Raphael Badalov is 22 years old and a die-hard Chrome Hearts fan who collects the brand and has opened a store to sell some of its most beloved items.Raphael Badalov is 22 years old and a die-hard Chrome Hearts fan who collects the brand and has opened a store to sell some of its most beloved items.
“I don’t collect Chrome Hearts for the sake of collecting,” says Raphael Badalov, the 22-year-old collector and founder of Byraph, home to one of the largest collections of rare Chrome Hearts items in the world. “I collect it out of respect for its value and culture, out of love for the brand, the designs, and its history.”
Amid the chaos of New York Fashion Week, as much of the city’s fashion industry races from one show to the next, an unexpected treasure trove opened its doors in Flatiron: an 800-plus-piece collection of rare archival Chrome Hearts spanning from the brand’s beginnings in 1988 to today. Designed by Badalov himself, the moody, downtown-cool interior is decked out with a custom-upholstered sofa, Persian rugs, and chains hanging from the ceiling. Racks of rare cross-encrusted sweatshirts and limited-edition denim sit alongside Chrome Hearts furniture, while intricate silver jewelry and stranger objets are displayed behind custom glass vitrines. “This store is really my love letter to Chrome Hearts, expressed through a curation of rare pieces I’ve collected over the years,” he says.
As Badalov dropped out of high school to pursue reselling full-time, he found an entry point into the rare Chrome Hearts market in the Philippines, where vintage sellers had accumulated decades-old T-shirts dating back to the 1990s amid strong local demand. Asia remains central to both sides of his business today, as a market for selling rare pieces and a source for finds he brings back to clients in the U.S.—over the course of a three-month business trip earlier this year, he documented a $1 million haul in Japan on his vlog and sold more than $100,000 worth of pieces in China.
As his clientele grew—amassing clients such as Cardi B, Young Thug, Central Cee, and Devin Booker—so did the rarity and value of the pieces passing through his hands. Most notably, he became the unlikely buyer of Karl Lagerfeld’s mysterious private collection of Chrome Hearts gold: 13 pieces acquired through a private estate sale for roughly $1 million, amounting to the biggest deal of his career. Among his other favorite acquisitions was a 1954 gold Patek Philippe pocket watch customized with Chrome Hearts insignia—which he ultimately sold and still regrets letting go—as well as a diamond-covered solid-gold toilet plunger and a roughly 30-pound silver dice chain, currently on display in the store.
After opening his first showroom near the High Line, Badalov eventually graduated to the new Flatiron flagship, filling it with pieces sourced from around the world, from Chrome Hearts beanbags found in Asia to a gym bench air-freighted from Hong Kong. Garments range from $700 T-shirts, which he often gifts to clients after a major purchase, to six-figure denim, including an exclusive friends-and-family pair with pony-hair patches—one of roughly eight he says were made—which are priced at $250,000 and hidden in a private VIP room decked out with cigarette-shaped skateboards and a bong.
Badalov has also begun customizing and embellishing existing Chrome Hearts pieces for clients, emulating the brand’s spirit of intricate craftsmanship and grunge through his own work. One recent favorite is a Foti skeleton chain piece he customized with diamonds between its links and rubies set into its eyes. Inspired by Chrome Hearts’s attention to detail and rarity, he plans to develop jewelry of his own next, to sell alongside his collection. “I want to capture the energy, attention to detail, and rarity of the Chrome Hearts pieces,” he says. “Chrome represents what fashion means to me, and it’s what made me me.”
