In recent years, fashion has accustomed us to bold and incomprehensible collaborations, but very few at first glance are more unexpected than those that Sergio Tacchini has accustomed us to in recent years. Perhaps we will never know what often drives these collaborations and contaminations.
There are actually many underground connections linking the tennis jacket your dad wears on Sundays with street fashion than you might initially suspect.
Sergio Tacchini is an Italian designer specializing in sports and casual clothing. Founded in 1966, Sergio Tacchini was created by the Italian tennis champion of the same name. For over 50 years, they have made bright, bold clothing and dressed some of the world's most famous faces in sports, including the 1992 Italian basketball team and international names like Novak Djokovic.
Blog don't Lie loves vintage-inspired brands and with Sergio Tacchini we are proud to share some of the same values and tradition. We will soon have some unique capsules that you can only find from us. Sergio Tacchini will become an essential wardrobe item.
The brand is a continuous crossroads of unique aesthetic references, from the Terracewear of English stadiums during the 80s to the Golden Era of New York rap in the first half of the 90s, all in the name of a brand created by a now medium-successful Turin tennis player sixty years ago.
Sergio Tacchini is an Italian fashion designer and tennis player. Born on 2 September 1938 in Italy, he became a professional tennis player at the age of 17 when he joined the Milan Tennis Club in 1955. He became Italian champion in 1960, beating Nicola Pietrangeli and reaching the top of the rankings. From here, Tacchini competed in a number of competitions and titles, including the Davis Cup, Wimbledon and the US Open.
In 1966 he founded Sergio Tacchini with the aim of experimenting with fabrics and colors for sportswear. His approach was to create tennis clothing that was elegant, bold and bright as opposed to the basic, colorless pieces that dominated the world of tennis.
Like Fila or Kappa, Sergio Tacchini has experienced a great return to the Italian streetwear scene and has remained consistent with his philosophy, an oxymoron given how his color blocking tracksuits revolutionized first the tennis palette and then casualwear.
Sergio soon and not without a hint of mythomania, as his friend and rival Nicola Pietrangeli commented, changed the name of the company using his own name, embroidering it on each garment. Following in the footsteps of the more famous René Lacoste and Fred Perry, Sergio Tacchini was the only athlete in Italy to create his own line of technical clothing. And if his sporting results did not reach those of his inspirers, the resourcefulness with which he took on the role of entrepreneur allowed him in a short time to conquer an increasingly important space in dressing and sponsoring athletes in multiple disciplines.
Obviously for Sergio Tacchini tennis has always been his first love and the playing field on which he dressed the most recognized athletes. Starting with the sponsorships of Ilie Nastase, Jimmy Connors, Vitas Gerulaitis, Roscoe Tanner, Tacchini reached global fame when he dressed John McEnroe in 7 Grand Slam victories
Above all, the polo shirt with the T inscribed in the S went around the world during SuperBrat's outburst during the first round of Wimbledon 1981, when he insulted the line umpire for a call that he thought was wrong, repeating several times and with growing anger "You cannot be serious”, which first became the title of McEnroe's autobiography and subsequently a recent advertising campaign by Sergio Tacchini. In the final the American tennis player defeated the Swede Bjorn Borg, a Fila athlete, avenging the defeat of the previous edition in a figurative handover also between the brands.
The fame obtained on the tennis court helped Sergio Tacchini to broaden his reach to other sports. In particular in Formula 1 with Ayrton Senna, who loved wearing the brand even during everyday life, in basketball with Dino Meneghin and Olimpia Milano and in skiing with Pirmin Zurbriggen and Marc Girardelli. But above all, Tacchini's impact moved outside the sporting context, becoming a reference brand for various youth and counter-cultural fashions especially in the United Kingdom.
The most requested piece was the Dallas Tracksuit, a warm-up jacket for tennis players designed at the beginning of the decade and which featured a full zip, double horizontal stripe on the chest and the iconic ST printed or embroidered on the left chest. The contrasting collar was worn proudly turned up as was the norm for any garment in the 80s. It was first worn by John McEnroe to lift the Wimbledon trophy in 1984 and soon by all the young fans of English football teams who identified with the casual aesthetic.
At the beginning of that decade, English football experienced a period of great international success, with Liverpool, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest sharing the European Cups, pushing more and more fans to cross the Channel to follow their teams on the continent. Expeditions not only of a sporting nature but which brought many working class young people into contact with Italian and French brands to be imported for each trip. The names embroidered on the overalls then became medals that indicated where one had gone, usually making the right mess following the motto "dress well, behave badly", and returned with the spoils of war. The more unknown or rare the brand, the more value it acquired within the tribal structure of the curve. Obviously among these there was Sergio Tacchini, who had a vast and organic diffusion in what would later be defined as terrace wear, i.e. the style of the fans of the hottest stands in England made up of white sneakers and acetate tracksuits.
A fashion that by osmosis will also arrive in music, starting from the Mod wave up to the Brit Pop of the 90s, with Damon Albarn who became a regular customer of the Italian brand. A fascination for local clothing that did not remain limited to English curves but rather found an easy shore on the other side of the ocean.
In fact, these were the years during which rap, especially the New York one, appreciated Italian high fashion brands so much that with Dapper Dan he created tailor-made fakes. Sergio Tacchini therefore entered this wave of ostentation and Italianness with his name written in full on the acid and shiny patterns of the tracksuits. They thus became a staple in New York where The Notorious B.I.G. to LL Cool J through Nas, Rakim and Eric B all had at least one ST tracktop. A brand that has remained current over the years so much so that in "See Me Now" Kanye West rhymes Tacchini with Lamborghini, in a triumph of Italian style.
In 2007 the Sergio Tacchini brand suffered serious financial problems and was sold to the Chinese holding controlled by Billy Ngok, who directed it towards the Asian market. A choice that didn't work very well, so much so that six years later it was transformed into Sergio Tacchini International, definitively closing the historic factories in Bellinzago Novarese.
In reality, Tacchini had a great opportunity to rise to the top in sports sponsorships and in his favorite discipline when he bet everything on the budding talent of a young Novak Djokovic. The Slovenian signed a ten-year contract in 2009 and began his climb up the ATP rankings, but the small club was unable to keep pace and pay all the bonuses. And despite Tacchini turning Djokovic into his full-time business, the contract between the two ultimately broke down in 2012 with the Slovenian signing with Japanese brand Uniqlo and Tacchini missing the boat on becoming truly relevant again in the sporting landscape.
In 2019, the brand was finally acquired by the Italian entrepreneur Stefano Maroni, associated with two American investment funds, and relaunched in style by investing in the tradition and quality of a historic brand. The artistic direction was entrusted to Dao-Yi Chow, co-founder of the New York streetwear brand Public School, and the offices moved to the USA, which became the real reference market.
In fact, according to the intentions of the new ownership, the restyling must focus above all on the United States and Japan, raising the previous target by crossing the increasingly wide bridge between streetwear and high fashion. A desire also reiterated on the occasion of the first participation in Pitti Uomo last year where, inside the Tepidarium del Roster, the historic nineteenth-century greenhouse of the Giardino dell'Orticultura in Florence, less sporty and cleaner garments were paraded.
The idea of mixing different influences, between the almost sartorial aspect of the origins and the bright colors of the 80s represents the path that many streetwear brands have relied on in recent times to become relevant again.
We can't wait to appreciate and wear all the pieces exclusive to us.
Comin soon HERE.