From today, call it Crystal Palace Skateboards

The relationship between football and fashion has recently become so close that the two worlds sometimes collide, leading to stories in which the protagonists swap roles. This story involves the centenary of Crystal Palace, one of the few football clubs with a creative director, the Art of Football community, which is focused on football culture, and a brand almost identical in name to the club. Essentially, Crystal Palace seems to have taken inspiration from Palace Skateboards for its latest collection celebrating 100 years since its founding, created in collaboration with AoF. The club used a font almost identical to Helvetica Neue Condensed Black, the same font used in every drop by the London-based skateboarding brand. The font is featured in 3D on the hoodie, as well as in 2D on the t-shirt. The first obvious question is how such an evident risk could have occurred, especially since the creative direction of the London club has been entrusted to Kenny Annan-Jonathan, who in an interview shared the responsibilities of a creative director at the helm of a football club.

“This new role is about how we can improve the club’s community through clothing-related projects. Design is a universal language that people can experience and connect with; for a long time, brands and clubs have tried to convey messages and engage fans only through matchday kits, which are very specific and not something the average fan uses daily – that’s a basic limitation,” said Kenny Annan-Jonathan, adding: “My role is to create clothing lines, but also experiences and collaborations that really speak to all Crystal Palace fans.” The second legitimate question we can ask is whether Kenny Annan-Jonathan, thanks to his experience in both the fashion and football worlds, has chosen to continue the long-standing tradition of rip-offs that exists in football, fashion, and the intersection of both.

Just recently, a beef broke out between the two streetwear brands Palace Skateboarding and Corteiz RTW, both of which have been influenced in their lookbooks by football aesthetics. The reason? Both claimed to be the first to have created a bootleg version of the tracksuit worn by the Brazilian National Team during the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, which has always been a cult item for football fans. Therefore, the decision to copy Palace Skateboards might have been intentional, a clever way to generate interest around the collection that is already available on the Art of Football and Crystal Palace websites.