Naomi Osaka has made it clear that getting criticised for her clothes is a price she is willing to pay if it gives the people coming after her more room to express themselves. On Tuesday, 8 September, one day after her 2026 US Open run ended in New York, the four-time Grand Slam champion responded on Threads to criticism of the elaborate walk-on looks she wore throughout the tournament.
‘I don’t mind being the first to do something and getting trashed for it,’ Osaka wrote. She linked the reaction to the scrutiny she faced after speaking publicly about mental health, adding that ‘as long as the people after me have an easier path it’s worth it’.
Osaka Has Been Building Toward This All Season
The US Open was not a one-off fashion experiment. Osaka opened the Australian Open in January wearing a jellyfish-inspired Robert Wun look with a parasol, veil and butterfly-covered hat, then arrived at Roland Garros in May in a black Kevin Germanier corset and cascading skirt over a sequinned Nike dress. At Wimbledon in June, she wore an embroidered white kimono inspired by her Japanese heritage and Kill Bill, saying she wanted to channel Lucy Liu’s O-Ren Ishii.
The reaction has not always been uncomplicated. After losing to Osaka at the French Open, Laura Siegemund said she came ‘to play tennis, not to put on a fashion show’ and criticised the amount of time Osaka was allowed to remove her entrance layers. Osaka continued dressing theatrically and had already explained why: ‘I don’t talk a lot, so I can talk through my clothes.’
Her US Open Looks Turned the Walk-On Into the Story
At Flushing Meadows, Osaka and stylist Law Roach treated each round as a separate fashion reveal. Her first look, by New York label Who Decides War, paired a distressed hooded piece lined with career clippings with a long white tulle skirt, while her black on-court kit paid tribute to NBA icon Allen Iverson. Osaka called Iverson a ‘trailblazer’ who helped shift ‘the whole conversation about clothes in sports’.
She followed with a white Thom Browne look embroidered with crossed tennis rackets, then a Monse outfit mixing tailoring, grey fleece and sportswear. For her fourth-round match against Elena Rybakina on Monday, 7 September, she arrived in a colourful fur-trimmed KidSuper cloak before losing 6-1, 6-4. Osaka said the look made her feel ‘really swaggy’ and that fashion was one way to keep the tournament experience fun.
Osaka Says the Point Is Bigger Than One Outfit
Osaka’s Threads post also reached back to 2021, when her decision to skip French Open press conferences over mental health concerns triggered a major dispute in tennis. She was fined US$15,000 after missing a press conference and later withdrew from the tournament, saying she had experienced ‘long bouts of depression’ since the 2018 US Open. Her new post frames the fashion criticism as another case where doing something differently can attract resistance before it becomes familiar.
That idea is already part of how Osaka talks about clothes. At the Australian Open, she named Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova and Bethanie Mattek-Sands among the women whose style shaped her own sense of tennis fashion. At Roland Garros, she said she hoped ‘kids or some people that are similar to me’ might one day feel about her outfits the way she felt about the grand reveals she grew up watching.
For Osaka, the point is not simply whether every outfit lands with every viewer. Her response places the criticism inside a longer argument about who gets to be expressive in sport and what becomes possible once somebody goes first. If the next generation of women players can arrive with fewer questions about whether their clothes belong on a tennis court, Osaka has said the backlash is a trade she is prepared to make.
AloJapan.com