Speaker 1: You can have tons of money and still being measurable, right, So,
Speaker 1: like that was what I was going through at the time.
Speaker 2: It's like kind of like reckoning this.
Speaker 1: Understanding of like no amount of money is going to
Speaker 1: make me happy if I'm doing things I don't love,
Speaker 1: if I'm not.
Speaker 2: Contributing the way I think I should be. And you can't.
Speaker 1: You can't run away from that, you know, Like, once
Speaker 1: you know it, you know it. And I knew it,
Speaker 1: so I was like, I need to go do something else.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Idea Generations All Angles, a podcast about culture's
Speaker 3: most influential brands and the teams that built them. If
Speaker 3: you're an entrepreneur, creative, or anyone interested in harnessing the
Speaker 3: power of collaboration, join me Noah Callahan Bever each week
Speaker 3: as we dissect the most dynamic companies in culture, because
Speaker 3: the only way to truly understand success is.
Speaker 4: To look at it from all angles.
Speaker 3: Idea Generation's Ball Angles is a Will Packer Media podcast.
Speaker 3: In two thousand and two, accomplished Supreme creative director Brendan
Speaker 3: Babinzian took his first swing at entrepreneurship and launched Noah,
Speaker 3: a men'swear brand born at the intersection of nautical living
Speaker 3: and skate culture. However, despite critical acclaim in downtown Cool,
Speaker 3: the brand barely made it a few seasons before Brendan
Speaker 3: was forced to put Noah on the back burner and
Speaker 3: resume his role at Supreme. But after a decade in
Speaker 3: the house that James Jebia built, in which he helped
Speaker 3: take Supreme from a local skate shop and Soho to
Speaker 3: a global brand, Brendan decided it was time to revisit Noah,
Speaker 3: and with the help of his then new wife, a
Speaker 3: Stelle Bailey Babinzian, he relaunched the brand in twenty fifteen
Speaker 3: to industry fan a free In the eight years since,
Speaker 3: Noah has grown slowly and steadily while maintaining the core
Speaker 3: philosophical commitments to animate Brendan and Estelle, Noah is a
Speaker 3: beacon of hope and men'swear in fashion, exulting virtuous values
Speaker 3: like sustainability, quality over quantity, and forward leaning but timeless designs.
Speaker 3: On this week's episode of All Angles, we talked to
Speaker 3: founders Brendan and Estelle, as well as brand energy director
Speaker 3: Johnny Napp to hear the full story of Noah and
Speaker 3: find out how the little shop on the corner of
Speaker 3: Mulberry Street in Lower Manhattan, became an industry thought leader
Speaker 3: and a global brand.
Speaker 4: But before any of that happened.
Speaker 3: Years before collaborations with Puma, Adidas or being tapped as
Speaker 3: the creative director of j crue Men's, Brendan was just
Speaker 3: a teenager at East dicelip Long Island looking for his
Speaker 3: first job.
Speaker 1: My first job was at the shop surf Shop, skate shop.
Speaker 1: Back then, most shops were like surf.
Speaker 4: Skate This is Brendan Babinzian, founder of Noah.
Speaker 1: For the most part of that job is a couple
Speaker 1: of years, four years, maths, right high school or whatever.
Speaker 2: But I was fortunate enough to.
Speaker 1: Start when I was thirteen, so I went from thirteen
Speaker 1: all the way to.
Speaker 2: Like twenty one.
Speaker 1: So when I first started working there, the shop wasn't
Speaker 1: even a full blown shop yet.
Speaker 2: This is in my hometown.
Speaker 1: It was called cards and stuff, and it was like
Speaker 1: greeting cards and birthday cards.
Speaker 2: And magazines and cigarettes and like all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And several years before I started there, some of the
Speaker 1: really older guys who were kids at the time were like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you should sell skateboards or whatever.
Speaker 2: So he brought in a few skateboards, and then that
Speaker 2: aisle in the shop grew and then there was like
Speaker 2: boogie boards and stickers.
Speaker 1: Started popping up behind the counter and this and that,
Speaker 1: and like over time it really got taken over and
Speaker 1: became more of a serf skate shop.
Speaker 2: And then we moved.
Speaker 1: And the move is really what put the shop on
Speaker 1: the map because we moved into like a freestanding house
Speaker 1: that had been there forever on a street called Carlton Avenue.
Speaker 2: The house was.
Speaker 1: A former funeral partler, so it's like old and holy
Speaker 1: creepy and had like multiple rooms stuff.
Speaker 2: But like you converted it and turned it into a shop.
Speaker 1: I think at thirteen you have you don't have expertise
Speaker 1: and anything, but like I was a pretty good skateboarder
Speaker 1: and like I knew kids, and I was into cool stuff.
Speaker 1: So I got the job and then started just as
Speaker 1: like behind the counter kid my primary responsibility when I
Speaker 1: first started, pulled the T shirts, pulled the sweatshirts, put
Speaker 1: the skateboards together. When people came into buy gear, you know,
Speaker 1: that was it. And then within a year or two
Speaker 1: I started going to the trade shows with Rick that
Speaker 1: was my boss, and started like participating in the buys.
Speaker 2: By fifteen, I was like buying.
Speaker 1: By fifteen it was like, hey, go take that appointment
Speaker 1: with you know, name them bill a Bomb, Quicksilver, this
Speaker 1: one that one go do the buy right, plus finding
Speaker 1: new stuff, right because at this time surf and skate
Speaker 1: they're pretty much what you think of the surf and skate,
Speaker 1: But there was this whole other thing happening, right Like
Speaker 1: we were into other stuff, right, Like you listened to
Speaker 1: hip hop, you know, not just like punk and new wave.
