Lenglen

Suzanne (1899-1938). Tennis player, winner of the Wimbledon tournament. Patou designed her tennis outfits. She was born in Paris and spent her life between Paris, a country house in Marest-sur-Matz (Compiègne), Nice, and Paris again, where she died of malignant anemia. “More admired than Sarah Bernhardt, most desired than Josephine Baker, more elegant than Anna Pavlova,” wrote her only biographer, Gianni Clerici (La Diva du Tennis, Rochevignes Ed., 1984. Paris), with a degree of exaggeration. European champion at the age of 15 in 1914, Susanne won her first Wimbledon after World War I in 1919. She continued to win there every time she entered the competition until 1925, with the exception of a single absence in 1924. In 1926, as the world number 1 (men included), she turned professional, making her début at Madison Square Garden, and earning 100,000 dollars for a four-month tour throughout the United States. She was the first tennis-player to abandon wearing a corset and to play in light clothes, a pleated, knee-length skirt, and stockings held by elastics bands around her thighs. She introduced the trend of wearing a silk turban, as well as that of the cardigan she wore during the warm-up (which always matched the turban). She asked Patou to design tennis garments which she both wore and sponsored, though this of course went against the rules of the amateur game.