The Palms is a new Afrocentric retail space, in the heart of Peckham, which provides exceptional hairstyling and beauty services, with high-quality food and drink, and a multi-use event venue. This covered marketplace will be home to over thirty professional hair and beauty stylists and lifestyle businesses. This will be enhanced with a new bar and food kiosks that are expertly curated to meet the needs of customers from all backgrounds, particularly those looking for more diverse and eclectic retail offers. The Palms exists to support and grow London’s lucrative Afro hair and beauty industry, with a mission to put the power back into the hands of the communities that The Palms works with, and to create new opportunities for women to work collaboratively and to thrive.

Southwark Council invited Something & Son to tender and manage a new Afro hair and beauty hub in Bournemouth Close in order to relocate businesses during Peckham Rye Station Square’s development. Beyond a simple relocation project, Something & Son designed the identity of Peckham Palms; they developed the brand, concept and ethos of this centralised space for new businesses, working collaboratively with hair and beauty service providers working on Blenheim Grove. Something & Son initially worked with Tree Shepherd and Llandolt Brown to develop the project and carry out R&D and community consultation.

Adapted from Peckham Palms Website Description

Peckham Palms was launched in February 2019 after 3.5 years of R&D, consultation and workshopping with black hairdressers, other local residents and businesses. Elias provided creative and structural support during the extensive R&D programme, which was undertaken so that the resulting retail space could be meaningfully co-designed to better meet the users’ business and cultural needs. Today, Peckham Palms is an Afrocentric hair and beauty retail hub and co-working space, led by black women, whose capacity builds sole traders and micro-businesses. 

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