Tennis Bracelets
The US Open Tennis Championship is one of the most exclusive sporting events of the summertime. Let's take a look at a stylish way to accessorize your center court attire: the tennis bracelet. Its history is one immortalized by world-ranked tennis star Chris Evert. But how did an eternity strand of diamonds come to be so ubiquitously thought of as a 'tennis bracelet'? Evert deserves the credit.…
But according to jewelry historian Marion Fasel, the details surrounding the true story of Evert's tennis bracelet have been seriously mixed up. As it turns out, the tennis bracelet’s back-story is a little more fun than you might expect. Scroll through to learn more about it—increase your obscure trivia knowledge, or to just appreciate your own tennis bracelet that much more.
Besides her tennis prowess, Chris Evert was also known for her on-court attire of delicate lace dresses and elegant accessories. “The Ice Maiden'' was one of the most talked about athletes of her time. Her signature accessory was an eternity bracelet: a flexible, serpentine design of diamonds that provided flexibility even while landing her opponent a perfectly placed backhand shot. Popular in the 1920s, this elegant bracelet was worn by fashionable women at the time, who would stack them in multiples on their wrists.
The often repeated story goes that during an exceptionally long rally in the 1987 Grand Slam, Chris’s diamond eternity bracelet snapped mid-game. In researching this, Marion Fasel says “I don’t know when it happened, but the story about how Chris Evert’s diamond bracelet became known as a tennis bracelet has gotten mixed up.” When Marion sat down to write a post about the iconic style in honor of the U.S. Open, she did a digital dive to check her facts and “was surprised at what people were reporting.”
Every story said that when Chris Evert was playing a match in 1987 her diamond line bracelet flew off her arm. She stopped to find it and from that moment the jewelry style became known as a tennis bracelet. Some reported that the incident of Evert and the bracelet took place in 1987 at the U.S. Open “during an exceptionally long rally.”
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Marion Fasel’s main quibble was actually with the date people are claiming the event took place. A lot of jewelry history is oral history and Fasel had always heard the diamond line bracelet, a style that has been around since the 1920s, was named a “tennis bracelet” during the 1970s when Evert began to wear one while she ascended the ranks in her chic sporting gear and jewelry to become the number one player in the world. The extravagance of playing in diamonds was such a novelty, her jewel was dubbed a tennis bracelet, by no one knows who, and the name stuck.
An August 4, 1987 piece in the Los Angeles Times, marveling about the diamond studs worn by Australian men’s champion Pat Cash said, “And, let’s not forget what Chris Evert did for the diamond ‘tennis bracelet’.” Marion realized that the name was fully in place by the 1987 U.S. Open. It did not happen at that Slam.
Fasel writes that the 1970s date for the jewel is the one that makes sense historically. It was the disco era when people were beginning to dress down and wear denim with diamonds. There was a desire for low-key luxury and high-end jewelers began making it. “It was the marking of a transition to something totally different which nobody was doing.” Arguably in this context, Chris Evert wearing diamonds while she played tennis and the design being named a tennis bracelet fits in with the overall fashion mood.
In an effort to confirm the facts once and for all, Marion Fasel went to the source. Chris Evert’s publicist Tami Starr relayed in an email, “Chrissie recalls that she was wearing a diamond and gold bracelet and it broke and fell onto the court in an early round of the Open and officials halted the game till, at last, it was found.” Starr went on to add that Chris remembers it happening the year the U.S. Open moved from Forest Hills to Flushing Meadows which was 1978.
Fasel believes somewhere along the way on the wild internet, someone transposed the numbers of the year from 1978 to 1987 and the misinformation snowballed. We can all agree that Chris Evert would know the year when she almost lost her diamonds.
The elegant bracelet immediately gained notoriety; jewelers everywhere began receiving requests for diamond “tennis bracelets.” Despite the bracelet’s name throughout history, its timeless and classic design are sure to been seen from the grandstands of tennis grand slams, for decades to come.
Almost 45 years later, Evert’s game-on style resonates with the great female tennis stars today. From Serena Williams’s diamond earrings, necklaces and bracelets, to Caroline Wozniacki’s diamond bezel Rolex wristwatch, the queens of the court continue to embody an athletic glamour.
Sources:
Marion Fasel: https://theadventurine.com/culture/jewelry-history/chris-evert-tells-us-the-true-story-of-her-tennis-bracelet/
Sothebys:
https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/rocking-wimbledon-history-of-the-tennis-bracelet