{"id":56107,"date":"2019-04-03T12:45:58","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T16:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stockx.com\/news\/?p=56107"},"modified":"2019-05-29T16:35:57","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T20:35:57","slug":"palace-lucien-clarke-supreme-virgil-abloh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stockx.com\/news\/palace-lucien-clarke-supreme-virgil-abloh\/","title":{"rendered":"Palace Skate Team Profile: Lucien Clarke"},"content":{"rendered":"

Similarly to Supreme and a host of other skate shops, Palace also hosts their own Skate Team. Unlike most other teams though, Palace\u2019s Skate Team plays a larger role in Palace\u2019s overall business, informing the designs and concepts. When Lev Tanju put the brand together, it was done so around the people he was hanging out with and skating with, who would eventually just become the skate team. Periodically, over the next nine months, we\u2019ll highlight a member of the Palace Skate Team, similarly to how we\u2019ve started doing with Supreme. Scroll down to check out our profile on Lucien Clarke.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Lucien Clarke<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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Like Na-Kel Smith and Sean Pablo, Lucien Clarke defines himself as a skate-rat, stating “Girls didn\u2019t matter. Going out didn\u2019t matter. I was a skate-rat”.<\/span>\u00a0The London skater got his start when he was just a pre-teen when his step-dad bought him his first skateboard. Lucien was born in Jamaica and lived there a while before moving to New York with his mother, where they\u2019d live for six years and then move to England. <\/span><\/p>\n

In comparison to some of the other guys featured in our Skater profiles, Lucien seemingly got a late start, not even receiving his first board until he was 14. By the time he was 15 or 16, he knew that skating full time was what he wanted to do with his life; the above quote is a reference to that age. During those teenage years, Lucien spent time in the London neighborhood of Southbank, an area he says is \u201cthe heart of London\u201d<\/a>. It was there that he met the Palace guys and really started moving forward in his craft. Eventually, he was sponsored by a small local shop and that led would lead to more sponsorships, including a sponsorship by Element.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Lucien started traveling after the Element sponsorship, allowing him to expose himself on a higher level than before. Throughout all of this, he tells Quartersnacks that he\u2019s never really felt disadvantaged for not being from the United States. Shortly after Lucien started picking up momentum as a pro, Lev Tanju (Palace Founder) started printing tees and building what would eventually become Palace. Not long after that, he was brought on board as one of the first four members of the company. As the brand started picking up steam, the group started creating a series of videos, dubbing themselves the \u201cPalace Wayward Boys Choir\u201d or PWBC for short. The group and series of videos served as a platform for both Palace the brand and the skaters on the team, all of which were featured in this 2009 article by ESPN<\/a>, who was primarily only covering US Skating at the time. From there, the brand only expanded and skaters like Lucien have risen to stardom as a result, participating in things like Louis Vuitton Men\u2019s shows and winning most stylish at Paris Fashion Week. Scroll down to check out some of Lucien\u2019s career highlights.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Beyond his skating with Element and the Palace Wayward Boy Choir, Lucien also went on to join Supra\u2019s pro team and has since been given several signature shoes and appeared in several skate videos. He\u2019s also still a regular in Palace\u2019s skate videos and lookbooks, modeling and delivering parts regularly. Though he\u2019s not (yet) won Thrasher\u2019s Skater Of The Year Award, he\u2019s been featured on the shortlist for several years.<\/span><\/p>\n