Palace Skateboards: London Skate Culture, Decks and Streetwear

British skateboarding has developed its own distinctive identity through local crews, independent skate shops, street spots and companies that reflect the environments in which they were created. London has played an especially prominent role, providing generations of skateboarders with an extensive mixture of plazas, ledges, stair sets and unconventional architecture.
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Palace Skateboards emerged from this environment in London in 2009 and was founded by Lev Tanju. Closely connected with the Palace Wayward Boys Choir skate crew, the company developed around skateboarding before becoming increasingly visible within international streetwear and fashion. Despite that wider recognition, skateboarding remains fundamental to the history and identity of the brand.
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The development of Palace demonstrates the importance of skate crews within the wider culture. Groups of friends skating together naturally develop shared locations, humour, filming styles and influences. In some cases, these informal communities eventually provide the foundation for larger creative projects or independent companies.
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London offers a particularly varied environment for street skating. Its architecture ranges from modern commercial developments to older public spaces, creating surfaces and obstacles that were never intended for skateboarding. Ledges, banks, stairs and open plazas can all become skate spots once riders begin interpreting them differently.
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The Southbank Undercroft is perhaps the best-known example of London's relationship with skateboarding. Located beneath the Southbank Centre, the space has been associated with skateboarders for decades and illustrates how an ordinary piece of urban architecture can acquire an entirely different cultural significance through continued use.
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This urban influence can also be seen in the way British skate videos are filmed. Rather than relying entirely on purpose-built skateparks, street footage documents skateboarders interacting with real cities. Background traffic, pedestrians, buildings and unpredictable surfaces become part of the finished film.
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Video has been particularly important throughout the development of Palace Skateboards. Skate films do much more than demonstrate tricks. Editing, music, camera equipment and visual effects can establish a recognisable aesthetic, while the personalities of individual riders gradually become connected with the wider identity of the company.
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The visual character of skate footage has changed considerably as technology has developed. Older video cameras produced images that look very different from modern digital footage, yet skate filmmakers have frequently retained or recreated aspects of these earlier aesthetics because of their strong association with particular periods of skateboarding.
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Graphics perform a similar role. The Palace Tri-Ferg logo has become one of the company's most recognisable visual elements, demonstrating how a relatively simple graphic device can develop a strong identity when used consistently across different products and media.
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Skateboard decks naturally provide another important canvas for graphic design. Artwork can range from straightforward logo treatments to photography, illustration and more experimental designs. For many skateboarders, choosing a deck therefore involves balancing its physical specifications with an appreciation of its artwork.
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Deck width is one of the first practical considerations. Different widths provide different amounts of standing space and can influence how responsive or stable a skateboard feels. Technical street skateboarders may have different preferences from riders concentrating on bowls, ramps or a mixture of terrain.
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Wheelbase and concave also contribute to the character of a skateboard. Wheelbase determines the distance between the trucks, while concave describes the curvature across the deck. Even relatively small differences can become noticeable to experienced skateboarders who have developed strong preferences through years of riding.
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Trucks should generally correspond reasonably closely with the width of the deck. Wheels can then be selected according to the surfaces and style of skating involved. Harder wheels are commonly associated with smooth skateparks and technical street skating, while larger or slightly softer wheels can make rougher surfaces more manageable.
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This ability to customise a skateboard means the deck is only one part of the overall setup. Trucks, wheels, bearings and bushings all influence the finished board, and skateboarders can replace individual components as their requirements change.
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Clothing has become another major part of the Palace identity. Skateboarding and fashion have always overlapped, but skate clothing originally developed primarily around the practical requirements and personal preferences of skateboarders rather than conventional fashion cycles.
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T-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, jackets and relaxed trousers all provide the movement required for skating while offering substantial scope for graphics and branding. Skateboarding's connection with sportswear and workwear has also influenced the types of garments commonly worn by different generations.
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Palace became particularly notable for extending this skate-derived aesthetic into the wider streetwear market. As interest in streetwear expanded internationally, skate brands increasingly attracted consumers who appreciated the clothing and graphics even if they did not actively skateboard.
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This crossover has created an interesting relationship between skateboarding and mainstream fashion. Skate companies can influence clothing trends while simultaneously borrowing ideas from football culture, music, sportswear, workwear and other areas of everyday life.
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British influences are particularly visible within this mixture. Football shirts, tracksuits, technical outerwear and other familiar elements of UK clothing culture have all intersected with skate fashion at different times, helping distinguish parts of the British scene from its American counterparts.
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Collaborations have become another feature of contemporary streetwear. Skate companies may work with footwear manufacturers, sportswear companies, artists or established fashion houses to create products that combine elements of two different identities.
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For skateboarding companies, collaborations can introduce their visual language to audiences outside traditional skate culture. At the same time, the most successful projects usually retain enough of the original company's character to remain recognisable to existing followers.
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Footwear provides an especially natural area of crossover because skate shoes are functional equipment as well as clothing. Grip, durability, cushioning and board feel all matter to skateboarders, while the appearance of the shoe can influence its popularity far beyond skateboarding.
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The international growth of streetwear has also changed how products are released and discovered. Social media allows new clothing, skate decks and videos to reach a worldwide audience immediately, while online retail means customers are no longer restricted to whatever happens to be stocked by their nearest shop.
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Physical skate shops nevertheless continue to occupy an important position within skate culture. They provide equipment advice, support local scenes and introduce skateboarders to brands that they might not otherwise encounter. Many also contribute directly to events, videos and local skateboarding projects.
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Professional and sponsored riders remain equally important. Skateboarders give a company personality because their individual approaches to tricks, terrain and filming cannot simply be reproduced through conventional advertising. A strong skate team can therefore influence perceptions of a brand over many years.
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This helps explain why skateboarding companies can retain cultural significance even as clothing trends change. Products inevitably evolve, but videos, memorable skate parts, graphics and riders become part of a longer history that newer collections can reference.
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Palace is particularly interesting because its development illustrates how far an independent British skate company can extend beyond its original community. What began within a London skate scene became internationally recognised without separating the Palace name from its skateboarding origins.
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The company's visibility within fashion should therefore be understood alongside its connection with skateboard culture rather than entirely separately from it. The decks, riders, films, graphics and London influences provide much of the context behind the clothing for which the name is also widely recognised.
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Since its emergence in London, Palace Skateboards has developed an identity combining British street skating, distinctive graphics, skate videos and contemporary streetwear. Its evolution demonstrates how a company rooted in a local skate crew can reach an international audience while maintaining a strong connection with the culture from which it developed.