Even if you're not a skateboarder, you'll likely recognise Palace Skateboards' ‘Tri-Ferg' logo, created by graphic designer Fergus Purcell as a play on the Penrose triangle illusion. That's because, over the past 17 years, the UK streetwear brand has risen from cult status to become a creative powerhouse. Lev Tanju and Gareth Skewis first met while skating around London's Southbank Centre, and founded their brand in 2009. They've since amassed a global following, collaborated with some of the biggest names – from Gucci and Ralph Lauren to Stella Artois and Rizla – and recently served as guest editors for our October 2026 issue.
Palace's latest venture is a new store in Soho. Its first physical retail location opened a decade ago in the same neighbourhood, on Brewer Street, and the brand has since inaugurated more than ten stores globally, in cities including New York, Seoul, Tokyo, LA and Shanghai, each uniquely designed for its location through a combination of locally sourced materials and cultural winks. ‘There's always a subtle influence of each city within the design,' says Skewis.
Take a tour of Palace's London flagship
The new London store will provide more room to present the brand's seasonal collections and weekly product drops, while also pushing retail design in a new direction. The project marks Palace's latest collaboration with Seoul-based designer Steve Oh, who has worked on its stores across Asia. The new Soho location is his first-ever project in Europe, as well as being the brand's only store outside Asia that spans two floors, providing plenty of space for Oh's imagination to run wild. ‘Gareth and Lev give me a blank canvas for each project,' he says. ‘I have the creative freedom to do what I think would fit.'
Next to the custom-made stained glass window, featuring praying skeleton hands and a figure-of-eight motif, is a pew-like bench with legs that resemble the Tri-Ferg logo and a Rolls-Royce grille that once elonged to Lev Tanju’s grandfather
On visiting the space, the designer was struck by the long, narrow layout and the huge windows and skylights that flooded the back area with natural light. ‘I immediately noticed that it feels like the Great Court in the British Museum,' he says, with the museum analogy presenting an opportunity to display the history of the brand through interiors that borrow elements from previous spaces, while also presenting highlights from the Palace archive.
Gareth Skewis, left, and Lev Tanju, right, founded London-based brand Palace in 2009 after meeting as skaters in the concrete undercroft of the Norman Engleback-designed Southbank Centre
Oh opted to divide the floor plan into a series of connected rooms, akin to a museum enfilade, each with a slightly different feel and balance of materials from Palace's typical palette of mirrors, brushed stainless steel, white marble, oak and exposed concrete. ‘There are elements here that feel quintessentially London and English to me,' says Skewis. The nods to historic British interiors include parquet flooring on the upper level, but surprisingly, the bulldog statue that has appeared in various guises across many of the global stores is nowhere to be found.
References to the first store on Brewer Street include a recreation of its distinctive black-and-white marble floor in the entrance. A Rolls-Royce grille that once graced the walls of Tanju's grandfather's restaurant was relocated to the new space, along with a life-size portrait of Elizabeth II that presides over the new fitting room. ‘The fitting room is usually the last thing that people focus on,' says Oh. ‘But I always try to do something surprising or unique in each one.'
At the rear is a huge window featuring stained glass panels designed by Palace and crafted by Scottish studio Pavilion Pavilion. In true Palace style, its motifs include praying skeleton hands, gothic typography, and a figure-of-eight symbol that's repeated on the shop's front door handle. ‘We do quite a lot of religious tongue-in-cheek twists,' says Tanju. ‘It's funny for us to have an expensive joke, but it also makes the space feel a bit sacred.' Oh also designed benches and stools, featuring legs that resemble the Tri-Ferg logo in profile, which evoke minimalist pews.
The store not only details Palace's legacy to date, but also showcases a sacred piece of London skate history. The ‘Victoria Benches' were a legendary skateboarding spot in Christchurch Gardens, next to the former New Scotland Yard, but when anti-skaters forced their removal in 2019, Tanju and Skewis managed to save a set. ‘That might sound quite strange if you aren't into skateboarding, but these things are as important as, say, Lord's cricket ground, if you like cricket,' says Skewis.
We do quite a lot of religious tongue-in-cheek twists. It's funny for us to have an expensive joke, but it also makes the space feel a bit sacred
Lev Tanju
One of the benches sits in the store, allowing customers to interact with a piece of skateboarding iconography. Two more can be found at Manor Place, the free indoor skatepark and community sports hub that Palace and Nike opened in a restored 19th-century bathhouse in south London last year.
Both Manor Place and the new store offer spaces for people to gather, relax and enjoy themselves. Community building is as critical to the brand as it is to skating culture at large, and neither of Palace's founders wants to lose the sense of fun and play that spurred on the brand's initial success. ‘When we opened the first store, at the end of the day, we would shut the shop and drink in the back room with the staff,' says Tanju. ‘We still want to make a space where people hang out.' It's a cathedral to skate culture, where everyone, skateboarder or not, is welcome.
8 Poland Street, London W1
palaceskateboards.com
