When Marta Kostyuk made her first appearance at this year’s Wimbledon tennis tournament, it wasn’t just her winning match – scoring 6-3, 6-2 in straight sets with ease – that had people talking, it was also her outfit. Tennis style spotting is usually all about those in the stands, with Kate Middleton’s annual appearance at the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club a regular highlight in any fashionista’s annual calendar.
Marta’s white competition dress is certainly elegant and elevated above other court-ready ensembles, with its plunging v-neck, cut-out back panel and intricate straps. But it’s a certain detail that is not immediately obvious that sets this dress apart. Namely, that it’s inspired by her wedding dress.
Those same eye-catching features are present in the floor-length gown the Ukrainian pro, currently ranked 18th in the world, wore to walk down the aisle when she married George Kyzymenko in Cyprus last November. Both creations were brought to life by Wilson, the American sporting goods company that tapped Marta as their first 360 Ambassador in 2022.
Tennis was how Marta and George first actually came to meet – Marta was just four years old when she joined the same Kyiv tennis club that George, age nine, practiced at. They lost contact when he went to the US to study, and Marta started playing professionally. They reconnected only when she returned to her home country in 2022. Five months later, George proposed.
“I didn’t have any idea in mind of what I wanted the dress to look like, so I was very open to experimenting,” Marta tells Cosmopolitan UK. “When we started to plan the wedding, I was just sitting on the sofa with my team and we came up with this idea and thought, ‘Why not? It would be something really cool.’ That’s how the idea was born.”
Marta worked closely with Joelle Michaeloff, Wilson’s head of design, coming up with lots of different ideas and sketches. The final result was a highly technical button-front mini dress featuring a built-in shelf prop (as you’d expect in most tennis outfits) with a sheer silk organza removable overlay adorned with cascading hand-appliquéd flowers. Talk about next level tenniscore.
“Joelle somehow managed to still have a tennis dress in my wedding dress which is super cool because tennis is a big part of my life, obviously. It’s my career, it’s my job. Being able to have a little bit of that during my wedding day was super cool,” Marta says. “It was very comfortable and very light, just how I wanted it. When I tried it on for the wedding day, it was very very special. It’s a one-of-a-kind.”
Any bride will tell you it’s a shame to only get to wear your wedding dress once. With Marta’s already possessing elements that could easily be incorporated into professional-level tennis attire, it was an obvious next step for her. So her souped-up-for-serving replica of her wedding dress made it to the Wimbledon courts. The overlayer dress was shortened to a mini length, and the floral embellishments were removed. The button detailing allowed Marta to remove it after her walk-on – just as she did the original overlay after the ceremony for the reception. The only adjustments the new iteration of her dress required were some built-in ball shorts and a slightly higher neckline.
Perhaps the biggest difference is that, unlike Marta’s wedding dress, the tennis dresses are available for purchase via Wilson’s website. Marta admits that took a moment to get her head around.
“It was kind of a weird feeling… this dress was at first just made for me as my wedding dress. It was only my dress and then suddenly a lot of people are going to wear it. It’s a super cool experience but at the same time a very interesting feeling because [designing it] felt like a very intimate process,” she explains. Once she’d had time to understand and process Wilson’s suggestion to sell it at retail though? “It’s an incredible feeling at the end of the day,” she concludes.
The Marta Dress is available to buy as two pieces and just as the one-piece.
“I think after Wimbledon is over, I will put this dress in a frame and hang it on the wall somewhere,” Marta says. “It definitely will be one of the highlights of my life and my career. I mean, what else can you ask for?”
Alexandria Dale is the Digital Fashion Writer at Cosmopolitan UK. Covering everything from the celebrity style moments worth knowing about to the latest fashion news, there’s nothing she loves more than finding a high street dupe of a must-have designer item. As well as discovering new brands, she’s passionate about sustainable fashion and establishing the trends that are actually worth investing in. Having worked in fashion journalism for six years, she has experience at both digital and print publications including Glamour and Ok!
