PALACE TURNS A BIKE PUN INTO A SKATE VIDEO

Before Palace was a brand people queue for, it was a skate crew with a camera. That order matters, and "The Palello" is a reminder of which one came first. Strip away the Adidas collaborations and the sold-out drops, and what remains is the thing the brand was actually built on. A group of friends, a city, and footage of them skating it. A skate video is not marketing for Palace. It is the native art form, the reason the brand has any credibility to spend in the first place. ## Palace Is a Skate Brand Wearing Fashion''s Numbers It is easy to forget what Palace is, because most of the world meets it as a hype label now. But the foundation is skateboarding, full stop. London, the South Bank, the specific humor and grit of British skating in the 2000s. Everything else, the clothes, the collaborations, the global stores, grew out of that root. That is why a video like "The Palello" matters more than another product drop. It is the brand returning to its source. Skateboarding rewards style over polish and personality over perfection, and Palace has always understood that a good clip says more about it than any campaign could. The skating is the substance. The clothes are what the substance pays for. ## Lev Tanju Built It on the Bench, Not the Boardroom Palace traces to Lev Tanju and a crew of skaters, not a marketing plan. Founded in 2009, the brand grew out of an actual scene, the people Tanju skated with and the videos they made for themselves before anyone was watching. That origin is the brand''s most valuable and least copyable asset. You cannot manufacture a skate scene. You either come from one or you do not, and Palace does. That is why its self-aware, absurdist humor reads as real rather than focus-grouped, the same instinct on display when [Palace called a video Smashing Palace and meant both words](/quick/palace-skateboarding-calls-it-smashing-palace-and-means-both-words). The jokes land because the people making them are genuinely a crew, not a content team performing one. ## A Cycling Joke Is Still a Skate Video "The Palello" leans into a cycling theme, a play on the peloton, the pack of riders in a race. That is very Palace, taking a left turn into another sport''s language and skating straight through it. But underneath the bit, it is what it always is, skaters and a filmer documenting the thing they love. The cycling framing is a costume. The body is a skate video, shot by @dirttoads, an author in the way skate filmers always are, a participant in the scene rather than a vendor shooting content. That distinction is the whole difference between a brand that skates and a brand that uses skating as a look. Palace ranges enormously, from clips like this to global football moments like the [Palace and Nike England World Cup kits](/quick/palace-nike-england-x2-kits-full-reveal-2026-m4r9k3xp), but the thread through all of it is a brand that still acts like the crew it started as. ## The Video Is the Point Here is the read. Do not treat "The Palello" as a teaser for something you are meant to buy. Treat it as the actual product, because for a skate brand, the video is not the advertisement, it is the work. Palace stays valuable because it keeps making the thing that earned it credibility in the first place, instead of cashing that credibility out and walking away. Fifteen years in, the brand still puts out skate footage with a stupid pun and a real filmer, and that consistency is harder to fake than any collaboration. The skating came first. As long as it stays first, the rest of it means something.