--- title: "Palace Skateboards, the Tri-Ferg and London's Cheekiest Brand" url: https://quietmenace.com/culture/palace-skateboards-history/ author: Quiet Menace Editors section: Culture published: 2026-10-08 updated: 2026-10-08 topics: Skate Culture, Streetwear, Collaborations --- # Palace Skateboards, the Tri-Ferg and London's Cheekiest Brand > A squat near the Southbank, an impossible triangle and a sense of humor nobody in skating could copy. How Palace made London matter again. In the late 2000s a group of London skaters shared a run-down flat in Waterloo, close enough to the Southbank undercroft to carry their boards there. The place was falling apart, so naturally they called it The Palace, and the people who lived in it became the Palace Wayward Boys' Choir. When Lev Tanju started a brand in 2009, he named it after the flat. That is the Palace tone in one move. Take something shabby, give it a grand name, and keep a straight face. Seventeen years later the joke has Gucci, Juventus and Nike in on it. ## A triangle that cannot exist Tanju gave the illustrator Fergus Purcell, known as Fergadelic, a short brief. The brand would be built around triangles. Purcell came back with a Penrose triangle, the impossible optical illusion, with the word PALACE running along each of its three faces. The team called it the Tri-Ferg, a mash of triangle and Fergus. It has not changed since 2009. It is a smart piece of graphic design. The implied depth makes it look monumental even on a sticker, and the endless loop suggests constant movement, which suits a skate brand. Purcell has kept drawing graphics for Palace over the years. The same year he co-founded the London label Aries with Sofia Prantera, which tells you how small and connected that scene was. The business side came from Slam City Skates, the London shop and distributor that had been at the center of the city's skate scene since the 1980s. Gareth Skewis, who came from Slam City, became Tanju's partner and joint owner. Early Palace product went into a handful of London boutiques, The Hideout among them. ![The London skyline with Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament beside the River Thames](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1784597141076-7d91a82a733f?w=1600&h=1067&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop) *The Thames at Westminster. Palace started in a flat a short walk downriver, near Waterloo. Photo by Eduard Pretsi on Unsplash* ## The Supreme connection Palace's early videos looked like nineties tapes on purpose, grainy and handheld, with the original team of Lucien Clarke, Olly Todd and Charlie Young. Later riders included Danny Brady, Chewy Cannon, Karim Bakhtaoui, Blondey McCoy and Rory Milanes. The clips were funny, fast and very English, and they gave American kids a reason to care about London skating. The decisive boost came from New York. Supreme opened its first European store in London in 2011, and the two brands quickly found each other. By 2012 Palace was stocked in Supreme's New York and Los Angeles stores. That year it was named European Skate Brand of the Year at the BRIGHT tradeshow in Berlin. For the full story of the downtown model Palace borrowed from, see our piece on [Supreme and the drop](https://quietmenace.com/culture/supreme-drop-model/). ## Brewer Street and beyond Palace opened its first shop on Brewer Street in Soho in April 2015, around the corner from Supreme on Peter Street. The two stores turned a few Soho blocks into a pilgrimage route, one that sits on the same walk covered in our [London Soho and Dover Street Market guide](https://quietmenace.com/travel/london-soho-dover-street-market-guide/). In 2017 Palace opened its first American flagship on Howard Street in New York, close to Supreme's Lafayette Street store, and released Palasonic, its first full-length video. Flagships in Los Angeles, Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong came later. ![A brown wooden skateboard deck lying on the ground seen from above](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1536318431364-5cc762cfc8ec?w=1600&h=1067&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop) *Decks first, everything else second. Palace still sells hardware alongside the clothes. Photo by Lukas Bato on Unsplash* ## The football years Palace's collaborations always leaned toward sport and toward the slightly naff corners of British life. Umbro came first in 2012, then Reebok in 2013 and Adidas in 2014. The Adidas relationship ran to Wimbledon-themed tennis pieces and football projects that sit neatly beside the shoes covered in our [Adidas Samba history](https://quietmenace.com/sneakers/adidas-samba-history/). There were also Ralph Lauren, Evisu, Moschino, Salomon, Winmau darts, Stella Artois in 2021, and a Calvin Klein CK1 video starring Willem Dafoe. The biggest swing was Juventus. On October 30, 2019, the club wore a Palace and Adidas fourth kit for the first time in a home match against Genoa, with the old black and white stripes refreshed with neon green accents and the Tri-Ferg sitting under the Adidas logo. Cristiano Ronaldo and Paulo Dybala wore it. A London skate brand on a Serie A shirt was a strange and brilliant sight. Gucci followed in October 2022 with a collection that, true to form, leaned on football shirts. And in late October 2025 Palace released its first Nike collaboration, a football-themed collection built around Nike's early 2000s Total 90 silhouette reworked as a sneaker, with a campaign that teased Manor Place, a free indoor skate park and football pitch in London backed by the two brands. ## What Palace gets right Plenty of skate brands have tried to grow up without losing their audience. Palace managed it by refusing to take itself seriously while taking the product very seriously. The jokes kept the core happy. The quality and the collaborations brought in everyone else. It is a balance that [Stüssy found decades earlier](https://quietmenace.com/culture/stussy-history/) in California, and few brands since have pulled it off. For more, read the [Palace Skateboards Wikipedia entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_Skateboards), explore [skate culture](https://quietmenace.com/topics/skate-culture/) and [streetwear](https://quietmenace.com/topics/streetwear/), or head back to our [culture section](https://quietmenace.com/culture/). The Tri-Ferg is still drawn the same way it was in 2009. Try tracing it with a finger and you never reach the end. --- Filed under: [Skate Culture](https://quietmenace.com/topics/skate-culture/), [Streetwear](https://quietmenace.com/topics/streetwear/), [Collaborations](https://quietmenace.com/topics/collaborations/) Hero image: Photo by Jorge Gonzalez on Unsplash (Unsplash License)