Palace 如何守住酷劲：Burberry 联名胶囊与伦敦新店背后的生意经

November 5, 2026

The Palace x Burberry capsule launched exclusively at Palace’s new London store.Photo: Lev Tanju

It’s rare that almost every member of a company’s upper management team is a diehard skateboarder. But at Palace — the British apparel brand founded in 2009 — it’s par for the course. Gareth Skewis, who co-founded the company with Lev Tanju, cites this as one of the core reasons the international, multi-million-pound business has been able to expand and maintain its credibility in subcultures across the globe.

This week, the brand aired an exclusive capsule with Burberry at its new store on London’s Poland Street — a milestone for a brand that bet on quintessentially British skate style at a time when competitors were largely inspired by North American streetwear. Burberry and Palace had many conversations over the years, discussing projects and the right time to make the collaboration happen, Skewis tells Vogue Business. Then, the right opportunity arrived. “They’ve been amazing. [Burberry creative director] Daniel Lee and his team, and [CEO] Joshua Schulman have been really great to work with.”

Palace spawned from a motley crew of Southbank skaters, who rented a rundown flat in South London, known informally as “The Palace”. Together, they named themselves the Palace Wayward Boys Choir (PWBC), with core members including Tanju and the brand’s head of creative, Stuart Hammond. Tanju and Skewis were in discussion about a brand around the same time Tanju secured a slot on photography and film duo Tim & Barry’s “Don’t Watch That TV” YouTube channel — a precursor to grime’s streaming boom — to air his skate news program, The PWBC Weekly News, every Wednesday at 4.20pm. “The first time I saw any of that, I was like, ‘This is the most interesting thing I’ve seen in skateboarding in 20 years,’” says Skewis, who decided after episode one that Palace would be the brand name.

In 2015, Palace set up shop on Soho’s Brewer street, which thrived — not dissimilar to the likes of Supreme, Gimme 5, and the Hideout — on its cult appeal, staffed by skaters and DJs who naturally communicated the brand’s messaging. During the peak of the late-2010s streetwear boom, the locale was consistently thronged with teens and twenty-somethings who would camp out for hours ahead of big drops. In recent years, whenever I’ve visited the store, it’s been quieter, but still busy.

Growing graciously

Fast forward to now, and the brand is a familiar figure within fashion, luxury, and sportswear, having partnered with the likes of Harrods, Vivienne Westwood, Moschino, and Arc’Teryx, as well as niche labels, such as Japan’s Beams Plus and Evisu.

For the year ended January 31, 2026, the company reported £27.6 million in turnover, down from £34 million the year prior. The filing on Companies House attributed this to product volume discipline and strategic release cadence in line with a focus on long-term positioning over short-term revenue. Before that, the company had reported year-on-year growth amid the post-Covid bounceback. (The brand declined to comment directly on financials.)

“Lev [Tanju, co-founder] and I have the luxury that we’ve never done anything we didn’t want to do,” says Skewis. “Not everybody gets it all the time, and I think that’s a good thing.” Sometimes, that means collaborations or product innovations that are more niche (Palace x artist Dick Jewell), while other times, it’s a simple win. The 10-piece Burberry capsule — launched exclusively in the new Palace London flagship — falls under the latter. “Who doesn’t like [Burberry’s] Camden car coats?” Skewis shrugs. “We’re south of the river, and they’re north of the river, so it’s an interesting juxtaposition,” he adds, observing the city’s internal rivalry.

The limited drop and new store come at a pivotal moment in Palace’s trajectory. Last weekend, the company celebrated its first year partnering with Nike, following the end of its 10-year contract with Adidas, which manifested in a recurring collaboration alongside other ad-hoc partnerships. Nike took the spot in 2025 with the arrival of Manor Place, a Grade-II-listed Flemish revival building housing a skatepark that transforms into a five-a-side soccer pitch through state-of-the-art hydraulics. Architecture studio Jam designed the multifunction venue; it’s also the Palace office.

With Nike, Palace has produced a series of ongoing collaborations, while Manor Place functions as a contemporary “third space”, open to the public for daily use and offering a year free in studio space to resident artists and creatives, a gallery space, and boxing classes. (It’s also hosted London designer incubator Fashion East’s shows since Fall/Winter 2026.)

The skatepark, architecturally inspired by famous skate spots across the British capital, has ostensibly been a major hit. (Anecdotally, my personal visits confirmed consistent footfall.) It also provides Palace with a pipeline for new talent — rappers, skaters, hosts, and photographers — who collaborate with the brand on commercial videos, as well as a consistent flow of cultural happenings to build TikTok and Instagram content around.

For big brands seeking to capitalize on youth culture, the space is a case study for why giving back and engaging organically matter. “When we first discussed it with Nike, it was really interesting to see how much they got behind it,” recalls Skewis. “And truthfully, anyone who’s living in any inner-city on the planet currently knows that there are not many places young kids can go and do things that are both free and safe.”

Like most office workers, Skewis loves Fridays. “Manor Place opens at about 12pm. Anyone who’s in England will just come and skate,” he says. “You’ve literally got 12-year-old kids skating with people who are either professional skateboarders or who have jobs running ad agencies or in the city.”

Retail revival

For Skewis, physical retail is the best way to communicate a brand’s message, stronger than out-of-home and digital advertising or exclusive brand dinners. “I like standing in spaces where you understand what that brand smells and sounds like, and the way the customer service and staff work with you,” he says. Manor Place, which has a shop, does this — and hopefully the new store will, too.

The new 250-square-meter store — primed with David Sims photography, parquet flooring, and huge screens to play skate videos — opened to VIPs on Wednesday, followed by a public unveiling on Thursday. Alongside Palace’s concession in Dover Street Market London, Poland Street is the brand’s core direct-to-consumer (DTC) location in London.

The two-story space is specced with light wells, stained-glassed windows, bare concrete, museological displays, stone plinths, and a number eight-shaped door handle. (The eight motif also appears in the Burberry collection.) It reflects Palace’s USP as a culturally curious, luxury-adjacent skate brand. “It’s got that tension: certain bits of iconography that don’t feel like they fit in classic skateboarding retail,” Skewis adds.

The designer of the new store, Steve Oh, has worked with Palace for several years, designing the brand’s spaces in South Korea, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore. Indeed, Palace has ramped up its expansion in the Asia-Pacific region, now counting DTC outposts across Japan, South Korea, China and Singapore, as well as its US locations.

But how has the brand carried its hyper-London brand messaging and subcultural capital to foreign climes and consumer landscapes as vastly different as East Asia’s? Through meeting fellow skaters and creatives on the ground. “If you’ve skated for long enough, there are natural scenes,” Skewis says. “We’ve got really close friends in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, New York.” In fact, Skewis has known Palace’s strategic advisor for the China region, Stéphen Khou, for some 25 years, acquainted through his travels in France and London’s ground zero for skating, Southbank. “It’s really been an organic approach, and I think that’s kind of what Palace is. We’re not trying to be anything that we’re not.”

The roadmap for the next 10 years? Skewis plays it cool. “If we can continue to do things like Manor Place, put out skate videos, do the things we love… That’s really what we’re about.”

Joe Bobowicz is Senior Reporter at Vogue Business. Previously, he worked in house for The Face, i-D, Harrods, and ShowStudio. Bobowicz has worked across creative consulting and branded content, in addition to his journalism. He has also curated art exhibitions and lectured at universities, including Westminster, Central Saint Martins, London ... Read More

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