Palm Angels: The Story of the Label and Its Founder

Palm Angels is a luxury streetwear label that began, unusually, as a book. Before there were track jackets or a runway schedule, there were black-and-white photographs of skateboarders in Los Angeles, taken by an Italian art director who was fascinated by how far that world was from his own. What follows traces how those pictures turned into a fashion label, what makes its clothes recognisable and where it stands now.

Palm Angels brand history: from photography book to label

Francesco Ragazzi grew up in Milan and studied fashion communication there before spending nine years at Moncler, where he became artistic director. In a 2017 conversation with Interview magazine, he describes his first trip to Los Angeles in 2011, when he began photographing the skaters he saw. Los Angeles, he said, "is so far from Italy that it really looks like a different world."

The tricks interested him less than the culture around them. He wanted to understand that culture and "find the complexity in it", and he compared his aim to the way Bruce Weber had photographed surf culture. The images became Palm Angels, a book published by Rizzoli in 2014 with an introduction by Pharrell Williams.

The clothes came after the book. Ragazzi began with limited-edition hats and T-shirts, and in 2015 the project became a full ready-to-wear label under the same name. Our Palm Angels brand page keeps that chronology to three entries (the book in 2014, the label in 2015 and the years of growth from 2016); this article gives the longer version.

What the clothes borrow, and from whom

The label's premise is a translation. Its subject matter is American, specifically West Coast skate culture and sun-bleached Americana, while the making and the eye are Italian, so the clothes amount to an Italian reading of California.

The label's vocabulary comes out of that pairing. Palm trees, flames and stars recur across the collections, and track jackets and tracksuits have long been a familiar part of the range. Used consistently, this small set of symbols makes a garment readable as Palm Angels from across a street.

The brand says this is deliberate, and its stated mission is to make its language so recognisable that "à la Palm Angels" becomes a cultural signifier in its own right. Freedom, individuality and exploration are the three values it returns to, and the line that sums up the attitude is "My freedom starts where yours ends."

Milestones

The label grew quickly, and most of its turning points are on the record.

Early collaborations

Collaboration has been part of its approach from the start. In 2017, alongside its Spring/Summer 2018 collection at Milan Fashion Week, Palm Angels showed a co-branded sandal with the footwear label Suicoke, which went on sale that December (Complex).

Moncler Genius

After his years at Moncler, Ragazzi was invited to be one of the guest designers of the house's Genius project. The 8 Moncler Palm Angels collection for autumn 2019 played on the idea of a vandalised gallery: Ragazzi told Paper that he saw Moncler as the pure white gallery and himself as the protester bringing the graffiti.

Clarks and Formula 1

In 2020, Palm Angels reworked two Clarks Originals styles: the Desert Boot in July, then the Wallabee, a shoe first released in 1968, in black and lilac (i-D). In November 2022, Haas F1 Team announced that Palm Angels would become its official "EntArtainment Curator" for the 2023 season, with branding on the car, driver overalls and garage. For a label that has always borrowed from neighbouring subcultures, motor racing was one more.

Ownership and the founder

For several years Palm Angels was part of New Guards Group, the luxury streetwear group that Farfetch acquired in 2019. On 11 February 2025, brand-management firm Bluestar Alliance announced that it had acquired Palm Angels from New Guards Group, without disclosing financial terms (WWD). Ragazzi, who had also served as creative director, left the brand. He said that as the label "enters a new chapter, I step away with confidence". He remains its founder and the person who defined its voice, though the company now has new owners.

The brand has also looked back. In September 2024, ten years after the first book, Rizzoli New York published Decoding Palm Culture, launched with an exhibition at Milan Fashion Week and built around 50 previously unseen photographs by Ragazzi.

Where Palm Angels sits in luxury streetwear

Streetwear and luxury were long treated as separate worlds, and Palm Angels works between the two, bringing the loose silhouettes and graphic language of skate and sport into a luxury register of fabric, finish and price. When Bluestar Alliance bought the label, its chief executive, Joey Gabbay, pointed to its "ability to bridge the worlds of streetwear and luxury".

For a wider view of that market, see our notes on luxury streetwear in India and luxury brands in India. Palm Angels is useful to study because its appeal is cultural before it is commercial: people respond to the references first and the label second.

Dickies makes a useful comparison from the other end of the same story. Its work pant became a skate staple through daily use and reached streetwear the long way round, while Palm Angels got there by starting from the photograph. Our guide to the Dickies 874 work pant covers that history.

Palm Angels in India

Zyvora Brands, based in Gurugram, distributes Palm Angels in India, and the label is officially available through its store at palmangels.co.in. At the time of writing, the store carries the Spring Summer '26 collection. For availability details, see the page on Palm Angels in India, and browse the other labels we work with on our brands page.

For how a brand like this comes to be sold officially in a new market, our piece on how international fashion brands enter India explains the routes, and international clothing brands in India puts them in context.

Palm Angels draws on specific references, and its product follows from them; the track jackets and printed knitwear make more sense once you have seen the book. If you are a retailer, a stylist or a member of the press with a question about the collection or the brand's presence in India, you are welcome to get in touch. More on who we are is on our about page.