Speaker 2: We listened to other things, and coming out of New.
Speaker 1: York, we were seeing other things, like from a clothing
Speaker 1: perspective and mixing it all up.
Speaker 2: So we were like, what are those things that you
Speaker 2: can pull in to this world?
Speaker 1: And you know, to be fair, most of that stuff
Speaker 1: came through the skateboarding lens, not the surfing lens.
Speaker 2: Surfing was surfing for the most part, Quick Silver.
Speaker 1: At Billibomb, there was companies like Instinct, there was a
Speaker 1: ton right, so that was kind of its own thing.
Speaker 1: But like skateboarding, you could bring in other things and
Speaker 1: it would work for your skateboard customer, right, Like you
Speaker 1: could bring in brands that had very little to do
Speaker 1: with skateboarding specifically, but tangentially were really interesting, right, So
Speaker 1: like I was really into like music and dance and whatever.
Speaker 2: So like I mean, there was all these weird little brands.
Speaker 1: We sold a brand called Label Whore, We sold a
Speaker 1: brand called Swank.
Speaker 3: As the head buyer for Rick Surf Shop at just
Speaker 3: fifteen years old, Brandan set out to find exciting underground
Speaker 3: brands for the store to care. He didn't have to
Speaker 3: go far to find one brand in particular that would
Speaker 3: be very influential, both on the market and in Brendan's life.
Speaker 3: Another Long Island native, Don Busweiler, had started his own
Speaker 3: clothing line, Pervert, and was starting to gain some momentum
Speaker 3: in the local scene.
Speaker 1: Pervert, for instance, Don started making T shirts in eighty eight,
Speaker 1: and we had Pervert T shirts when he made them,
Speaker 1: right like a few months after he started making, were like, hey,
Speaker 1: we want to carry those. We were like a dozen
Speaker 1: or two dozen of every design he had. I think
Speaker 1: he was still in high school probably right. I meet
Speaker 1: Don in Sabo, Long Island at a carnival. I actually
Speaker 1: met him when I was around thirteen. It was really
Speaker 1: a group of people I met.
Speaker 2: He was one of them. Right.
Speaker 1: So there was a whole crew from this town called Bayport,
Speaker 1: Long Island. My friend Chris Nicosia, his nickname is scrubb,
Speaker 1: his brother Stephen, his other brother Larry, Don was part
Speaker 1: of that crew, and there was a whole bunch of guys.
Speaker 1: And there's a bunch of us that went there to
Speaker 1: skate at the carnival. Like we're like, oh, we'll just go.
Speaker 1: It's like in like a parking lot. We'll just skate
Speaker 1: and hang out or whatever. So like two groups of
Speaker 1: kind of outcasts met and became friends. I really became
Speaker 1: close with scrub Chritis and his whole crew, but Don.
Speaker 2: Was part of that. Over time, Don and I got
Speaker 2: closer and closer.
Speaker 1: He eventually moved to Miami to go to college, and
Speaker 1: he was a little bit older, so he was gone.
Speaker 2: He left all of us. He went out to the world.
Speaker 3: Don moved to Miami to continue to build Pervert, which
Speaker 3: became one of the defining streetwear brands of the early nineties.
Speaker 3: Soon everyone from the Beastie Boys to get At Jackson
Speaker 3: were rocking Pervert. Meanwhile, Brendan, still on Long Island, tried
Speaker 3: to figure out.
Speaker 4: What his move was going to be. After high school.
Speaker 2: I go through high school. I work in the shop.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a funny time because I was
Speaker 1: so into skateboarding and surfing and music and at that
Speaker 1: point now snowboarding.
Speaker 2: We got snowboarding pretty early and just all just different shit,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I liked the music nobody else liked, and like it
Speaker 1: was always like I always felt like I wasn't connecting
Speaker 1: with But I also had this whole other life where
Speaker 1: I played lacrosse. That was something I did right, and
Speaker 1: like it was very complex for me because lacrosse. I
Speaker 1: actually loved the sport. I don't necessarily love the tangential
Speaker 1: culture of it all the time, but the sport itself,
Speaker 1: the origins of the sport being like you know, a
Speaker 1: native sport and the way it's played and everything behind it.
Speaker 2: I think it's a great sport. But I wasn't like
Speaker 2: a jock. But I was good. I was like quite good.
Speaker 1: I played on the Empire State team, which was a
Speaker 1: pretty big deal. I probably could have been better if
Speaker 1: I committed myself more of that kind of thing, but like.
Speaker 2: I was good enough to.
Speaker 1: Like have college be part of the conversation for a sport,
Speaker 1: right I was like, Okay, I guess that's what I'll do.
Speaker 2: I didn't know anything, dude. I was like, I guess
Speaker 2: I'm going to try and go to college and play lacrosse.
Speaker 3: Brenda headed to Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania to play lacrosse,
Speaker 3: but he quickly realized that it wasn't for him disaster.
Speaker 2: I hated it. I didn't fit in.
Speaker 1: I missed the ocean, I missed New York. It was
Speaker 1: like nice place, great.
Speaker 2: School, people were, but like, I didn't connect him anybody.
Speaker 2: So I just left.
Speaker 1: I went for a year and I didn't go back,
Speaker 1: and then I just bounced around trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what to do.
Speaker 2: And at that point that's when Donald was like, Hey,
Speaker 2: come work with me. Let's do this thing.
Speaker 3: Don's brand Perbert was blowing up and he needed some help,
Speaker 3: so he'd reached out to Brandan to see if he'd
Speaker 3: be interested in joining him in Miami to continue to
Speaker 3: build Pervert.
Speaker 1: He got to a point where he needed help and
Speaker 1: he needed people he trusted and knew the history and
Speaker 1: he knew kind of like thought like.
