Unique Minds 12: Palace Skateboards

Palace was founded in 2009 by Levent Tanju after he decided he wanted to make a skate brand for his skate team, the Palace Wayward Boys Choir. Apparently he started the brand after not doing much except skating for about 10 years, and just decided he needed to do something else. I find this quite cool as it just shows that you can achieve what you want at any age really.

Palace is heavily inspired by 90s fashion and has a very tongue in cheek sense of humour, which can be seen in the descriptions of items on the website, or on Instagram. I really like this aspect about palace because not many other big fashion brands have the same approach towards humour and often shy away from it altogether, but the way palace does it really gives the brand an almost personal feeling.

Palace has had a distinct style from the very beginning, as shown in one of there first lookbooks (pictured below) everything there could release today and none of it would really feel out of place. What I like about palaces style is that it seems to embrace any flaws that the clothing/ art may have and make them feel authentic, like they where meant to be there. This can be seen in there skate videos, they are all filmed with a 90s camera often with poor lighting and no stabilisation, but all these ‘flaws’ make the videos into something authentic which I personally enjoy more than if they were filmed with the latest equipment today. It makes the brand feel homemade which I think a lot of people can relate to.

The now-famous tri-Ferg logo was designed by Fergus Purcell after Tanju came to him asking for help with designing a logo for Palace, with it having elements of being infinite and constantly moving being important features, Purcell created a logo based on the ‘Penrose triangle’ with Palace being written on all three sides. I like the way palaces logo can be altered to create a different feel for different purposes, for example the colours on all sides of the logo can be altered to create a different look or the logo could be changed to look like something completely different (i.e a bagel), while also keeping the general shape of the logo so you can still tell its supposed to be Palace.

Little tri-ferg moodboard bruh:

Palace has a distinctly British feel, as it should have, being based in London. This is shown in there clothing with some pieces making references to events that have happened in Britain or just the way they collab with brands that were born in Britain such as Umbro and Reebok. Its also reflected in Palaces sense of humour. I think of Palace as Supremes slightly more immature British cousin. Or if The Inbetweeners was made into a clothing company. It's just got that vibe I think only people in Britain will truly appreciate. This hasn’t stopped the brand from going global however with four flagship stores being located in London, New York, Tokyo, and most recently Los Angeles. But yeah what I think makes Palace special is its authenticity, they aren’t in your face making you want to buy this or that, they have the clothes available and if you want to buy some, great, if you don’t, it doesn’t matter.

What I would change: Hardly anything. Maybe have more pop-up-stores around the country but I think Palace has a very specific good vibe that is going strong.

What I have learnt: Its important to be authentic and to stick to what you believe in, if someone doesn’t like your brand it doesn’t matter, and you shouldn’t change to fit them (I mean if everyone hates your brand you are probably doing something wrong but still…) and hopefully a following will eventually emerge. What I’ve learnt recently is that I’m not doing JELNO to appeal to anyone I’m doing it because it's fun af and if some people don’t like it then so be it. Its important to be authentic and genuine.

As always I’ve put some of my fav palace pieces down below:  

See you next week with another blog, if you have any interest at all in JELNO try and spread the word as much as possible it's a massive help <3

If you ever want to ask a question or just get in touch the Instagram is: @jelno_uk, email is: jelno.uk@gmail.com and you can always comment down below.

Have a good week ;)