Woodie White takes his tennis style beyond the court – Andscape

The term lifestyle is sometimes seen as just a marketing pitch for products or brands, but for Chicago native Woodie White, it remains a much simpler concept: get out and do exciting things. I first saw him in a series of YouTube videos he made with the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes. First he visits the team’s facilities and gets to know the everyday life of professional ice hockey players. But soon he puts on protective clothing, a jersey and skates and goes on the ice. At the end he watches the Coyotes game live and is completely engrossed in what is happening. “Man, I had a great time,” White recalled excitedly. “I think that’s what I want from life. It’s always nice to discover new things, like new hobbies and new interests, and that’s exactly what I did. Just what interests me.”

White founded the Oyster Holdings brand in 2014 with the business ethos of “travel is a sport” and a range of styles to wear while traveling. Over the next decade, Oyster expanded into Oyster Expeditions, a hiking and outdoor expedition group, and the Oyster Tennis Club, a weekly gathering of people who played tennis on public courts. The goal is to get more ordinary people, especially black people, to participate in these sports and activities. Now Oyster Tennis Club has collaborated with Swiss sportswear company On to create the Roger Clubhouse Pro, a performance-ready sneaker for tennis and life.

The clear and understated design pays homage to the history of the sport. Its ivory and evergreen colorway is reminiscent of the grass courts of Wimbledon, where the sneaker’s namesake, former tennis player Roger Federer, won a record eight times. The same CloudTec performance features that make the brand so popular with runners also point to the future of the sport, making the model playable on multiple surfaces and wearable in different contexts. “For me, this is a performance shoe. But it has the feel of a modern shoe that you want in your rotation,” White said. “That means if I go out in the morning, go to work and walk around and then we have the Oyster Tennis Club at 6pm on Wednesday, I’m in the same position.” The Clubhouse Pro also features additional cushioning along the midsole. White is hesitant to describe the On collaboration as a lifestyle sneaker. “I don’t really believe in this category of lifestyle shoes. For me, a lifestyle is something you live, not something you do when it comes to products.”

Sam Macon for the Oyster Tennis Club

The Oyster Tennis Club x On The Roger Clubhouse Pro sneakers come in a royal green reminiscent of tennis courts around the world.

Sam Macon for the Oyster Tennis Club

The lace aglets feature Oyster Tennis Club branding.

Sam Macon for the Oyster Tennis Club

The Oyster Tennis Club x The Roger Clubhouse Pro Sneakers from On.

Sam Macon for the Oyster Tennis Club

A satin bomber jacket from the Oyster Tennis Club clothing collection.

Tennis sneakers have a deep cultural history, from Adidas’ iconic Stan Smith shoes to the effortlessly cool Rod Lavers released in 1970 to Andre Agassi’s neon and irreverent Nike Air Tech Challenge and the Reebok Court Victory Pumps by Michael Chang, both in the 1990s. But these sneakers’ place in the cultural zeitgeist has as much to do with how regular people wore them on a daily basis as it does with athletic performance. Tennis can seem locked behind the tall hedges of country clubs or the locked doors of expensive training complexes. US Open finalist Francis Tiafoe first became involved in the sport because his father was the maintenance manager at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in suburban Washington, where he and his family sometimes slept in a storage room.

A familiar theme in fashion, particularly in black fashion, is the embrace of the traditional elite, Ivy League, country club aesthetic – polo shirts, Oxford cloth button-downs, striped rugby shirts, tennis shoes adopt and transform them into a more democratic, accessible and stylish design. By changing the different canvases on which the clothing is presented – from suburban to urban, from private to public – the garments and their wearers can be completely recontextualized. The Roger Clubhouse Pro is both part of this tradition and separate from it. “It’s like we took the white and green country club aesthetic, applied it to a professional tennis model, and then brought it to a park,” White said. “So it’s the same luxury aesthetic, but now you see it in the park with cracked courts.”