Speaker 2: Him and everything. So eventually I went to work with
Speaker 2: him after.
Speaker 3: The shop, helping Don build Pervert in Miami sounded amazing
Speaker 3: to Brendan, but he'd have to make a short detour first.
Speaker 2: I moved to Ohio first. His partner was based in Ohio.
Speaker 1: He was partners with a guy named Jimmy George, whose
Speaker 1: family owned a shop and the Midwest skateboard distribution company.
Speaker 1: So the warehouse for Pervert was based in Dayton, Ohio
Speaker 1: because that's where this guy was from.
Speaker 2: So I had to go to Date for like two
Speaker 2: months to.
Speaker 1: Clear out the warehouse. Felt through as much stock as possible.
Speaker 1: We were like calling the shops being like, hey, you
Speaker 1: need some stuff whatever. We're like trying to get get
Speaker 1: rid of it so we didn't have to move it.
Speaker 1: And that was a really difficult, difficult thing to do
Speaker 1: because I was I hated Dayton, Ohio so much. I
Speaker 1: was so depressed being there because all we did was
Speaker 1: work for eight weeks straight in a place where we
Speaker 1: didn't know anybody, where the weather was bad. It was
Speaker 1: super depressed and I just was like, this is brutal. Eventually,
Speaker 1: we packed up a thirty foot rider truck. I drove
Speaker 1: the truck from Ohio to Miami without a cofirre.
Speaker 3: Finally, after putting in some time in Dayton, Brendan headed
Speaker 3: to Miami to work with Don.
Speaker 1: When I first went to work with him, I was
Speaker 1: like helping the sales and just doing whatever.
Speaker 2: Right, it was Don's saying he was the designer whatever.
Speaker 2: But it became it's.
Speaker 1: Kind of complicated because like I wasn't officially designing, but
Speaker 1: like everything I was saying is making and then some thing,
Speaker 1: you know, it was like hey, you know what I mean, Like, hey, what,
Speaker 1: let's still let's do this or whatever, and then I'm like, Don,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go do it right, So, like I don't
Speaker 1: know what you call it.
Speaker 2: I was just like doing whatever.
Speaker 3: While Brendan acted as a pseudo designer and creative director,
Speaker 3: he helped Don take Pervert national. Unbeknownt to Brendan, over
Speaker 3: four thousand miles away, his future wife and business partner
Speaker 3: was also getting her feet wet in the world of fashion,
Speaker 3: but having a much different experience.
Speaker 5: I grew up in England. I grew up in West Sussex,
Speaker 5: which is thirty miles outside of London.
Speaker 3: This is a stale Bailey babinzeean co founder of Noah.
Speaker 5: I studied fashion communication and promotion at Central Saint Martin's
Speaker 5: in London. I was feeling really disheartened by the fashion industry.
Speaker 5: It was quite vapid. It was really pretentious, very self serving,
Speaker 5: and also at that time, not at all diverse. It
Speaker 5: was basically high society, very white, a lot of cocaine.
Speaker 5: I didn't take drugs. I'm a person of color, and
Speaker 5: I was just didn't even though I went to an
Speaker 5: incredible school and I loved my school, you know, it
Speaker 5: was like the best fashion school in the world, and
Speaker 5: I love their ability to, you know, really look at
Speaker 5: things in a really truly artistic way and not just
Speaker 5: a commercial way, which was amazing. I just didn't really
Speaker 5: fit into the industry there, and I started feeling like, I,
Speaker 5: you know, I've always wanted to have a purpose driven
Speaker 5: life and career and be part of something meaningful and
Speaker 5: that could actually kind of make a difference in a
Speaker 5: positive way. So I started thinking, well, if it's not fashion,
Speaker 5: maybe it's I love music and music changes people's lives,
Speaker 5: you know, Like, maybe I need to be working in
Speaker 5: a creative role in the music industry. So then I
Speaker 5: came for my year out. I came to New York
Speaker 5: and I was looking for a job in the music
Speaker 5: industry in a creative role, and I got really lucky.
Speaker 5: My school approved it. Through a friend of a friend,
Speaker 5: I got connected to Dominic Trinier, who had a label
Speaker 5: called Tuba Sound, which was part of the Records and
Speaker 5: we had DiAngelo and Mark Ronson and Nika Costa and
Speaker 5: just by luck, his assistant Jody Patterson, who's amazing. She
Speaker 5: was going to be taking maternity leave and he was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: you can take her job if you want. I was
Speaker 5: like perfect. I moved to New York, got involved with
Speaker 5: the music industry.
Speaker 3: Eager for a new experience. Still, moved from London to
Speaker 3: New York to begin working in music. But it didn't
Speaker 3: take long for her to discover that the music and
Speaker 3: fashion industries really aren't all that different.
Speaker 5: The music industry also proved to be not really a
Speaker 5: great place for women. It was total boys club, and
Speaker 5: you kind of really had to compete with other women
Speaker 5: as well, and competing with the men and having to
Speaker 5: be a bit of a bitch really to sort of
Speaker 5: like make a difference or sort of climb to the top.
Speaker 5: I was like, this isn't the life that I want.
Speaker 5: This isn't conducers. I want which is I love music,
Speaker 5: this isn't making me happy, and I don't want to
Speaker 5: compete in this way and I don't want this lifestyle.
