Noah Creative Director Brendon Babenzien Talks Roots & Design Process

After serving as Supreme’s creative director, Brendon Babenzien left to revive his own label that he started in the early 2000s, which fuses both streetwear aesthetics with classic menswear looks. Noah was a brand that was made to celebrate Babenzien’s time growing up as a skater in New York City, in addition to his desires to start an environmentally sustainable and ethical business. In a recent talk with SSENSE’s Thom Bettridge, Babenzien talks about being aware of his roots and striving to design with meaning in order to keep himself and his label authentic.

Check out an excerpt from the talk below and read the interview in full here.

TB: What was the moment for you when you realized you wanted to work on brands that were representing this culture?

BB: Before I knew I wanted to make clothes, I knew I liked clothes. It sounds so corny. But I was 13! At 13, clothes mean a lot to you because it’s an indicator of who you are. At that point you’re still not able to speak intelligently about what you believe. You’re just this half-human, and pure emotion. At the time, my choices were based on trying to express individuality more than anything else. I wasn’t going out of my way to look like everybody I hung out with. I didn’t really give a shit if I wasn’t supposed to wear a pink floral shirt when I was 13 years old. I was going to wear it anyway.

TB: Like, this isn’t punk—

BB: My friends weren’t even punk. The kids I met that were into skating were from elsewhere. Where I’m from, the kids were pretty normal, you know, baseball and football. I played lacrosse. But I might have been the only one in my whole fucking school who surfed. Most of the kids I skated and surfed with were from elsewhere.

TB: And how did you meet people like that before the Internet?

BB: I worked in the surf shop in East Islip—Rick’s Surf Shop. So I met everybody.

TB: Is that where you grew up?

BB: Yes. You know how there’s the city, and then there’s the Hamptons and Montauk, and then there’s everything in between? I lived in the everything in between. You can see my house from Sunrise Highway. I grew up behind a used car lot on the service part of the highway. I used to skate at the Shell gas station, because they had painted curbs. I did everything there. I threw a lacrosse ball against their wall to practice, I skated their curbs, and at night when there was no traffic on Sunrise Highway I’d do fucking wall rides on the dividers because they had a little bank at the bottom.

TB: I’m curious what the design process is like for you. Especially with graphics.

BB: The process is really simple. It’s more about the fabrics I love. But with t-shirts, the graphics represent something culturally. I set the goals very high for us, because we have to be funny, clever, and intelligent. They also have to relate to us, because I’m not setting out to necessarily be aggressive.