a little lower; maybe we can get Serena’s hot pants a little tighter and shorter. I know—instead of sleeveless shirts, maybe guys like Hewitt and Nadal could wear unbuttoned sleeveless vests—with little buckskin tassels!
Lest you think this Seventh Avenue rocket scientist is just a one-trick pony in the idea department, get a load of where she sees the sleeveless look going: “I can see a movement towards a serious dressing down, even to the extreme of shirtless matches. I love that. That’s kind of hot. We could get down to bathers, I mean that would work. You never know, you never know where the trends will take you.”
Actually, we do know. It’s called beach volleyball.
So while I sit around waiting for the day when Venus Williams, in a flowered two-piece, goes go head-to-head with Svetlana Kuznetsova in a string bikini, I’m just going to ask one question: Where do they get these people?