Speaker 5: So I had to went back to the drawing board
Speaker 5: of just well, you know what, if I always loved
Speaker 5: what do I really want to do? I had always
Speaker 5: loved just brand creation, and even with artists, that's what
Speaker 5: I was really interested in, like creating the lifestyle, the brand,
Speaker 5: all of the things around the music, the expression of it,
Speaker 5: the visuals. I always had this dream of having a
Speaker 5: concept store, like I love to collect concept store, and
Speaker 5: I always had this idea of creating a brand and
Speaker 5: a store that was a little bit more purpose driven,
Speaker 5: was also kind of rooted in creating or manifesting change,
Speaker 5: somewhat in responsibly sourced and made and more ethical practices
Speaker 5: and sustainable practices, but also was cool and not crunchy guanola,
Speaker 5: because at that time, anything that was like use the
Speaker 5: word responsible or sustainable or all those things was like
Speaker 5: totally hippie.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: It was even before birkenstarts were cool. You know, it
Speaker 5: had a really different perception to what it means now.
Speaker 5: But that was sort of something I wanted to be
Speaker 5: involved with, and I also loved interior design and store
Speaker 5: design and just hospitality in general, and how to kind
Speaker 5: of combine all of those elements into one.
Speaker 3: A still's desire to world build letter to directing photo
Speaker 3: shoots and helping brands with visual merchandising.
Speaker 5: You know, I was producing photo shoots art directing photo shoots.
Speaker 5: I started working back in fashion and interior design, and
Speaker 5: I was doing this like store design with Donna Karen
Speaker 5: and Victoria's Secret and visual merchandising with on a freelance
Speaker 5: basis for different brands. I did have a network already
Speaker 5: from just my music industry days and then also just
Speaker 5: you know, producing photo shoots and just having relationships with
Speaker 5: people that knew my work, that knew my creative ability
Speaker 5: that I could help them, whether whether it's a logo
Speaker 5: design or a photo shoot. I was never really a
Speaker 5: corporate girl. I was always an entrepreneurial and always liked
Speaker 5: to work for myself and do my own thing. So
Speaker 5: it was just about finding the jobs that fit, and
Speaker 5: they tend to find me too. So for a minute,
Speaker 5: when I decided to leave the music industry, I just
Speaker 5: started freelancing and I got some great projects and It
Speaker 5: was great, and I actually made some incredible friends from
Speaker 5: that time up staying up late, you know, doing visual
Speaker 5: merchandising in stores, like doing all nights, and it was
Speaker 5: crazy time. It was good, it was good money and
Speaker 5: made some incredible relationships from that time.
Speaker 3: As a still gainer footing in New York and honed
Speaker 3: in on her career, Brendan's work was about to take
Speaker 3: a one to eighty. Don Buswiler, Brendan's friend, founder of
Speaker 3: Pervert and the reason that Brendan had moved to Miami,
Speaker 3: decided to leave his brand at the peak of its popularity,
Speaker 3: give up all his possessions, and join a mysterious religious
Speaker 3: cult known as the Brethren. In an instant, Don was
Speaker 3: gone and wouldn't be seen or heard from again for years.
Speaker 2: So eventually Don left.
Speaker 1: That's a story, right, I mean, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can even start that story, because that's you know,
Speaker 1: trying to abbreviate it and say, like Don basically decided
Speaker 1: one day he was going to.
Speaker 2: Leave with these dudes and live like Jesus.
Speaker 1: Gives all the way all his possessions, signs his clothing
Speaker 1: brand over to his one partner, his other business, which
Speaker 1: was a retail store in Miami called Animal Farm to
Speaker 1: his other partner, and six weeks later or so.
Speaker 2: He's gone. I was like, Okay, I guess I guess
Speaker 2: I'm going back to New York.
Speaker 3: Though his future was uncertain, Brendan's return to New York
Speaker 3: was coming at the perfect time. Another up and coming
Speaker 3: streetwear brand I had just launched in nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 3: and its founder, James Jeba, was looking for some help.
Speaker 2: When I was coming back to New York.
Speaker 1: James at the time had a Stuicye store in Miami
Speaker 1: and his brother was down there, Dan Jeba and Bianca,
Speaker 1: who is now wife, mother of his children, was down there,
Speaker 1: and I guess she told him or somebody told him, oh,
Speaker 1: Brennan's coming back to New York.
Speaker 2: We didn't really know each other. I mean, we might
Speaker 2: have met once or twice. I'd shopped in the store.
Speaker 1: They were buying Pervert from us, so he was like, oh, cool,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll talk to him about coming to Supreme.
Speaker 2: The time, the shop was like multi brand.
Speaker 1: He was doing stuff already, just not a ton of it,
Speaker 1: and it was kind of my job to figure out
Speaker 1: how to do it, find resources to make stuff, use
Speaker 1: his existing resources to get stuff made, just like literally
Speaker 1: helped build it from like the very little bit he
Speaker 1: had done thus far. It was multi brand, but also
Speaker 1: had he had like Supreme T shirts, he had hats,
Speaker 1: had some sweatshirts. He'd had like a Jack Eber too,
Speaker 1: Like he had stuff.
Speaker 2: It was probably like.
Speaker 1: Ninety six at that point or something, and like, you know,
Speaker 1: but he was going to do it one way or
Speaker 1: the other.
Speaker 2: Right, It's James. It was going to get done.
Speaker 1: I just happened to be the guy that like got
Speaker 1: in there at that point and was like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: can help try and figure this out.
Speaker 3: Over the next years, Brendan helped James grow Supreme, but
Speaker 3: the idea of starting his own brand was growing as well.
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to do my own thing at
Speaker 1: that point. Eventually, I want to do my own thing,
Speaker 1: and I had other things I wanted to do. Right,
Speaker 1: Like Supreme was Supreme. The brand was fairly solid at
Speaker 1: that point, like it was going to be what it
Speaker 1: was going to be. And as someone who grew up
Speaker 1: as a skateboarder and into the things I was into,
Speaker 1: I think at that point I was like I was
Speaker 1: young enough to still be like holding on to like
Speaker 1: the pureness of things, and I was like, ah, this
Speaker 1: is getting.
