Gucci x Palace: The weird and the wonderful

It’s always exciting when two major fashion brands announce a limited-edition collaboration, so you can only imagine the anticipation when Gucci Vault and Palace Skateboards confirmed the rumours of their collaboration in October. As High Snobiety said, they are, “Two of the world’s biggest, coolest brands casually linking up for a massively brilliant collection.” So if you’re eager to find out what is waiting in store for fans, how readily available the collection is, then keep reading.

2022 was a big year for both brands in terms of collaborations, as Gucci teamed up with popular brands such as Adidas, North Face, and Harry Styles himself. Meanwhile, Palace joined forces with both Calvin Klein and Mercedes. It’s safe to say that people were thrilled when they found out about the Gucci x Palace collection.

One writer for High Snobiety described it as being, “designed instinctively for the streets,” and “a love letter to cultural crossover.”

Gucci’s creative director, Alessandro Michele, called the collab the place where fashion, “comes alive.”

The collaboration finally dropped on the 21^st of October in Palace’s flagship stores, as well as in Vault’s pop-up stores in Europe and Asia.

Since Gucci is known for its bold and colourful outfits, and Palace produces one-off items of streetwear, it was bound to be full of statement pieces to be worn by celebrities and influencers. They released a trailer showcasing the collection and emphasising that it would be ground-breaking and totally out of this world. It opens with a flying building covering the city and its population in shadows with an ominous voice saying, “People of Earth. You are the chosen ones. Prepare yourselves. Palace Gucci is here.” It then fast-forwards to a house party wherein everyone is debuting the collection. There are aliens, levitating skateboards, quintuplets, poodles, and black cats, as well as bold hair and makeup including two men painted completely in gold. But what does the collection actually feature?

The collection contains a massive range of clothing and accessories from jeans to tracksuit trousers and sweatshirts to knitted tank tops. Arguably, the most exciting feature was the move forward from a male-only clothing line, as this collaboration also debuted Palace’s womenswear which had miniskirts, canvas tops, and bags with the familiar Gucci monogram embossed on them.

As of the 28^th of October, the embroidered leather jacket, duffle bag, blue baggy jeans, white hoodie from the men’s collection, and skate decks were already sold out, leaving only items ranging from £370 to £7240 still available. However, the collection contained more than just clothes and accessories; Gucci x Palace are selling 50 Moto Guzzi motorbikes and ten Conforti safes for £42,500 and £92,000 respectively.

The collection is obviously unique with plenty of prominent statement pieces that are bound to make appearances at celebrity events in the coming months, but also that could be worn in people’s everyday lives. I don’t think the collection is too out there to be unwearable or too high fashion. The marriage between streetwear and runway has been beautifully executed. The Y2K style baby tees would add to any basic outfit worn by celebrities to do their grocery shopping, and the monogrammed jeans could elevate any look.

Of course, the collection is not likely to feature on a student’s wish list but nonetheless, there’s no doubt that the collaboration wasn’t a landmark in streetwear and high fashion crossovers. In my opinion, I couldn’t think of two better brands to work together for a more bold and creative collection as the year comes closer to its end.