Tyshawn Jones is Transforming the Pro-Skater Image
New York's king of the skatepark, Tyshawn Jones, is prioritizing giving back with his latest Warby Parker collaboration.
Tyshawn Jones is not your typical pro-skater. He avoids popular spots, sidesteps typical tricks, and prioritizes what’s really important: his community. “Giving back is something that’s important for me to prioritize within my own work,” the native New Yorker tells L'OFFICIEL. “So it was cool to team up with a brand that focuses on doing good.” The brand in question is NYC-based eyewear retailer Warby Parker, next on Jones’ already long list of collaborations.
Since his prodigal debut at age 14 in Supreme’s first full length skate-film Cherry, Jones’ athleticism and nonchalant swagger have set him apart. When practicing, Jones opts for open expanses of pavement like the William F. Passannante Ballfield in Greenwich Village. Nicknamed T.F. West (shorthand for “Training Facility West”) the flat run of pavement acts as a launching pad for Jones to clear upright trash cans. But Jones is no longer a prodigy, and his most impressive accomplishments surpass popping ollies over consecutive trash cans (though that is very impressive).
Now at age 22, Jones has already landed career-making sponsors like Adidas and Supreme, as well as launched his own successful businesses. In 2017, he and fellow skater Na-Kel Smith launched an apparel and skateboard hardware accessories line, Hardies. An athlete-turned designer, he says channeling the streetwear aesthetic starts with what feels right. "Design comes pretty naturally," Jones says. "I just go with what I like and would wear and what me and my friends are into. It’s a group effort." In 2018, Jones opened a Caribbean-American joint called Taste So Good in the Bronx the same year he won Thrasher Magazine’s prestigious Skater of the Year award.
For his latest collaboration, now available via Warby Parker, the partnership came naturally. Jones frequents a skate park close to Warby Parker’s Soho headquarters and was invited in for a visit in 2019. During his first trip through the office, he discovered another coincidence: “Warby Parker actually works with The Albert Einstein School through Pupils Project, [its] program that offers free vision screenings, exams, and glasses to kids who need them.” The Albert Einstein School is Jones’ alma mater. “When we realized the connection between my middle school and Warby Parker, it made us all smile.” In addition to the Pupils Project, the Warby Parker team also shared its Buy A Pair, Give A Pair Program with Jones which “really stood out” to him.
Despite this being Jones’ first time designing eyewear, it came naturally. The pro-skater says he was “very drawn to the process of designing eyewear, since it is so different from designing apparel or other accessories, which I’m used to.” The inspiration for Jones’ checkerboard acetate frames came from a custom, hand-layered pair he spotted in the Warby Parker studio. Developed by the in-house design team several years earlier, Jones thought the “checkerboard print really popped.” Together with the skater, the Warby Parker team decided to pair the acetate with its Harris frames to better represent the Jones' own vibe. “I wanted to bring this color to a classic style. Because I’m always outside and on the move, we decided to make them in sunglasses,” he shares of the end result.
Design comes pretty naturally—I just go with what I like and would wear and what me and my friends are into. It’s a group effort.
For pro-athletes everywhere, the past year of quarantine and COVID restrictions have proven challenging, but Jones has stayed positive throughout. “It has definitely been more fun to skate with no one in the streets!” Jones says. But the empty skate parks and somewhat ghosttown-like New York City of present isn’t a reflection of the skate community's usually buzzing turf. However, Jones encourages people to keep in mind that “as competitive as it is, it’s still a real community of like-minded people. It’s also a really creative community. Lots of skaters do other things and build other brands that the big corporations try to emulate.”
For years, large scale fashion and retail companies have appropriated elements born from the skate community as Jones rightly points out. But it’s individuals within the culture like Jones who are rewriting the narrative. Visibility, modesty, and charity are clearly at the top of Jones’ list of priorities. And by starting his own fashion-based business and seeking out community-oriented collaborations like this most recent venture with Warby Parker, Jones is redefining what it means to be a pro-skater.