Speaker 2: Kind of bigger now.
Speaker 1: Tangentially next to that, you have the commercialization of like
Speaker 1: hip hop, like apparel, all the brands that were like
Speaker 1: just going after and it was all looking the same
Speaker 1: to me, and it was all becoming big business, and
Speaker 1: they were all trying to throw a big part. He's
Speaker 1: at trade shows and like to get your attention.
Speaker 2: Whatever. I'm like, this is.
Speaker 1: I didn't sign up with this, So I was like,
Speaker 1: maybe go somewhere else and do something different, And that
Speaker 1: was more or less what I wanted to do with
Speaker 1: Noah was like the opposite of that.
Speaker 2: At the time. It was really based on like going
Speaker 2: back to like how I grew up with, like nautical culture,
Speaker 2: like water and what does that look like.
Speaker 3: Brendan left Supreme to start his own brand based on
Speaker 3: his nautical roots and skateboard culture. But when thinking about
Speaker 3: what to call the brand, there was simply no better
Speaker 3: name than Noah.
Speaker 1: It relates to Noah, like the boat and water and
Speaker 1: just a fair amount of Biblical references and what I do,
Speaker 1: like we definitely go in and out of religious points
Speaker 1: of reference, not because I'm like this religious person, but
Speaker 1: because I did go on a bit of.
Speaker 2: A journey when Don left looking into religions.
Speaker 1: Generally, my best friend left, disappeared, He's gone, He's out
Speaker 1: of my life.
Speaker 2: One of the most influential people in my life is
Speaker 2: now gone. Dude.
Speaker 1: I learned so much from and with Guy, went to
Speaker 1: shows with, you know, learn about music with, skateboarded with,
Speaker 1: did things with is gone, right, So it forced me
Speaker 1: to look at religion and be.
Speaker 2: Like, why is he doing this?
Speaker 1: And I up to that point where I've had no religion.
Speaker 1: I wasn't raised with religion, so I just went into
Speaker 1: this deep dive. I mean I studied the Bible with
Speaker 1: these like rostas in Miami, like in Liberty City. I
Speaker 1: started seeing how religion is essentially just like it's still ongoing, right,
Speaker 1: the power structure and its involvement in warfare. And you know,
Speaker 1: that brought me to like the Knight's Templar, right, like
Speaker 1: secret societies and that's the red cross is the cross
Speaker 1: of the Templars. And what I've discovered was it's funny
Speaker 1: because I was always thinking, like secret societies, they want
Speaker 1: to take over the world.
Speaker 2: The cohoots with the devil and Da da da da da, Right,
Speaker 2: It's like, that's actually not accurate.
Speaker 1: That's church propaganda because secret societies back then were secret
Speaker 1: because these people were sharing ideas that would get them killed.
Speaker 1: The church would be like, that's heretical. You're burning at
Speaker 1: the stake or you're hanging or THROWNI and a prison
Speaker 1: cell forever.
Speaker 2: So like that's why they were secret.
Speaker 1: They were actually the enlightened people, right, like shepherding and
Speaker 1: new ideas. But that's how that's where Noah came from
Speaker 1: and Lacross and I also discovered the Knights Templar I
Speaker 1: had like the largest.
Speaker 2: Naval fleet in the world. One thing we do know
Speaker 2: is that they had ships and they fled, not all
Speaker 2: of them. A lot of them were capturingly killed, but.
Speaker 1: Some of them fled and escaped and you know, essentially
Speaker 1: became aulas and pirates, which.
Speaker 2: Is another theme I've always been interested in.
Speaker 1: So I'm able to track all these things I've been
Speaker 1: interested in where they actually they overlap.
Speaker 3: After years of helping other designers build their brands, Brendan
Speaker 3: finally had a label of his own. But the challenges
Speaker 3: that come with running your own small business were not few,
Speaker 3: and Brenda was not yet equipped to keep up.
Speaker 5: He failed the first time around, not because it wasn't
Speaker 5: critically acclaimed or that people didn't want it, but just
Speaker 5: the business structure that you need to have and support
Speaker 5: that he just didn't really have the bandwidth or he
Speaker 5: wasn't ready for that at that time. Like he was
Speaker 5: getting all kind of crazy orders and couldn't keep up
Speaker 5: with the orders and then you know, not delivering on time,
Speaker 5: and it just all became a little bit much, and
Speaker 5: so he shut it down, put it on hold. But
Speaker 5: in his head, he was like, and we'll do it again.
Speaker 2: One day.
Speaker 3: After just a couple of years, Brenda decided to shut
Speaker 3: Heer Noah and to return to Supreme. But his second
Speaker 3: stint at Supreme would be much different than the first.
Speaker 3: Working with other like minded creatives, Brendan was reinvigorated, and
Speaker 3: over the next decade, Supreme would become a well oiled
Speaker 3: machine and make claim as the most popular streetwear brand
Speaker 3: in the world.
Speaker 1: When I went back, it was really fun for a while.
Speaker 1: It's like incredible, we were able to put together good
Speaker 1: team of people. Was really booming and you know, it's
Speaker 1: getting really popular. But it was still not like mainstream
Speaker 1: style popular. It's just like the right people knew. Still,
Speaker 1: it was incredible. There was like a good run where
Speaker 1: it's just like we made great stuff. Stores were open,
Speaker 1: like it was this cool going to Paris all the time,
Speaker 1: and you know, we would as a team, we'd go
Speaker 1: to Tokyo a couple of times a year and like
Speaker 1: invented shopping, catch up with the you know, the supreme
Speaker 1: people over there.
