Despite Wimbledon having the most stringent dress code on the pro tour (even some spectators are subject to outfit guidelines), its style forecast is as uncertain as the English weather. This year’s tournament has already brought its share of statements and scandals. What is it about tennis that seems to attract, and provoke, fashion drama? For one, the sport has such a long history; the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, which hosts Wimbledon, was founded in 1868 and held women’s competitions as early as 1884. The tennis circuit clings to its time-honored traditions, and nowhere more so than at Wimbledon, where you can count on finding strawberries and cream, ad-free courts, royal spectators, and a game-free Middle Sunday.

This reverence for heritage also extends to dress. The concept of “tennis whites” dates back to the game’s Victorian origins; white was thought to keep players cool and hide unsightly sweat stains. In 1963, as traditions of all kinds showed signs of crumbling, Wimbledon instituted a “predominantly white” dress code, revising it to “almost entirely white” in 1995. (The rule was expanded to include accessories in 2014, after Tatiana Golovin and Serena Williams paired white dresses with colored knickers.) It also stipulates that players wear “suitable tennis attire”—a much more subjective and slippery regulation.

Wimbledon’s dress code applies to male and female players alike, and women haven’t been the only trendsetters and rule breakers. The five-time winner Björn Borg was known for his pin-striped Fila polo shirt with a wide navy collar—a look that would be banned today—and Roger Federer once got busted for flashing orange soles. But tennis isn’t a man’s game that adapted to admit women; from the beginning, tennis “was revolutionary in having men and women participate together, actually playing on the same arena and hitting the ball at one another,” the historian Elizabeth Wilson wrote in Love Game: A History of Tennis, From Victorian Pastime to Global Phenomenon. At first, it was the men’s clothing that caused controversy. When the the All England Club first opened, the only dress code was: “Gentlemen are requested not to play in their shirtsleeves when ladies are present.” But the focus soon shifted to women, as tennis clothes diverged from streetwear. The sport’s co-ed nature may be one reason why Wimbledon has “always been fertile ground for issues and conversations around women’s dress,” according to Keren Ben-Horin, a co-author of She’s Got Legs: A History of Hemlines and Fashion.

Since the days when “suitable tennis attire” consisted of bustles and corsets, female players have struggled to strike a balance between comfort and respectability. A tennis manual from 1903 advised women to look their best on the court, “for all eyes are on them. Many an onlooker understands nothing about the game, and the next thing generally is to criticise the player and her looks.” In a sport long associated with country houses and country clubs, the very notion of respectability was bound up with social class as well as gender; Billie Jean King bitterly recalled being left out of a group photo at a junior tournament at age 11 because she was wearing home-sewn shorts instead of a skirt. Even supposedly “respectable” clothing rarely translated into actual respect. A long-running debate over whether women were physically capable of playing at the same level as men was (ostensibly) settled only in 1973, when King defeated Bobby Riggs in straight sets in the “Battle of the Sexes.” Offering equal purses for male and female players took even longer; Wimbledon finally got there in 2007.