The Success Story of Palace Skateboards | How Lev Tanju went from selling product at South Bank to running a hugely influential brand
Palace Skateboards has risen from the dust of the London skateboard scene to create perhaps the most influential brand in “skate fashion” of the last few years rivaling even Supreme. The mind of Lev Tanju is behind it. Free Skate talked to Lev and got the lowdown on how things have changed since day one.
Sample:
AD: What triggered the idea to start a brand? Were you just not stoked on what everyone else was doing at the time?
Yeah pretty much. I was buying American boards all the time and I was a bit like: ‘Why am I buying American boards?’ I mean I love American skaters and shit but there was nothing really stoking me out. You know what I mean?
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AD: Was the company always going to be called Palace?
At first it was going to be called PWBC. But people weren’t into it because some of the guys from the crew rode for Blueprint and Landscape or whatever. So I was like all right, fuck it, I’ll change the name to Palace last minute. It was a blessing though because now I actually prefer Palace. But it’s good, it still holds true to what it’s about you know. And it is about the house and where we all came from, living together. It’s nice to be able to bring your friends with you and do all that shit together. Well actually they brought me here really. All this is from hanging out with them and filming them, you know what I mean? It’s their skating. They’re just my favourite skaters. That’s all it is really. None of this would exist without them.
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AD: Was there a point when it became clear that Palace was going to be bigger than skating? That loads of people outside of skating were going to want to wear it?
Different types of people were into it from the start really… When we ripped off Versace tees and stuff like that, people that didn’t skate also liked it. Which is cool because I’ve never been that guy who’s like ‘you can’t wear it because you don’t skate’, you know?’ It’s made for whoever wants to wear it. I’m not making Chanel t-shirts to just sell to fucking skaters you know what I mean? I just made Chanel t-shirts because we wanted to make Chanel t-shirts. Everything we put out is just stuff we want to do, that’s it. If other people buy it, then they buy it. If a skater likes it, they like it. I don’t care like what you like, innit. If you don’t like it, lump it. That’s what my mum used to say. It doesn’t matter. Buy some other shit. Or don’t! All I care about is that the guys that skate for Palace, my friends like it.
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