I was there when the collar came off, and I can tell you nobody was ready for it. One season everyone is buttoned to the throat, the next a sleeveless top walks onto a court and half the club writes letters. Anyway. It settled down. It always does.
The Zona is a tennis tank, which means it is the most stripped-back thing you can play in: a knit body, no sleeves, no collar, nothing between your shoulder on the serve and the open air.
That is the design, and the design is the whole argument — a shoulder that is not covered is a shoulder that is not restricted, and the extension you get at full stretch is genuinely different from what a sleeve allows.
It is also the coolest garment in the bag by a distance, because the arm and the underarm are where a body sheds most of its heat, and a tank leaves both of them alone. What it is not is coverage.
It will not shade you, and it is not layered for cold.
Sergio Tacchini founded the house in 1966 — I remember, roughly; it was a busy decade — having played the tour himself, and the label has always been on the front edge of what a player is allowed to wear.
The Great Enclosure is a wall of fitted stone with no mortar in it at all, and inside it stands the Conical Tower, solid all the way through — I asked what was inside it at the time and got a look for my trouble. The Hill Complex was up above the valley and it was busy.
Great Zimbabwe I do remember properly.
There are soapstone birds in the site museum now that used to be up on posts. And there was no lake below the ruins then. That came much later.
No mortar. None. I checked, because I did not believe it either.
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