Is This Real? Skateboard Brand Ad Causes A Stir Online

A new marketing vid for London-based Palace Skateboards promoting its upcoming collaboration with London graffiti artist 10 Foot has caused quite a stir online.

Promoting a collaboration due out on 4 August, the vid ostensibly shows 10 Foot (with his face hidden) tagging a City of London police van with his moniker.

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10 Foot’s will be familiar to almost any Londoner, with his tag dominating the railways and buildings around the capital. According to an interview he did with the Financial Times, no less, he has a fan page that has noticed his work around Europe and beyond, his work was rumoured to have appeared in a recent James Bond film and appeared in the opening credits of hit Netflix show Top Boy.

Whether the van is real, or if it is indeed 10 Foot himself is unclear. However, it calls to mind a 2006 campaign from New York fashion brand Ecko which rented a Boeing 747, painted it to look like the US President’s Air Force One jet and sprayed “Still Free” on one of the engine cowlings.

Posting the video on his own Instagram page, 10 Foot said that: “PS I got nicked on warrant for this and NFAed so obv IT WASNT ME… Just thought I’d put it up cos… police barefaced lied about me in court.”

“NFAed” is slang for No Further Actioned, when the British police investigate someone for a crime but are unable to produce more evidence or simply do not want to pursue a prosecution.

A white t-shirt with an image of the tagged van appears at the end of the video. Whether there will be more pieces in the collaboration is unclear at the moment.

The ad caused quite a stir on Palace’s Instagram, which has collaborated with the likes of Gucci in the past, with some users expressing their outrage at a police van being tagged.

One user commented, tagging American fashion vans, which Palace has also recently worked with, saying:

“@vans Are you guys seriously supporting this bullshit?”

Another said “So cool wow. So edgy. Now someone will have to be hired to fix this really cool art you did.”

Of course, both comments manage to miss the point of skateboarding, counter cultures and graffiti entirely.

However, on 10 Foot’s Instagram, one user said that working with a luxury brand “defeats the counter culture act.”

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