Evonne Goolagong’s Ted Tinling tennis dress

Ted Tinling combined his two great passions, tennis and fashion, in a career that spanned more than 50 years.

Until the early 1970s, tennis tournaments maintained strict dress regulations and it was mandatory for tennis outfits to be all white, although coloured trim was allowed. The Grand Slam events were more rigorous than other competitions, with Wimbledon one of the most conservative.

Between 1952 and 1961, Tinling dressed every female Wimbledon champion and, in 1973, the winner of every major women’s tournament wore a Tinling outfit.

After Australian player Evonne Goolagong had won several minor tournaments in England in 1970, Tinling approached her coach, Vic Edwards, and offered to design an outfit for her to wear at Wimbledon.

In designing for Goolagong, as he did for all his clients, Tinling attempted to capture her nature: ‘At times ... I felt I was grappling with a ghost, trying to grasp the essence of her elusive personality, so as to interpret this in her dresses. The real answer is that Evonne’s beauty lies in the exquisite grace of her movements. When she is still, it seems impossible to capture her true identity.’