Back in 2019, we hailed a then-20-year-old Tyshawn Jones as skateboarding’s new supreme. Since then, he’s been on a grand upwards ascent, becoming part of Forbes 30 Under 30 and winning Thrasher’s Skater of the Year award for a second time in 2022. Today, in fashion terms, he reaches the top: Jones has been named a Friend of the House of Louis Vuitton, into the embrace of their Men’s Creative Director, Pharrell Williams. He joins the likes of footballer Jude Bellingham and tennis player Carlos Alvarez.
It makes perfect sense. There’s a shared ethos of integrity, creativity and an unwavering pursuit of a perfect practise that can be threaded through Jones’ work in skating and Williams’ at Louis Vuitton. The pair were friends before this collaboration came around, having first met at Nobu a few years ago. “I admire that he has no limitations,” Jones told us. “He’s not in a box. He does anything he wants to do.” They came together once again at the most recent men’s show for AW25. For the occasion, Jones wore a track-style jacket given the leather Vuitton treatment, blue jeans with the monogram patch and black leather boots.
The link-up is still in its early stages, but it cements a relationship between Louis Vuitton and the skate world that stretches back to 2017, when the house launched a collaboration with New York streetwear stalwart Supreme (a frequent creative collaborator of Jones’ too). Then, of course, came the late Virgil Abloh’s appointment, leading the two worlds to overlap even further.
Something told us he knew this appointment was coming, somewhere deep inside of himself. When writer Felix Petty asked him what advice he would give his younger self, Jones replied: “Nothing. I already knew everything.” Louis Vuitton seem happy to have him.