fw18 women’s Off-White™ c/o @SerenaWilliams for @NikeCourt – a study in the intersection of sport and lifestyle but ultimately for performance. article c/o @voguemagazine

A post shared by Off-White™ (@off____white) on Aug 13, 2018 at 8:00am PDT

I had such a good time last night, watching Serena Williams slide into a very easy victory against a young Australian player at the Western & Southern tournament in Cincinnati. I was worried about Serena’s form after she suffered the worst scoreline loss of her career two weeks ago, but it just goes to show you: the GOAT can always bounce back. That being said, her draw in Cincinnati is tough and I’m not expecting her to, like, win the whole thing. I hope she does well, and and I hope she builds some confidence going into the US Open in two weeks.

Speaking of the US Open, that’s where Serena will debut her latest Nike kit. She’s currently wearing (in Cincy) the red version of her Wimbledon kit, which is just a long-sleeved, high-necked tennis dress. But at the US Open, she’ll have an exclusive kit… designed by Louis Vuitton’s creative designer Virgil Abloh.

The man with one million jobs now has one million and one. Virgil Abloh, formerly Kanye West’s creative director and now the men’s designer at Louis Vuitton, has joined forces with Serena Williams, designing her outfit for this year’s U.S. Open with Abloh’s signature quotation marks. Her one-shoulder black tennis dress includes a ruffled, tulle skirt with “logo” printed above the Nike swoosh and “Serena” printed alongside the sleeve. The tulle was a nod to Williams’s love of ballet and dance.

“What I love about tennis is the gracefulness. It’s an aggressive and powerful game, but it takes touch and finesse,” Abloh said in a statement. “So the dress is feminine, but combines her aggression. It’s partially revealing. It’s asymmetrical. It has a sort of ballerina-esque silhouette to symbolize her grace. It’s not about bells and whistles and tricks. It’s just about it living on the body, and expressing Serena’s spirit with each swing of the racket.”

The Queen Collection will also be available for us civilians, who hope that dressing like Serena Williams will translate over to the tennis court. The line also includes the dress, both in black and white, for $500, a leather jacket with ruffled tulle bottom for $900, and a pair of Nike x Virgil Abloh Air Max 97 for $190.

[From Vanity Fair]

You can see the designs in the header Instagram and below. While I think it’s awesome that Serena, Virgil and Nike are collaborating, am I the only one who sort of hates the tennis dress he designed? I feel like Serena is the one asking for long sleeves, and I completely hate that they gave her ONE long sleeve and that tulle skirt. Serena is still the GOAT, of course. But she’ll be the GOAT in a terrible tennis kit.

That Virgil Abloh x Serena Williams collection for Nike is hitting! Pun intended. pic.twitter.com/13xpKa8bWE

— Shelby Ivey Christie (@bronze_bombSHEL) August 13, 2018

Photos courtesy of Virgil Abloh, Nike.