To be au fait with Palace’s iconic product descriptions, you will actually have needed to buy something from its online store – or have tried to, at least.
For the uninitiated, and to put it bluntly: they aren’t like generic product descriptions.
Full of humor, pathos, social commentary and unabashed opinion, the descriptions – which have garnered a cult following in recent years – eschew practical details, with a jacket, being described as: “Trendsetter, Don’t Think So Mate, You Look Like You Moonwalked Through Topshop, With Your Eyes Closed, Covered In Glue,” for example.
Sure, it might not make much sense – especially without the product for reference – but you get the general gist. It’s playful and very British.
In the name of honoring some of its best to-date, the London-based label is teaming up with publisher Phaidon this season to release an official printed archive of online descriptions – a book which features unconventional blabberings dating back to Palace’s 2013 debut.
Officially titled Palace Product Descriptions: The Selected Archive, the book – which is set to land on October 26 – features more than 3,000 descriptions in total, which have been organized into 22 tongue-in-cheek categories, including Anatomy, Animals, Etiquette, Philanthropy, Romance, and Travel.
Authored by Palace co-founder, Lev Tanju, whose style tore up the copywriting rulebook, the book opens with an introduction by writer, poet and literary critic Sam Buchan-Watts, who argues that Tanju has “pioneered an artform in a place where few people thought to look,” and he’s right.
The book not only serves as a catalog of some of the brand’s best (and funniest) works, but is a constant reminder of how an underground skate label from South London broke the mold to change the way we perceive the UK streetwear scene.
