Do you feel like that exclusivity has lost its luster? That, to me, is one of the reasons I feel like sneaker culture has lost the heat that it had a few years ago.
I think so, man. It’s also just the amount of products out there, the amount of people doing sneakers. Everyone does one, and then all of a sudden it’s not new anymore, and then people are less interested because they’ve got it already. And it’ll never be dead, but it gets so busy [and then] it’ll come around again in another cycle.
One theory, looking at your collaborations over the years, is that you guys seem to get a kick out of being a corrupting force: putting the Polo Bear on a skateboard; turning the Rapha helmet into a duck; making slime green Juventus jerseys. Am I onto anything there?
Yeah, we get called disruptive a lot. You should see some of the things we haven’t been allowed to do. We’re all skaters that are up for doing something we’re probably not supposed to do all the time, like how skating was growing up. We love doing funny stuff or things that are like, Oh, my God, that’s so bad, but it’s so good. We love it. It’s funny to not take yourself too seriously, really. We’re not chin scratchers that wear all black and try to be really cool the whole time.
We’re up for right fucking around, really, and doing fun stuff. I’ve always been inspired by Moschino and people that were really pushing the boundaries of what is actually garish or a good print or what’s too big [in terms] of branding. So it’s part of Palace’s DNA, really, to make the most mental skateboards or make stupid T-shirts. It’s kind of just that whole core independent skate-brand mentality, really.
So we’re really just doing what we know. And that sometimes is read as a bit punk or a bit disruptive or a bit against the grain, which is good. I think that’s what skateboarding has always brought to everything.
See the full collection from Palace and Gap below.
