What is a Polo Tee Shirt ?
In the nineteeth tennis players ordinarily wore "tennis whites" consisting of long-sleeved white button-up shirts (worn with the sleeves rolled up)
Rene Lacostethe French 7-time Grand Slam tennis champion, decided that the stiff tennis attire was too cumbersome and uncomfortable. He designed a white, short-sleeved, loosely knit piqué cotton (he called the cotton weave jersey petit piqué) shirt with an un-starched, flat protruding collar, a buttoned placket, and a longer shirt-tail in back than in front (known today as a "tennis tail", which he first wore at the 1926 U.S. Open championship. Beginning in 1927, Lacoste placed a crocodile emblem on the left breast of his shirts, as the American press had begun to refer to him as "the alligator", a nickname which he embraced.
Lacoste's design mitigated the problems that traditional tennis attire created:
the short, cuffed sleeves solved the tendency of long-sleeves to roll down
the soft collar easily could be loosened by un-buttoning the placket
the piqué collar easily could be worn upturned to block the sun from the neck
the jersey knit piqué cotton breathed
the "tennis tail" prevented the shirt from pulling out of the wearer's trousers or shorts
the short, cuffed sleeves solved the tendency of long-sleeves to roll down
the soft collar easily could be loosened by un-buttoning the placket
the piqué collar easily could be worn upturned to block the sun from the neck
the jersey knit piqué cotton breathed
the "tennis tail" prevented the shirt from pulling out of the wearer's trousers or shorts
Click on the link below to view the A/W 09/10 Polo Tee Shirt
