The Adidas French Open Collection Opts For Camo Design, Recyclable Materials

The very surface that gives the French Open at Roland-Garros the tournament’s distinct style was the inspiration for the Adidas SS23 Paris Collection, which will be worn by players during the start of the event in May.

“The clay of Paris is iconic, and so for this season our aim was to take a fresh approach and use the terrain as inspiration for our apparel design,” says Annette Steingass, Adidas senior director of tennis and court sports apparel.

The 14-piece collection with designs for men and women includes technology for both on-court playability and end-of-life reusability. But the design is what folks will look to first, a design that features burnt orange, black and white.

The Paris Collection features camouflage-style prints in a palette of earthy tones, meant to represent the colors and textures of the surface. Adidas says that the camo-style designs “are set to disguise players’ stroke preparation and movement” on the red crushed brick and limestone “clay” surface.

The entire collection features the brand’s HEAT.RDY and Aeroready technologies, meant to help players feel cool on the court. Throughout the collection, multi-layered garments are featured, including a two-in-one short for men and a women’s Match Tight and Skirt, meant to help keep players warm when the temperatures dip cooler. There’s a Techfit Tights compression option for men and a long-sleeved tee with zoned compressions sleeves, woven so it can enable a faster removal of lactic acid from the arm muscles.

The men’s FRL Polo and tee contain FreeLift construction, a design feature in the arms allowing for free movement without the hem riding up during play.

“Playing tennis on clay is unique,” Steingass says, “the balls bounce differently in hotter temperatures, the pace can be less ferocious yet the techniques more technical. The players slide on the surface to make ordinarily improbable shots. With its technical design features, this new collection reflects those nuances of the game to serve our athletes and audiences in the best way.”

Expect to see the top Adidas players wearing the collection, from Maria Sakkari and Jessica Pegula to Stefanos Tsitsipas and Felix Auger Aliassime.

“Clay can be an unpredictable and sometimes unformatting surface,” Tsitsipas says. “My goal is to cement my position at the top of the game, so any wins on this surface can make a huge difference.”

Adidas continues its push of sustainable technology in tennis product, using the Paris Collection to show off the brand’s Made to Be Remade technology. Adidas says these products were developed with an end-of-life solution in mind. Once returned to Adidas, the products are thrown into a shredder to be ground down. That ground material is then compounded and melted into pellets, used as input material for new products.

The French Open main draw begins on Sunday, May 28, and runs until Sunday, June 11.