Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk has turned heads at Wimbledon by playing in a bespoke replica of her own wedding dress.
Sports clothing brand Wilson stepped forward to help the 22-year-old design and create a custom wedding gown, when she married her now-husband George Kyzymenko in Cyprus in November.
The brand then created a shorter, pared back version of the dress for the tennis star to wear at the Championships, where it has been hailed as “one of the most beautiful tennis dresses in history”.
Hundreds of fans praised the tennis dress on Instagram, describing it as “breathtaking”, “a work of art”, and “one of the most gorgeous tennis dresses [they had] ever seen”.
“I think after Wimbledon is over, I will put this dress in a frame and hang it on the wall somewhere,” said Kostyuk, who has made it through to the third round of the Championships, to Wilson.
“It definitely will be one of the highlights of my life and my career. I mean what else can you ask for?”
‘The Marta Dress’ is available for retail on the Wilson website, for $298 (around £234) with the overlay or $198 (around £155) without.
Twenty per cent of the proceeds will go to the Elina Svitolina Foundation which supports young tennis players in Ukraine reach the heights of tennis.
Wilson describes the dress on its website as “the epitome of performance and elegance”.
“Crafted from premium recycled performance fabric, this dress is quick-dry, high stretch, gently compressive and fully lined with a built in bra and shorts,” it says.
“The power mesh overlay has a subtle sheen that’s breathable and designed to be worn over your favourite tennis dress on and off the court.”
Wilson’s head of design Joelle Michaeloff told Vogue: “We kept the mini-overlayer dress, which buttons off.
“Her walkout will be with all the layers, and then she’ll remove this over-dress, which is exactly like [her] wedding dress in that there’s the five buttons down the front; I’ve made her a quick-release option so she can take it off fast.
“What’s underneath is basically the original dress, but with a built-in ball short in this one.
“Basically, we added an underlayer component and then raised the neckline a little bit—we don’t want any mistakes in Wimbledon.”
It was Michaeloff, who has a background in designing sportswear, who designed Kostyuk’s wedding dress too.
After making up 12 sketches she and Kostyuk landed on a silk organza dress with a deep V at the front and a strappy back reminiscent of a tennis dress. Dozens of small flowers were attached by hand to the top of the dress, getting fewer in number towards the hem, as if slowly scattering.
Michaeloff told Vogue she wanted the wedding dress “to be easy and really functional” so designed it to be put on like a jacket, buttoning up at the front.
“The under-bodice, though, is really what makes this one of the most technical wedding dresses ever made. It has a built-in shelf prop, much like our tennis dresses,” Michaeloff told Vogue.
“So everything’s built-in and she could jump in the ocean in this dress if she wanted to. The fabric is this gorgeous, highly technical Italian fabric with just a slight shimmer, to that it really hugged and fit her like something she could go and play a match in.”
It is not just players who have been showing off their fashion at Wimbledon this week.
Read our breakdown of the best-dressed celebrities spotted at the Championships so far, from Sir David Attenborough and David Beckham, to musician Dave Grohl and actress Kim Cattrall.
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