Challengers: Fashion Criticism in Luca Guadagnino’s New Film

Seductress in a Juicy Couture jacket: Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) with Art Donaldson (left, Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (right, Josh O’Connor) in “Challengers”. (Image: Warner Brothers)

The first logo in “Challengers” appears on the screen a few seconds after the movie starts. It is sewn into a tennis shirt, in a red frame and clearly labeled: Uniqlo. In the next two hours and twelve minutes, a veritable logo fest continues in the same vein. Nike, the clothes scream, Adidas, they scream. Chanel, Ipatto (whatever that is), Juicy Couture. Stanford! On! Lion!

It’s a shame to reduce the fashion in Luca Guadagnino’s new feature film to its sponsorship opportunities, to the lowest common denominator – as is often done in tennis. Especially since the successful Jonathan Anderson, who works here as a costume designer for the first time, is also the creative director of Loewe, his own label JW Anderson and collaborates with Uniqlo and On. But that would be too easy. Because Jonathan Anderson is more interesting than that.

More than economic alliances

“Challengers” is the eighth feature film “Call me by your name”– Director Guadagnino. The main setting is the 2019 high school tennis tournament at a country club in New Rochelle, New York. Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Arthur Donaldson (Mike Fist), who were previously close friends, duel in the intense final in front of Tashi Duncan (Zendaya). Even before the many flashbacks to their early days together as teenage tennis hopefuls, the now thirty-year-old’s clothes reveal something about where they are in life.

Patrick has relied too much on his talent and not enough on hard work and is now facing his last chance to give his career another boost. He wears a wild mishmash of different sportswear brands. His shoes are worn, but his smile wins. Opposite is Art, dressed in all white, an image of quiet control in a Uniqlo-sponsored wardrobe (the idea of ​​the brand’s face Roger Federer coming to you quickly). The Grand Slam champion wants to win the US Open again this season, but is currently losing even to players below his level.

Soft materials for sore bodies

Tashi, actually the greatest tennis talent of the three, is sitting in the audience. Since she was injured, she has not fully recovered, she has been Arthur’s coach and wife. In the film she wears a sheer silk blouse, a cashmere sweater, and an asymmetric shirt dress from Loewe, circa 2017. Suddenly a slip dress looks like a tennis dress with a T-shirt thrown in. quick and sneakers.

Zendaya as Tashi Duncan in “Challengers.” She wears an asymmetric shirt dress by Loewe and – as in the whole film – a gold cross around her neck. (Image: Warner Brothers)

Tashi’s accessories in particular show the wealth she has accumulated with her husband in an understated way: espadrilles with a bold Chanel logo, a large “Flamenco bag” from Loewe with an elephant pendant. Two “Love” bracelets from Cartier jingle on her arm, broken only by a string of plastic beads that spell out their daughter’s name. Diamond-studded necklaces now complement the gold cross that has hung from her neck since childhood.

Dress with consideration

Tashi’s style is a form of elevated normcore. Her biggest fashion risk is the asymmetrical collar of her shirt dress. This is completely different from what Zendaya would look like on the press tour for “Challengers”., many of them also designed by Jonathan Anderson: stilettos whose heel seemed to break a tennis ball, or a shiny green dress decorated with the shadow of a tennis player. The press tour wardrobe was amazing and often tongue-in-cheek. Just what you’d expect from Anderson.

In the movie, the tennis balls stay on the court. This is calculated as Tashi himself. “She’s the proof that success brings something with it that makes people give up in the end,” said Jonathan Anderson about the main character in an interview with “W Magazine”: “The more successful you become, you get to a point where all the other successful people have the same baggage or the same jewelry.” Unlike Zendaya, Tashi is not a style icon, although she is reasonably good looking.

Arthur and Tashi at the university at the sportswear lunch. (Image: Warner Brothers)

Otherwise, the actual fashion in the film is completely non-specific and very American: it is functional clothes, polo shirts, chino shorts and headgear that provide a shade of control, especially in the flashbacks. The clothes are often less important to the viewer than the bodies suggested below. This is due to the focus on sport, of course, but above all also the erotic tension that is always up and down of “Challengers”. Clothes are blown by the wind, torn away by hands and soaked in sweat until they bleed.

Commencement T-shirt

So it is unlikely that the film will give a new impetus to the tennis movement, as expected. That’s not the point at all. “Costume design is also fun because it has nothing to do with the personal taste of the director or costume designer. It’s really about the characters and how they appear in front of each other and in front of the camera,” said Luca Guadagnino in an interview with “W”.

The exception is a piece of cloth that hangs over the trio like a sword of Damocles. The T-shirt with the almost malicious inscription “I TOLD YA” – “I told you that” – appears in several key scenes, worn first by Tashi and then by Patrick.

It is an almost exact replica of a T-shirt worn by the president’s son, John F. Kennedy Jr. in the 1990s. With his famous narration and his “Old Money” origin, he fits the film perfectly. No wonder it’s now available at Loewe for 280 francs. After all, what would a tennis movie be without fan articles?

“Challenges – Rivals” has been running in Swiss cinemas since April 25, 2024.