Apolo shirt,tennis shirt,golf shirt, orchukker shirt[1] is a form of shirt with a collar. Polo shirts are usually short sleeved but can be long; they were used bypolo players originally inIndia in 1859 and inGreat Britain during the 1920s.[2]
Polo shirts are usually made ofknittedcotton (rather thanwoven cloth), usually apiqué knit, or less commonly aninterlock knit (the latter used frequently, though not exclusively, withpima cotton polos), or using other fibers such assilk,wool,synthetic fibers, or blends of natural and synthetic fibers. Adress-length version of the shirt is called apolo dress.[3]
In the 19th and early 20th centuries,tennis players ordinarily wore "tennis whites" consisting of long-sleeved white button-up shirts (worn with the sleeves rolled up), flanneltrousers, andties.[4][5][6] This attire presented problems for ease of play and comfort.[5]
René Lacoste, the French seven-timeGrand Slam tennis champion, felt that the stiff tennis attire was too cumbersome and uncomfortable.[5] He designed a white, short-sleeved, loosely-knitpiqué cotton (he called the cotton weavejersey petit piqué) shirt with an unstarched, flat, protruding collar; a buttoned placket; and a shirt-tail longer in back than in front (known today as a "tennis tail"; see below), which he first wore at the 1926 U.S. Open championship.[4][5][6][7]
Beginning in 1927, Lacoste placed a crocodile emblem on the left breast of his shirts, as the American press had begun to refer to him as "The Crocodile",[8][9] a nickname which he embraced.[4][5][6]
Lacoste's design mitigated the problems that traditional tennis attire created:[4][6][7][10]
In 1933, after retiring from professional tennis, Lacoste teamed up withAndré Gillier, a friend who was a clothing merchandiser, to market that shirt inEurope andNorth America.[4][5][7] Together, they formed the companyChemise Lacoste, and began selling their shirts, which included the small embroidered crocodile logo on the left breast.[4][5]
Until the beginning of 20th century,polo players wore thick, long-sleeved shirts made ofOxford-cloth cotton.[11][12] This shirt was the first to have a buttoned-down collar, which polo players invented in the late 19th century to keep their collars from flapping in the wind.Brooks Brothers' early president, John Brooks, noticed this while at a polo match in England and began producing such a shirt in 1896.[11][13] Brooks Brothers still produces this style of button-down "polo shirt".[11]
In 1920, Lewis Lacey, a Canadian (born of English parents in Montreal, Quebec in 1887)haberdasher and polo player, began producing a shirt that was embroidered with an emblem of a polo player, a design originating at theHurlingham Polo Club nearBuenos Aires.[14]
In 1972,Ralph Lauren marketed a tennis shirt as a "polo shirt" as a prominent part of his original linePolo, thereby helping further its already widespread popularity.[15] While not specifically designed for use by polo players, Lauren's shirt imitated what by that time had become the normal attire for polo players. As he desired to exude a certain "WASPishness" in his clothes, initially adopting the style of clothiers like Brooks Brothers,J. Press, and "Savile Row"-style English clothing, he prominently included this attire from the "sport of kings" in his line, replete with a logo reminiscent ofLacoste'scrocodileemblem, depicting a polo player and pony.
In large part due to Ralph Lauren (and arguably as an example of agenericized trademark), the term “polo shirt,” has become far more common than “tennis shirt” or “golf shirt.”
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Over the latter half of the 20th century, as standard clothing ingolf became more casual, the tennis shirt was adopted nearly universally as standard golf attire.[4] Many golf courses and country clubs require players to wear golf shirts as a part of theirdress code.[16][17] Moreover, producing Lacoste's "tennis shirt" in various golf cuts has resulted in specific designs of the tennis shirt for golf, resulting in the monikergolf shirt.
Golf shirts are commonly made out ofpolyester, cotton-polyester blends, ormercerized cotton. Theplacket typically holds three or four buttons, and consequently extends lower than the typical polo neckline. The collar is typically fabricated using a stitched double-layer of the same fabric used to make the shirt, in contrast to a polo shirt collar, which is usually one-ply ribbed knit cotton. Golf shirts often have a pocket on the left side, originally designed to hold small items such as a scorepad and pencil.
Polo shirts, also known as "áo thun có cổ" inVietnamese, were introduced to Vietnam in the early 20th century by theFrench.[18][19] Initially, polo shirts were worn by the upper class and athletes. Gradually, polo shirts became popular and widely accepted by all social classes. Many Vietnamese companies and businesses choose polo shirts as their employee uniforms.[20][21][22] According to Metric.vn, the Vietnamese polo shirt market on e-commerce platforms reached 9.2 billion VND in 2023, a decrease of 19.3% compared to the previous quarter.[23][24] Polo shirts account for about 20% of the Vietnamese t-shirt market, equivalent to 1.84 billion VND.[23] In 2023, Vietnam exported 3.2 billion USD worth of t-shirts of all kinds,[25][26][27][28] of which polo shirts accounted for about 20%, equivalent to US$640 million.[29]
chukker shirt. Polo shirt, with short sleeves and open neck.
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