Speaker 2: It was just a really good time.
Speaker 3: While traveling the world and running around New York as
Speaker 3: creative director for one of the hottest brands out, it
Speaker 3: was only a matter of time before Brendan would cross
Speaker 3: paths with his dell.
Speaker 5: My friend Beth Bokett Gibbs. She was married to Chris Gibbs.
Speaker 5: They have union and they moved to la and you know,
Speaker 5: that's best like family to me. She was always trying
Speaker 5: to like hook me up, and I'm like, I don't
Speaker 5: want to be hooked up. But she's like, Okay, well
Speaker 5: I'm coming to New York. We're working on this little
Speaker 5: fashion film. We'd love you to like art direct it.
Speaker 5: I'm styling it. This is the concept. Let's work together
Speaker 5: on this little film. And it was just a fun
Speaker 5: kind of art project. It was like, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: My friend Jake Davis, who was filmmaker, He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you should come out. Beth's in town working on her
Speaker 1: project together Mont we all go have a drink whatever.
Speaker 1: Like the way they tell it now is like that
Speaker 1: they kind of planned it. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: accurate or not, but like that's the way they tell it.
Speaker 5: So me, Beth, and Jay grew all chatting, and then
Speaker 5: Beth and Jake were like, we should introduce a Stelle
Speaker 5: to Brendan. And at the time Brendan was the crave
Speaker 5: director at Supreme. I was like sure. I mean, I'm
Speaker 5: sure it should be fun. I was like, but I'm
Speaker 5: not interested. Please don't try to hook me up. That's
Speaker 5: not my style. Like, I just wasn't in the into
Speaker 5: the idea of being hooked up. But then we did
Speaker 5: all meet friendly in a way, all of us together,
Speaker 5: and Brendan and I just, I don't know, we just
Speaker 5: kind of locked eyes for that moment, and I think
Speaker 5: in that exact moment it's like I knew, but I
Speaker 5: put the idea to the very very back of my
Speaker 5: mind because in my mind that he wasn't my type.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we met went to Peasant just like next to
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 1: They have a win wine bard downstairs was really cool
Speaker 1: and it's like a cold, snowy night.
Speaker 2: It was just like tiny little room just hanging out.
Speaker 2: It was fun cool.
Speaker 5: I just just didn't like this idea of being hooked
Speaker 5: up period, and then yeah, I just put that to
Speaker 5: the back of my mind. But I was like, you're
Speaker 5: gonna be my best friend. I want to know you,
Speaker 5: I want to hang out with you. And then we
Speaker 5: started hanging out and we became like super super close,
Speaker 5: like I wanted to be with him every single day,
Speaker 5: but like, this isn't a date. We're not dating. We're
Speaker 5: just good friends. And then eventually it was like, look,
Speaker 5: either are we going to start dating or I'm going
Speaker 5: to start dating somebody else. I was like, okay, I
Speaker 5: date somebody else, and then he dated somebody else. I
Speaker 5: was like, oh, I don't like that one of what
Speaker 5: you're doing. It doesn't work out. And then you know,
Speaker 5: a month later, I'm like completely in love and I'd
Speaker 5: gotten over myself and these silly ideas of what I
Speaker 5: thought I will need to be with because I guess
Speaker 5: we just kind of knew our dreams were aligned, we
Speaker 5: were interested in the same things, We had the same principles.
Speaker 5: At that time, he was you know, working his ass
Speaker 5: off at Supreme, but still like very humbly, and the
Speaker 5: designs and stuff of Supreme are really reflective of Brendan's
Speaker 5: life growing up.
Speaker 3: Brendan and Estelle were in love, but a decade into
Speaker 3: his second stint at Supreme, Brendan was falling out of
Speaker 3: love with the brand and felt his time at Supreme
Speaker 3: was coming to an end.
Speaker 1: At that point, I was a lot older, had a
Speaker 1: lot more experience, at a much clearer vision of what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. The world had changed dramatically right
Speaker 1: now we have the Internet and websites and social media,
Speaker 1: and also, quite frankly, what I viewed as a need
Speaker 1: for someone to emerge out of the space that I'd.
Speaker 2: Been living in, which I don't even know how to
Speaker 2: define it anymore, like is it streetwears it skateboarding? Like
Speaker 2: what is it?
Speaker 1: But I just felt like somebody needs to like be
Speaker 1: I don't want to say better, because that implies that
Speaker 1: like we think we're better than others, like but like
Speaker 1: a better, more responsible business structure, but still speaking to
Speaker 1: like fun and interesting things. But a big part of
Speaker 1: that was the product. I just wanted to make really
Speaker 1: great product. It's not that we want to make a
Speaker 1: great product in Supreme. It's just a different type of product, right.
Speaker 1: It's great for a certain audience.
Speaker 2: And a certain thing.
Speaker 5: I mean, it still is cool, but it was really
Speaker 5: at that moment when the hype was serious, which was
Speaker 5: also a little concerning because it's like shopping became the sport,
Speaker 5: you know. It wasn't about what you do in this stuff.
Speaker 5: It wasn't about like street culture. It was about like
Speaker 5: flexing and having stuff just for the sake of having it,
Speaker 5: and people seriously lining up. And I guess Brendan was
Speaker 5: a little disheartened by some of that. And also we
Speaker 5: just started having mixed feelings about putting guns on shirts
Speaker 5: and stuff, you know, like there was all these mass
Speaker 5: shootings happening, and starting thinking about how things are made
Speaker 5: and where things are made, and what do we want
Speaker 5: our legacy to be and what do we want to
Speaker 5: support and what that means.
