A couple of months ago, a prolific photographer named Bryson Malone reached out to me over email. He said he was a fan of my work and recommended me to a friend of his to photograph an event she was having for her Substack around the U.S. Open. It turns out Malone was also a tennis fanatic with an interesting project of his own called Graphite, an archive and vintage shop specializing in tennis-centric apparel, jewelry and paraphernalia.
Malone hails from Marin County, just across the Golden Gate Bridge north of San Francisco. “We were low-class for Marin,” Malone admits openly. “I never wanted for food. I got scholarships to private school. But I grew up playing tennis because my dad was a masseuse at the club I played at.”
In fact, Malone recounts only having private tennis lessons twice in his life, both times on his birthday. Because he grew up working class, he shopped for clothes at Goodwill. “My mom’s an artist who loves clothes, but [we] couldn’t afford nice clothes. I was getting hand-me-downs from random families through Goodwill, but because it was Marin, I wore nice stuff.” Malone tells me that he was always interested in clothing, and as a tennis player, he was always on the hunt for rare gear.
Ten years ago, Malone found his first rare piece — a Tokyo Lawn Tennis Club members jacket manufactured by Bill Blass and still in perfect condition. He nabbed it on eBay, where he started collecting slowly but consistently. “Last year, I got a few pretty big contracts in a row for photography. Then, I went hard. I was like, ‘I need to do this.’” Malone was later emboldened by his friend Sam, a stylist whom he met on a photoshoot and who also runs System Arosa, a soccer-based archive not dissimilar to Graphite. “She’s been really helpful. She styled my first shoot [for Graphite].”
Last month, following the success of a one-night-only Graphite exhibit, Malone held another pop-up on the Lower East Side for a weekend. Since I missed that first exhibit, I headed over to Malone’s weekend shop to check out his offerings and discuss all-things Graphite.
Christopher Fenimore: You shot all of your product and editorial photography yourself, right?
Bryson Malone: Yeah. But I still paid a grip to do it. Rented a studio. [Used] two models who are both really good friends. I paid them $500 a day. It’s been $6,000 out of pocket. Plus, getting everything there, feeding everyone. It’s been crazy. It’s nothing compared to the actual cost of materials.
CF: I would imagine this space wasn’t cheap.
BM: Oh, dude. This one wasn’t too bad. It was basically an Uber XL from my apartment here and a few couriers here and there. But my last [pop-up] was crazy. Four times the size of this. Food, wine. I’m still so grateful. Two hundred fifty people showed up.
CF: [New York Times fashion reporter] Jake Gallagher talked to you, right? He’s a big tennis guy.
BM: He did. He mentioned Graphite in the past. I sent him an invite [for this] but I figured he’s in Milan [for fashion week]. Same with Sam Hine. These are people I didn’t know. I met them through this. I’ve always been in menswear, but down market. I was at Huckberry for seven years.
CF: What were you doing there?
BM: Art direction. Photography. All of it. It’s funny because I’m not an insider fashion-head. I’m closer to tennis. But it’s been fun to meet people. Obviously, there’s a lot of overlap.
CF: Especially right now. For some reason everybody’s into tennis. I mean, not for some reason. Tennis is amazing. I just feel like there’s definitely a big fashion moment now more than ever.
BM: It’s so complex. The players don’t care now [about style]. They used to care. Arthur Ashe was amazing. Bjorn Borg was amazing. It just all worked together. [Andre] Agassi cared. Only a few care now.
CF: Run me through what’s in here.
BM: Everything on this side (white wall) is for sale. All of this (netted green wall) is super rare, one-of-one.
CF: What if somebody came in here and offered you $10,000 for that jacket?
BM: I had someone at the party who said, “What’s your price on this one?” And I was like, “I don’t know, $2,000.” Everyone’s got a price. This [Tokyo Lawn Tennis Club member jacket] is probably the one thing I wouldn’t part with. At the end of the day, the price would be high. I’ll part with a T-shirt because I’ll probably buy another one. Some are doubles. This one is official U.S. Open [merch]. The tag’s still on it. Fiftieth anniversary, but it’s hand-Sharpied. I don’t even know the backstories of some of this stuff. That’s never leaving the archive. This is Howard Stern’s U.S. Open Sores shirt. If you watch the YouTube video, it’s [messed] up. Super misogynistic and coked out. But, it’s wild merch.
CF: How long have you been amassing the archive?
BM: Ten years, lightly. About a year and a half in a really serious way.
CF: I would assume it was much easier 10 years ago than it is now.
BM: Oh yeah, especially with tennis. It’s easier with the internet. You can’t really find stuff in person. It’s just too niche. I go to estate sales. I go to every vintage store. You don’t find stuff. It’s already marked up. I’m deep on every country’s different version of eBay. It’s also about knowledge. This is by Issey Miyake when he designed for Yonex. Very few people actually know that Issey’s studio did Yonex in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but it’s clearly Issey. Some of his pieces are tagged “Issey Miyake design.” I didn’t pay a lot of money for that because no one knows what they have. There’s an education gap too, which works in my favor. I have 10 [Ted] Tinling dresses which I got for pretty cheap. He’s the single biggest name in tennis fashion. Most people haven’t seen that stuff outside of the Hall of Fame.
I don’t have a lot of it here because I really care about it, but a lot of my interests are small-town graphics from small tennis tournaments. Things that are [poorly designed] but are beautiful. There are 80-year-olds wearing things they don’t know are stylish but are secretly super, super cool. And the fact that they’re out there when they’re 80 is inherently cool. I’m pretty lowbrow with things. I have a bunch of designer tailoring. It’s fun and it’s something I like. But I also like the lowbrow bootlegs and the cheap suburban graphic design from like the 60+ doubles Saturday tournaments.
CF: Half the battle with vintage is having a perspective that is unique, right? In theory, anyone with a bank account can go and source stuff. Graphite isn’t obvious, but it’s super informed by your life. You were playing tennis, but you weren’t a country club kid.
BM: I was at a tennis club, not a country club. But you’re right. I went to a private Catholic school on a scholarship. My teammates drove Maseratis and I drove a ‘96 Honda Accord.
CF: I drove a ‘99 Mitsubishi Gallant.
BM: I thank my mom so much for that. I wouldn’t have wanted to have an unlimited credit card for clothes. I didn’t care about clothes like that. It was about the hunt and it still is. It’s so fun. But it’s a niche, for sure. It’s a deep one. I also want to tie [Graphite] to art. These are all artists who are friends that made pieces for the show. Art is my real love that doesn’t pay the bills. Like this piece is incredible by Phil Panza. It’s a beautiful piece. I’m probably going to buy it. I shouldn’t, but I want to. I want to blend all these worlds a little bit. It’s such an addiction.
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