As founder of PΔLΔCE Skateboards, Lev Tanju’s laidback, no bullshit approach has won him scores of fans in the skate scene and beyond, with the megastar likes of Rihanna and MIA repping the London label. The Dazed 100 creative has had a bumper 2014, celebrating five years in business by releasing a record with Theo Parrish, collaborating with adidas Originals and opening a super successful pop-up store in Soho, New York – proving the label’s appeal on both sides of the Atlantic.
2015 looks set to be just as epic, but Tanju’s keeping his plans under his hat. “It’s all secret – but it’s all going to be really exciting!” he tells us. We talked to Tanju about the creative London-based mates he’s tipping for 2015, including the ones making and DJing the music currently blasting out of his Beats.
He actually DJed at our New York pop-up. He skates for PΔLΔCE and he’s one of my favourite skaters as well. He’s showed me a lot of music that I’m currently into. Next year he’s going to be skating a lot more, and DJing a lot more – he’s getting booked at loads of place. I’ve known him for about 10 years. I met him skating down at Southbank – he’s from Wandsworth. He skates in all the PΔLΔCE videos, so that’s a good place to check him out.
They make dance music and some of it had a D’n’B feel to it, which is weird, because normally I hate that! It’s really good. I don’t think people like to know who they are – they perform behind curtains and with their backs to the crowd and stuff like that. I’ve listened to a lot of their music and put it on a lot of skate things that we’ve done. I just think they’re really interesting and making exciting music. They did a weird installation thing at the Tate a few weeks ago as part of a Rinse FM takeover.
I went to one of his restaurants recently and really enjoyed it. I’ve known him for a long time and he just invited me for Sunday lunch with him and his family at Brunswick House and it was really amazing. He went downstairs and started dusting off these crazy bottles of wine and he really showed me a good time. I love all the antiques in the restaurant and the food’s great. I love the way he talks about food and drinks wine – you can tell he’s really trying to get the best out of what he’s serving to people.
via Hunter Gather
BLONDEY MCCOY
He’s another skater – a young guy who also skates for PΔLΔCE but is also doing his own clothing line, called Thames. I’ve been seeing the samples coming through, because he works in our office, and it’s really exciting. It’s nice to see someone from London doing another brand that I like. He’s going to do really well next year and I’m excited to see what he does. He’s only 17 – it’s great when people work super hard and do what they want to do. His ideas are all really mental but they look really good. He also does art photo shows in Soho every once in a while.
I think she’s a great designer. I like going to her shows. She does stuff in a different way. She works really hard and she’s doing really well. I went to a few of her shows and think they’re really great. I love all of her cigarette hand printed stuff and I have a shirt with the print on.
