Brendon Babenzien on 10 Years of Noah and His Love for Skateboarding

If at first you don’t succeed, try try again.

Brendon Babenzien can relate to that old saying — at least when it comes to his brand, Noah.

When he first decided to create a responsible men’s collection that would buck the industry trend toward trendy, throwaway fashion, it was a bust.

“It was a total disaster,” said Babenzien, who made his mark in fashion at Supreme. “I didn’t have enough money and I didn’t have enough resources. But it was received pretty well.”

That was in 2002.

So he shuttered the brand and “bounced around for a while” before returning to Supreme, where he had spent several successful years helping its founder James Jebbia create arguably the industry’s most-successful streetwear brand.

Although Noah hadn’t been around very long and wasn’t being produced, Babenzien was always surprised when people would comment about how much they liked the brand. “They were always telling me: ‘I have your old sweatshirt and I love it.’ It makes you realize, maybe it’s not over.”

Enter Estelle Bailey, now his wife, who also believed in the concept of “business with purpose,” he said. “We talked about how the world could be better and she really pushed me to go after it again.”

For Babenzien, the second time turned out to be the charm.

Now looking back on Noah’s 10-year anniversary, Babenzien is proud of what he and Bailey-Babenzien have created: a collection rooted in sourcing transparency, quality construction and timeless designs. Donegal sweaters made from merino wool from Ireland, herringbone sack suits, plaid cashmere CPO overshirts and pinstripe Oxford shirts complement the graphic Ts, classic hoodies and five-pocket jeans.

While the 2015 concept may have been similar to the original back in 2002, Babenzien said they “layered on all this other stuff that felt really important” for round two.

“You can’t just be cool, you can’t just be funny. You’ve got to be cool and funny and responsible. You’ve got to talk about quality and educate your customer about buying better because I had come to the conclusion that most of the world’s problems were derived from our drive to own things. So we thought if we started a business that was really respected and really interesting and made great products that would stay with people for a long time, [we’d have the right formula.]”

Although successful, Noah is still small, and that’s just the way they want it. The brand has one store, on Mulberry Street in New York’s SoHo neighborhood, that expanded into an adjacent storefront earlier this year to highlight its tailored clothing and more-elevated products. The original store is more focused on products influenced by skate, surf and music.

His familiarity with the skate and surf culture is not surprising given Babenzien’s history. He was born in East Islip, N.Y., on Long Island in 1971 and grew up surfing and skateboarding. “It’s one of those towns where everybody has surfboards in their garage, whether they surf or not,” he said.

He has fond memories of this idyllic childhood, but “the irony is that I couldn’t wait to get out. When you’re a kid, you want to leave where you’re from.”

For Babenzien, that meant New York City, which he and his buddies would take the train into to skate and buy records and clothes that weren’t available on Long Island. “We were looking for things we thought were cool and interesting. I think that’s how I first got interested in clothing,” he said.

That initial interest was informed by his love of skateboarding. “There’s a certain personality and a style element that comes with skateboarding,” he said. “You’re kind of creative and you see the world in a way that others might not. Like a bench: it’s meant to be sat on, it’s not meant to be boarded on.”

Although surfing and skating are often seen as core to California, the sports are also popular on the East Coast. “Skating and surfing have been here since the beginning,” he said, “but the community was small back then. In the ‘80s, California was exporting its style to everyone else. Ocean Pacific, Quiksilver, Jimmy’s and all the different brands that we all adopted.”

But the New York version was grittier and urban, he recalled. “It wasn’t California, it wasn’t skate parks and backyard ramps. It was in the gutter, under the bridges, and that informed a kind of unique perspective on what it meant to be a skateboarder.”

Babenzien credited Supreme with recognizing the difference and addressing it, leading the company to essentially redefine the sport’s style in the 1990s and 2000s.

Babenzien joined Supreme in 1996 at the height of its popularity. Although he had no formal fashion background, he began working at a skate shop on Long Island when he was 13. Because he had an innate feel for what was cool and different, he moved into the buyer’s role just two years later.

“There weren’t fashion boutiques in the suburbs,” he said. “There were malls and department stores and they were buying big brands that everybody recognized. There was nothing new, nothing progressive. There wasn’t anything really geared towards youth culture, which is essentially where all the new ideas always come from. So surf shops and skate shops really filled that void.”

In 1994, he was lured to Miami to help his friend Don Busweiler build his streetwear brand named Pervert. The brand, which was based on changing the status quo and perverting common ideas, was a success and Babenzien learned how to build a business. But a couple of years in, Busweiler shuttered it to join a religious organization and gave away everything he owned. That prompted Babenzien to return home to New York, where he got connected to Jebbia.

“We didn’t know each other,” he recalled, but Jebbia knew of Babenzien’s reputation and brought him on board as creative director. “I didn’t know if I could do it, but I said I’ll try. I got beat up for years finding manufacturers and figuring out where to get fabrics — and I didn’t really know how to design, but you eventually pick it up.”

It was these skills he applied to Noah. But as he got older, Babenzien came to care more about the world as a whole and what he terms “alternative ways of thinking.” So while his core customer may still be cool kids — of all ages — he’s managed to steer the conversation to larger topics such as overproduction, responsible manufacturing and creating classic pieces with a preppy undertone, intended to be worn for decades.

“I think the customer base we built understands that they need to buy better products and rely on their own sense of style rather than trendy things,” he said.

He’s also part of 1% for the Planet and donates 1 percent of his annual sales to environmental nonprofits.

His mission also connects with people outside the U.S. Noah has stores in Tokyo, Osaka and Seoul with local partners. Closer to home, he’s developing a store in Los Angeles that he hopes to open in February.

Over the past decade his top-selling items have changed. In the beginning he sold “tons” of logo sweatshirts, but now the Shetland or Donegal sweaters that retail around $250; shirts, such as Oxfords for $168 and moleskins for $298, along with jeans, including the double-pleat model for $248, are most popular.

Noah does very limited wholesale, and Babenzien has no plans to expand that end of the business. “I just don’t love it, it’s a totally different business,” he said. “We still do some, but only with like-minded people.”

In addition to Noah, Babenzien was hired by J.Crew in 2021 to be its men’s creative director. He grew up wearing J.Crew chinos and roll-neck sweaters, so when he was approached by the company, he jumped at the chance. “There are really only two other brands I would consider working for: J.Crew and Ralph [Lauren], because as a preppy Long Island kid, that’s your whole world.,” he said. “J.Crew has been a part of my life forever and I know what’s right for it.”

And because of that, he’s able to create both J.Crew and Noah simultaneously. “It’s not like I’m running a movie theater and then designing clothing. The process is the same and I don’t have to change who I am to do the work.”

So what does Babenzien envision for Noah in the next 10 years?

“I don’t have any big thoughts on expansion,” Babenzien said. He pointed to Supreme, which in its heyday had a limited number of locations and a scarcity strategy that drove sales and paid off on the bottom line. “I like the control you have,” he said. “You can make sure people are getting the experience you hope they get. If you expand too much or too rapidly, that will be lost.”

Beyond that, he hopes to “continue operating the way we are: putting our values before money. And I want to make sure that if you come shop with Noah, you leave really happy and satisfied.”