Speaker 2: I wanted to use better material. I just wanted to
Speaker 2: do it differently. I didn't want to make clothes in
Speaker 2: Asia anymore. That was a problem for me.
Speaker 1: So Noah gave me the opportunity to use the best
Speaker 1: materials I could see in the world. You know, Italian mills,
Speaker 1: English mills. We just use the best stuff basically, And
Speaker 1: for me, a garment is the clod. But you can
Speaker 1: buy a cheap garment that's got cheap cloth. In a
Speaker 1: year from now, it's going to be like a dish
Speaker 1: rag or whatever, you know. Like I want things that
Speaker 1: last a really long time. And I think that's how
Speaker 1: everybody should function. If we're going to like stop the
Speaker 1: kind of like overproduction and overuse and destruction of resources, basically,
Speaker 1: we need to like pull it back. I'm not an extremist.
Speaker 1: I'm not like, yo, that's a living caves. That's not
Speaker 1: my style at all, but I do think that we
Speaker 1: overdo it. For me, it's like keep it longer, you know.
Speaker 1: And in capitalism that's controversial, right because it's like capitalism
Speaker 1: is like no man, like go make as much money
Speaker 1: as you can, Like why would you leave any money
Speaker 1: on the table, like you're supposed to like build, build,
Speaker 1: build build build.
Speaker 2: It's absurd.
Speaker 1: We take these great ideas and then we kind of
Speaker 1: like beaten and I can't speak for others, but like
Speaker 1: for me, making the most money possible wasn't and isn't necessary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to be comfortable. I want to take care
Speaker 1: of my family. I want them to have a future,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to all be good.
Speaker 2: But how much do you need? You can have tons
Speaker 2: of money and still be miserable. So like that was
Speaker 2: what I was going through at the time.
Speaker 1: It's like kind of like reckoning this understanding of like
Speaker 1: no amount of money is going to make me happy.
Speaker 1: If I'm doing things I don't love, I'm not contributing
Speaker 1: the way I think I should be.
Speaker 2: And you can't. You can't run away from that, you know,
Speaker 2: Like once you know it, you know it. And I
Speaker 2: knew it. So I was like, I need to go
Speaker 2: do something else.
Speaker 3: As Brendan thought more about his future and the legacy
Speaker 3: that he wished to leave, it led him back to
Speaker 3: his roots and back to no one.
Speaker 5: It was like, I will do it again one day,
Speaker 5: and I think just me coming along and was like, yes,
Speaker 5: now is the time, like we have we need to
Speaker 5: do this and let's start doing it now. And it
Speaker 5: do happen right away. Working on it for a couple
Speaker 5: of years, before like several years actually, like we launched
Speaker 5: it at the same time as like when after we
Speaker 5: were married, we kind of we had our baby Sailor,
Speaker 5: and that's seven and a half years ago, and we
Speaker 5: opened up our pop up shop at the same time
Speaker 5: in twenty fifteen, so you know, and if we met
Speaker 5: in I guess three or four years before that, we
Speaker 5: were just working on it that whole time, just you know,
Speaker 5: doing all the things that you need to do and
Speaker 5: really not just the structure, like finding the lawyers and
Speaker 5: writing a business plan and you know, it's like setting
Speaker 5: up the LLC. And but also it's like what do
Speaker 5: we want to create here, to create like a heritage brand,
Speaker 5: and how do we want to start a brand and
Speaker 5: a business that is purpose driven and meaningful and not
Speaker 5: just for the hype, you know, or not just to
Speaker 5: put more products into the world, because we're getting a
Speaker 5: little bit disenchanted by just consumerism and hype, but still
Speaker 5: being able to put out cool, interesting quality products that
Speaker 5: have value, have meaning, have referenced, have good style, good quality,
Speaker 5: but a maid really responsibly and also what does it
Speaker 5: mean to have a brand and to have a shop
Speaker 5: and a community space and create that experience. So it
Speaker 5: was really fun because I had my ideas and obviously
Speaker 5: Brendan has all of his ideas, and it's rooted in
Speaker 5: what the general design direction was of Noah from the beginning,
Speaker 5: and then sort of just merging these concepts together to
Speaker 5: sort of give birth to Noah again.
Speaker 3: Brendan left Supreme for a second time and went all
Speaker 3: in on a second attempt at Noah, but this time
Speaker 3: he now had an extra ten years of experience, a
Speaker 3: focused vision for what the brand would represent, and the
Speaker 3: support of his wife, Estelle, who had her own point
Speaker 3: of view and her own entrepreneurial experience.
Speaker 5: I was never used to having like a steady job
Speaker 5: with a steady income. Sometimes I was had great money,
Speaker 5: other times like shit, am I going to pay my rent?
Speaker 5: So I wasn't afraid. And actually my family life growing
Speaker 5: up was kind of like that too, Like we went
Speaker 5: through a recession. I remember at one point I felt
Speaker 5: like we're not wealthy, but I was like, oh, this
Speaker 5: is good, Like we're shopping at Harrod's and getting ice cream,
Speaker 5: and then two years later we're like, oh shit, we
Speaker 5: have to sell our house and move into a rental.
Speaker 5: And you know, I'd been through these extremes up and downs,
Speaker 5: and then I moved here by myself, an illegal immigrant essentially,
Speaker 5: so I wasn't afraid of taking risks and I don't
Speaker 5: really have that anxiety of that or that I don't
Speaker 5: sit in that comfort zone. I was like down for whatever.
Speaker 5: I was like, okay, cool, Like you're talented. I'm talented.
Speaker 5: We have nothing to lose, I guess a little bit
Speaker 5: naive everything to gain. I was also kind of a
Speaker 5: bit younger than Brendan, so I was just like, you're amazing,
Speaker 5: Like we've got to do this, Like what let's do it.
