Former top-five singles player and current world no. 23 Jelena Ostapenko, seen here polishing her sales pitch, is the living embodiment of David Mamet’s eternal mantra, Always Be Closing.
The 28-year-old Latvian, who never met a line-call she agreed with unless it was in her favor, is making the world a fairer place (for herself alone) by selling shit on an Instagram page (she has three; one’s devoted to things she bakes). And when we say “shit,” we mean used perfume samples, for €5-€10 a pop. Before you exclaim at that price for a mere tubule of Maison Francis Kurkdjian scent, consider that it will be coming to you from Latvia, lovingly packaged by an absolute juggernaut of a human being.
Scrolling through the items on sale, what strikes us isn’t the sheer gall of it all—that goes without saying—but rather the way she’s unashamedly daring us all to roll our eyes at her taste, her lifestyle, her consumption habits and her sense of entitlement. She’s quietly giving the lie to our image of a pro athlete who has more money than time to upload, manage, and ship used things to people like us.
This is exactly as unhinged as we at Racquet expect Ostapenko to be at all times; if you expect less (or more?) of her, you can climb straight into the bin. We feel uniquely qualified to judge in this matter, given that we gave her one of our limited-edition MSCHF Global Supply Chain Telephone bags AT HER REQUEST, only to see it up for sale, untouched, on her page for €300.
There’s cojones, and then there’s whatever this is. Hawkeye might be forever stacked against her, but dammit, Ostapenko is going to wrest back the favor of the gods one waistless eponymous tennis dress at a time, for good-faith offers from Believers in her DMs.
Looking for men’s Balmain sneakers “in good condition?” That’ll be €200. First, though, you’ll need to submit a request to follow @j.o.clothes1997, because not just anyone gets to pay for the privilege of aiming the arc of the moral universe directly at Jelena Ostapenko. Here’s hoping she lets you in.
