The Vintage Eyewear Archive Behind Tennis' Most Stylish Era
YOU'RE HERE BEFORE OUR COLLECTION HAS LAUNCHED. :)
read our journal about our star player whilst waiting for our new frames to drop.
Before tennis became a world of neon performance fabrics, signature sneakers, and players with personal fashion brands, the sport was largely defined by one color: white.
Sergio Tacchini wanted to change that.
A former Italian tennis champion, Tacchini founded his company in 1966, initially under the name Sandys S.p.A. His idea was simple but disruptive: tennis clothing could be functional without sacrificing elegance, and the court could be a place for color, pattern, and personal style.
It was a distinctly Italian approach to sportswear—less about separating performance from fashion and more about making the two coexist.
Tacchini's timing was perfect. Tennis was entering a golden age, and the players who wore the brand were becoming cultural figures as much as athletes. John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Martina Navratilova, Pete Sampras, Gabriela Sabatini, and later Novak Djokovic all became part of the Sergio Tacchini story.
McEnroe, in particular, became inseparable from the brand's image. His expressive personality and unmistakable style transformed the tennis uniform into something closer to a personal wardrobe. Sergio Tacchini's color, stripes, contrast panels, and distinctly Italian sensibility made the clothes recognizable before the player even reached the baseline.
And the influence didn't stop at tennis.
By the 1980s, Sergio Tacchini had crossed into other corners of sports and popular culture, including skiing, golf, sailing, and leisurewear. Its tracksuits and tennis-inspired pieces were adopted by British football casuals and later became part of the visual language of American hip-hop and street culture.
That crossover is perhaps the most interesting part of the Tacchini story: it was never only about playing tennis.
It was about the world around it.
The clubhouse. The spectators. The warm-up. The walk home. The tracksuit worn long after the match ended.
THE FRAME
Sergio Tacchini eventually brought that same language into eyewear.
In 2017, the brand announced a licensing partnership with French eyewear specialist GEM Lunetterie, expanding into optical and sun eyewear for the first time as an official category. The collection was scheduled to reach retailers in 2018 and incorporated materials including acetate, steel, and titanium.
For AZYR, the appeal of the vintage Tacchini frame is less about nostalgia for a particular logo and more about what it represents.
Italian sportswear translated into eyewear.
The frames carry the same tension that made the clothing compelling: athletic without being overtly technical, classic without being conservative, and designed to move between sport and everyday life.
Which makes Sergio Tacchini a natural part of COURTSIDE.
Because COURTSIDE isn't really about tennis clothing.
It's about everything surrounding the game.
The players. The spectators. The uniforms. The rituals. The style.
And the eyewear.