Necessity, diversity, and authenticity. Palace Skateboards was founded on these three core beliefs. Palace has been one of the hottest streetwear brands for a while. The pieces released are similar to Supreme and probably their closest competition. The difference between the two is that Palace is more London-based.
Lev Tanju and Gareth Skewis are the founders of Palace Skateboards. It all started in a skate house in Waterloo, London. It was a place where skaters in the area would meet, chill, party, and crash. This skate utopia was called the Palace, where the Palace Wayward Boys Choir (PWBC) was born. PWBC was a skate team that made videos created by Lev Tanju. The videos consisted of regular skateboarding mixed in with the everyday life of skateboarders; like early skater vlogs on YouTube. PWBC wanted to focus more on the life aspect of skateboarders than the skateboarding part.
Tanju eventually decided that it was time to start getting serious. He had a decade long gap after college and he knew he had to do something. What started as designing board graphics, lead him to starting his own skateboard brand. Lev knew he wanted a triangular logo for nostalgic reasons. The iconic “Tri-Ferg Logo” was created by Fergus Purcell, who was a design director for Marc Jacobs.
Humble beginnings landed Palace in local skate shops around the London area. The hype was picking up quickly, as Palace had unique designs that flew off the shelves. It landed them in more higher-end skate shops such as Supreme. At this point, Palace was gaining traction over-seas in the United States by being seen in NY and LA Supreme stores. In 2012 the brand won “European Skate Company Of The Year“. Palace hasn’t stopped growing at all, it’s still early for them in my opinion. I know that they have a lot in store for us still, so it’s definitely not too late to check them out.
Visit the official Palace website to view their webstore, skate videos, and more, by clicking here.
