Wimbledon white? It's more than a colour – it's an ideal
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Version 0 of 1. Wimbledon means white. White skirts and shorts cutting a dash on the green lawn as stark as the chalk of the tramlines. When I say white, I mean white – and maybe the odd fluorescent trainer sole (like Roger Federer's last year), cerise hairband (Serena Williams, 2012) or pair of bright red knickers (Tatiana Golovin, 2007). Because Wimbledon white has always been an enticement to personalisation, right back to the lace-edged knickers of Gussie Moran in 1949. This year, however, the white will be less colourful - more white! - than previous years because the tournament referee, Andrew Jarrett, has announced a clampdown. Players may break their all-white outfits only with a coloured trim of 1cm width, and only on the edge of their garments. It is the marginalisation of colour. There is not a great deal you can do with a centimetre of permission, but I'm sure some players will have fun experimenting. According to the Times, the new rule also covers underwear, including those items that become "visible during play … due to perspiration". So there goes the fluorescent bra. Rule-breakers will be loaned a compliant outfit from a "supply of suitable clothing" – a bit like the spare PE kit cupboard in school. Jarrett's specifications sound really pernickety, but in fact they belie a laxness at the heart of the All England Club's rules on dress. Players must wear "almost entirely white", according to a stipulation introduced in 1995 to update and clarify the "predominantly in white" rule, which dated back to 1963. I think I can see what the All England Club's problem is: adverbs. "Almost entirely", "predominantly" – these sound like invitations to misbehave. The 1cm specification is an attempt to redraw the boundary. But why is the idea of pure white such a powerful ideal? White is not just the colour of Wimbledon, but summer. White reflects light, of course. But there is more to our affection for white than GCSE science. White is the colour of carefree living. This was hammered home to girls growing up in the 1980s by the Timotei ad, whose blonde, white-frocked protagonist was so carefree that she washed her hair in a waterfull, heedless to the danger that white when wet turns transparent. To layer white on white, as argued on the spring/summer 2014 catwalks of Phillip Lim, Victoria Beckham, Thakoon and others, is to appear to be living some kind of summer fantasy. It has to be really hot to wear white: with few exemptions, all-white on a cloudy day looks as if you're kidding yourself. And, in your imagination at least, you need to be somewhere other than in a grimy city. Wearing white on white suggests a kind of sartorial extremism, a statement of belief. It is a colour of hope and mystery. (Wilkie Collins wrote The Woman in White and launched a new genre on this premise.) An all-white outfit is a blank page. It begs but declines to answer questions; all the words are on the inside. The all-white look is a staple of summer British Vogue covers – the current issue shows Christy Turlington in white mohair – and also of its December issues, because that's when people who lead the Vogue lifestyle are busy wintering where it is summer. In practice, of course, white is never pure white. (The other colour of Wimbledon is strawberries, which can give you more than a colourful border.) White picks up every stain going, from the acid yellow of sweat to whatever the person who occupied your bus seat before you happened to leave behind. It doesn't take long for a white dress to become a stained dress. Then, after it's been washed a few times, your white dress is a grey dress. The truth is, for people of ordinary means, a white dress is a white dress only fleetingly. That is why it looks so good. |