{"id":695565,"date":"2025-11-15T00:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T21:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=695565"},"modified":"2025-11-15T00:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T21:38:08","slug":"10-years-later-noah-still-doesnt-care-what-you-call-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=695565","title":{"rendered":"10 Years Later, Noah Still Doesn\u2019t Care What You Call It"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cWe have to rethink how selfish we can be, and I apply that to myself as well. I\u2019m certainly guilty of making bad choices,\u201d says Brendon Babenzien. \u201cAll I would ask of people is give it a little thought first, and if you still decide you need it or want it or whatever, then okay, fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not a lot of people who own clothing brands would dissuade customers from buying their products. But not a lot of people are Babenzien.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my responsibility as someone who creates things to say out loud, \u2018Buy this and keep it for a really long time, or don\u2019t buy it,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019re not going to build a life with this product, don\u2019t buy it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Babenzien is speaking to me from the office of J.Crew, where he\u2019s been the men\u2019s creative director since 2021. But the topic of our Zoom call is the 10th anniversary of Noah, the clothing brand he founded in 2002, temporarily shuttered and relaunched in 2015 with wife Estelle. Babenzien, like his clothing brand, is far more interested in perspective than clothes. A discussion of product, or even categorization of product, doesn\u2019t feel very \u201cNoah.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis emphasis on brand, it feels very much like a business conversation,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018What\u2019s your brand?\u2019 And I don\u2019t really care. We see the world and people as interesting and complex and not to be narrowed down to these simple thoughts like, \u2018If you\u2019re a runner, you dress this way. If you\u2019re a fisherman, you act that way.\u2019 That\u2019s boring to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of NOAH<\/div>\n

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Anyone can glean a surface-level understanding of Noah from its campaigns and lookbooks showing handsome people clad in the brand\u2019s prep-ish, classic-ish, menswear-ish clothes. But both Noah\u2019s products and Noah itself are distinguished by awareness of something more. On the former, Noah schools its followers in the stylistic roots of its garments, their fabrics and inspirations, maintaining an in-house blog and laying out reference points for even the quotidian cargo short. And that informs the obsessive side of Noah, the side that goes beyond clothing, even though Babenzien contends that it has only just arrived.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt took 10 years to get to where I feel like, \u2018Oh, this looks like what I imagined,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not some strategic decision. It\u2019s putting my life in the form of products. There\u2019s no end goal.\u201d And, though Babenzien is commonly regarded as Mr. Noah, he\u2019s quick to credit his wife and team as equally important contributors to the brand\u2019s vision. Perhaps more important. \u201cIf we didn\u2019t share that, it would be really tough,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019re alone, it\u2019s really hard. Nobody can do anything alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of NOAH, Courtesy of NOAH<\/div>\n

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This is Noah\u2019s bigger picture. It\u2019s ideas, feelings, lived experiences. Its partnerships with Barbour and The Cure, Vuarnet and PUMA, N.E.R.D. and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Its people: Beyond its team, whose passions for running and birdwatching often make their way into collections, Noah tends to cast friends of the brand for lookbooks, often on repeat. The more you look at Noah, the more you get a sense of a larger world, one that\u2019s hard to frame neatly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The clothes, on the other hand, are easy to summarize. \u201cWe sell a lot of sweaters, we sell a lot of shirts, we sell a lot of jeans and pants, and they\u2019re just good,\u201d Babenzien says. \u201cThere\u2019s not an identifier like, \u2018Hey, check me out. I\u2019m wearing this.\u2019 And that\u2019s always been really important to me.\u201d Noah\u2019s shaggy sweaters, harrington-style jackets, and signature rugby shirts typically eschew graphics, aside from slogans or the occasional artist partnership. Buyers get a complete closet of clean clothes informed by the staples Babenzien wore as a youth in the \u201980s, discarded as a rebellious skater in the \u201990s, and rediscovered during a nearly 15-year stint at Supreme in the \u201900s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of NOAH<\/div>\n

