Polo shirt

A polo shirt, tennis shirt, golf shirt, or chukker shirt is a form of shirt with a collar. Polo shirts are usually short sleeved but can be long; they were used by polo players originally in British India in 1859 and in Great Britain during the 1920s.

Polo shirts are usually made of knitted cotton (rather than woven cloth), usually a piqué knit, or less commonly an interlock knit (the latter used frequently, though not exclusively, with pima cotton polos), or using other fibers such as silk, wool, synthetic fibers, or blends of natural and synthetic fibers. A dress-length version of the shirt is called a polo dress.

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), flannel trousers, and ties. This attire presented problems for ease of play and comfort.

René Lacoste, the French seven-time Grand Slam tennis champion, felt that the stiff tennis attire was too cumbersome and uncomfortable. He designed a white, short-sleeved shirt of loosely-knit piqué cotton (he called the cotton weave jersey petit piqué) 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.

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", a nickname which he embraced.

Lacoste's design mitigated the problems that traditional tennis attire created:

In 1933, after retiring from professional tennis, Lacoste teamed up with André Gillier, a friend who was a clothing merchandiser, to market that shirt in Europe and North America. Together, they formed the company Chemise Lacoste, and began selling their shirts, which included the small embroidered crocodile logo on the left breast.

Until the beginning of 20th century, polo players wore thick, long-sleeved shirts made of Oxford-cloth cotton. 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. Brooks Brothers still produces this style of button-down "polo shirt".