NEAPOLITAN MATCH: Fashion’s love of tennis has reached match point, with brands across price points rushing to secure deals with the sport’s stars and dropping gear intended for its aficionados.
Luxury menswear brand Kiton and its brother label KNT have debuted “A Grand Journey,” a capsule collection devoted to tennis clothing with 1970s whiffs reinterpreted through the brands’ luxurious lens.
A range of T-shirts, long- and short-sleeve polo shirts, shorts, unlined blazers in cool wool, cable-knit vests, cardigans and varsity jackets done in a streamlined palette of lawn green, navy blue and white are emblazoned with a tennis-ball like patch bearing the KNT logo.
The collection will hit Kiton stores globally in January.
The Kiton and KNT tennis gear capsule collection.
Marking the capsule collection’s launch, the brand — founded by the late Ciro Paone in Arzano, Italy, in the outskirts of Naples in 1968 — is taking on a world trip hosting events and activations in key cities for the tennis community.
The trip kicked off this past weekend in Rome during the Italian Tennis Open with an event at the Hotel de Russie and will continue at Roland Garros in Paris with in-store activations, the Amalfi Coast and Capri with special collaborations set to be unveiled at the tony JK Place hotel, before touching down in London during Wimbledon with a boutique event and dedicated window installations.
The Kiton and KNT tennis gear capsule collection.
Courtesy of Kiton
Kiton is just one of many luxury brands venturing into sports affiliations, particularly tennis. Last week Louis Vuitton unveiled its latest “Core Values” campaign, fronted by Spanish tennis legend Rafael Nadal and his equally revered rival Roger Federer, while Gucci recruited its brand ambassador and Italy’s tennis ace Jannik Sinner for a campaign dedicated to the Gucci GG monogram duffel bag.