Gucci’s Creative Director Alessandro Michele invites Palace Skateboards and co-founders Lev Tanju and Gareth Skewis to a dichotomous melding of the distinct personae of an Italian luxury house and a London streetwear brand born and raised in the twenty-first century. Leveraging on Vault’s field of freedom where diverse narratives take shape and reverberate in all directions, fostering dialogues and forging relationships with those who approach it, the project overcomes what seemingly at first glance is a clash of worlds, a crash of opposites. This Palace Gucci collection discovers not divergence but convergence, a mirror of approaches, obsessions and meanings that unify the two brands in a single aesthetic expression.
The collection encompass accessories and clothing for all genders – including Palace’s debut women’s ready-to-wear designs. Merging the aesthetic languages of each, the collection double-speaks Palace and Gucci. The power of the logo – a badge of belonging, a symbol of community – sits at the centre of the conversation between the houses, fusing the double-G of Gucci with Palace’s Tri-Ferg, materializing this cross-over of approaches. The Gucci Horsebit loafer – a staple of a 2000s club uniform – is reinvented, dancing a Palace ‘P’ charm, an emblem that also infiltrates Gucci’s iconic monogram canvas, in a literal overlap of identities. Likewise, as Palace’s staples are all present – soccer tees, denims, tracksuits – so Gucci’s heritage is reimagined, duffles reshaped with the pyramidal form of the Tri-Ferg and the monogram recolored in bubblegum pink, camouflage or baby blue. All these sit side by side with coveted epitomes of high-end streetwear, such as the shearling jacket or the two-piece motorbike suit, as well as with unexpected collectables.
The collection will be retailed online from October 21st exclusively through Gucci Vault, the concept store launched by Gucci in September 2021. For the first time since its inception, Vault will also be taken offline and IRL, assuming physical form through pop-up stores in Paris, Milan, Tokyo, Osaka, and Bangkok, as well as take overs of Palace stores in London, New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo, the first time the brand has ever allowed another creative to reconfigure these cult destinations.