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As much as Babenzien disdains labels, this earlier phase of Noah\u2019s life \u2014 alongside factors like Babenzien\u2019s tenure at Supreme and Noah\u2019s skate team \u2014 invites a descriptor he loathes: Streetwear. In a clip from The Cutting Room Floor<\/em> podcast that did the rounds in fashion circles earlier this year, Babenzien minces no words. \u201cSaying Noah was a streetwear brand was absurd,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the media\u2019s fault. I had no control over what people said.\u201d He speaks so emphatically that host Recho Omondi is visibly taken aback. Commenters overwhelmingly sided against him.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe world went crazy over that statement. It\u2019s a bit silly,\u201d Babenzien says now. \u201cYou have to understand that anything can be misinterpreted. Even if I was referencing streetwear stuff, which I still don\u2019t think I was, can\u2019t I evolve? And I guess for some segment of the population, the answer would be no because people were really upset. I didn\u2019t push back on any of it publicly because people are entitled to their thoughts. It was bothering me, but then I was like, \u2018They don\u2019t really know me. It\u2019s okay.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of NOAH, Courtesy of NOAH<\/div>\n

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Babenzien doesn\u2019t want to talk about labels. He wants to talk about intent. He wants to talk about Noah being a member of 1% for the Planet, about the intertwining of business and consumer, about making things that last. To better understand Noah, Babenzien doesn\u2019t suggest studying its oeuvre. He instead proposes Dirtbag Billionaire<\/em>, the recent biography of Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard. \u201cWe all have to be better at what we produce and how we produce but the consumer also has to be a partner in saying, \u2018I\u2019m only going to buy the good stuff,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIf everyone went vegetarian, McDonald\u2019s would have veggie burgers within a week. They\u2019re not going to shut down operations. They\u2019re going to figure out how to supply the product that the consumer\u2019s demanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This is the two-way street that Noah walks as it attempts to juggle visibility and quality while also speaking to its clientele about the things it\u2019s asking them to buy \u2014 or not. It\u2019s a lot of work for Noah and for Babenzien, who detests buzzwords like \u201csustainability.\u201d In fashion, there is no such thing. But there are clothes that last.<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of NOAH<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe real test is if we say, \u2018Are we going to look at this in 10 years and still think it\u2019s good?\u2019\u201d Babenzian says. That kind of substance does not come cheap, nor should it. \u201cI think we have gotten a bit lazy in society. We want everything easy all the time. That makes us very weak,\u201d he says. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t have everything all the time. Because if everybody has it all, there\u2019s nothing left.\u201d<\/p>\n

That shouldn\u2019t stop curious parties from visiting one of Noah\u2019s stores, even if they have no desire to spend cash. In fact, Babenzien encourages it. Not only are Noah\u2019s flagships one of the only places to experience its clothes \u2014 Noah doesn\u2019t wholesale its product \u2014 but they demonstrate the greater Noah project that\u2019s been honed over the past decade. Clothing is really just a venue for something more meaningful.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you just came to the store and bought something and that\u2019s all that happened, I\u2019d be wildly disappointed. If it was just like, \u2018Shirt, money, done,\u2019 that would be terrible,\u201d he says. \u201cYou should be living. You should be having a conversation, experiencing something that you didn\u2019t even know you were going to experience. That\u2019s how you live. It\u2019s not just, like, robotic exchange of things. That\u2019s not a life.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Source URL: http:\/\/highsnobiety.com\/p\/brendon-babenzian-noah-10-year-anniversary-interview\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Want to stay in the loop?We’ve got you coveredDownload the Highsnobiety\u00a0App now \u201cWe have to rethink how selfish we can be, and I apply that to myself as well. I\u2019m certainly guilty of making bad choices,\u201d says Brendon Babenzien. \u201cAll I would ask of people is give it a little thought first, and if you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":695566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-695565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-highsnobiety-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=695565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/695566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=695565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=695565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=695565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}