Speaker 3: Brendan and Estelle had a new vision for Noah, but
Speaker 3: instead of building the brand out of their own pockets,
Speaker 3: they put together a business plan and went looking for
Speaker 3: our investors so that they could start with some capital.
Speaker 5: We had a business plan that was good, and we
Speaker 5: raised enough money to open the shop and build the website.
Speaker 5: We raised a few hundred thousand, like less than a million,
Speaker 5: like seven hundred thousand dollars, so not even that much,
Speaker 5: which was great. We had a really solid business plan.
Speaker 5: We didn't even give up that much of a percentage
Speaker 5: to raise that much money. So it was good because
Speaker 5: ultimately we still we only gave up I think like
Speaker 5: seven percent or something of our business at that point,
Speaker 5: which is pretty incredible. But that is because Brennan came
Speaker 5: from Supreme and people had trust in him and that
Speaker 5: he would be able to design clothes that people would want.
Speaker 5: And also we were very resourceful with that money at
Speaker 5: that time to be able to sort of do all
Speaker 5: the things that we did with our small team. We
Speaker 5: started with our office in our house and then we
Speaker 5: opened the shop and our office was in the basement
Speaker 5: of the shop.
Speaker 3: With funding in hand, Brendan and Estelle went about building
Speaker 3: the business of Noah based on one key word, responsibility.
Speaker 1: Then obviously business of the brand was also important to
Speaker 1: like build a different type of business.
Speaker 2: The first time, I wasn't thinking that way. I was
Speaker 2: too young. It wasn't there yet. I had all these
Speaker 2: seeds of like caring about the world and the environment
Speaker 2: and this and that whatever, but like I wasn't old
Speaker 2: enough or smart enough to figure out what it all meant.
Speaker 1: Yet. It wasn't until I relaunched Noah that like we
Speaker 1: figured out, you know, some when I were together, we
Speaker 1: were having a child, and it was like I just need.
Speaker 6: To do a business that does something good, it gives back,
Speaker 6: not just in one way but multiple ways, Like and
Speaker 6: that was it. It was like the only way we
Speaker 6: go forward in this world, like having a child and
Speaker 6: feeling good about ourselves is like we start building something
Speaker 6: that we feel like eventually at least would be part
Speaker 6: of the solution, part of the problem. The fundamental belief was,
Speaker 6: forget sustainability, just use the word responsible. Make responsible decisions
Speaker 6: as a business that you can feel good about if.
Speaker 2: You do that, that's like phase one, Right, We're not
Speaker 2: developing new cloths. We're not heavy going it, like I
Speaker 2: can't invent to new fabric, I don't have R and
Speaker 2: D teams being like we need to replace whatever, so
Speaker 2: we have to rely on the industry to do it.
Speaker 2: And then we try and become early adopters of things.
Speaker 1: But our fundamental belief is like make a great product,
Speaker 1: educate people about wearing products longer, keeping products longer, focusing
Speaker 1: on their own interior.
Speaker 2: Belief structure, like what are you about? Who are you
Speaker 2: as an individual? Forget the shit we show you on Instagram?
Speaker 1: Forget like the trend of this or that whatever, Like
Speaker 1: that shit is corruptive corruptive, corruptive, corruptor. It does have
Speaker 1: power over people. It's crazy how powerful that stuff is.
Speaker 1: But we're you know, we were like, we'll just no
Speaker 1: great shit and encourage people to look at it from
Speaker 1: their own lens and use it how they want to
Speaker 1: use it. It just goes back to being a kid
Speaker 1: again and being an individual and being into what you're
Speaker 1: into organically and letting that be the thing, as opposed
Speaker 1: to trying to fit in with the thing that's happening.
Speaker 4: In twenty fifteen, Noah officially relaunched.
Speaker 3: As the brand started to make a name for itself
Speaker 3: in the streets of New York, it would eventually land
Speaker 3: on the radar of another soon to be important part
Speaker 3: of the Noah team.
Speaker 7: I grew up in Bellport, Long Island, so it's like
Speaker 7: a coastal on the Great South Bay right by Fire Island.
Speaker 4: This is Johnny Knapp, director of Energy at.
Speaker 7: Noah Brendon and I we have I mean, we came
Speaker 7: from a very very similar place. Like the Great South
Speaker 7: Bay is kind of like the major waterway that kind
Speaker 7: of like all life is kind of centralized around and
Speaker 7: especially if you're like coastal like we were when I
Speaker 7: graduated school was I graduated in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 7: we saw that recession happening.
Speaker 2: So the town that I'm from was pretty much like
Speaker 2: a ghost.
Speaker 7: Town during that recession, like there was a lot of vacancies,
Speaker 7: and some friends and I we started a shop called
Speaker 7: Corner Store Collective pretty much this store that was like
Speaker 7: on the four corners. It originally started as we got
Speaker 7: in touch with the landlord and we were like, hey,
Speaker 7: it's kind of like an eyesore to have like one
Speaker 7: of this beautiful buildings in town kind of vacant, Like
Speaker 7: why don't we do like a little window installation for
Speaker 7: you and take it from there. So overnight, we hold
Speaker 7: what we can from like barns and addicts and basements,
Speaker 7: and we created this whole like summer display kind of
Speaker 7: an homage to the town. We got a lot of
Speaker 7: positive feedback from that, and the landlord was kind of like, oh,
Speaker 7: why don't you just like hop in and like do
Speaker 7: a store here for the summer. So we were kind
Speaker 7: of very you know inspired. There was this very like
Speaker 7: kind of collective like bringing all sorts of walks of life,
Speaker 7: like all this mixed bag and like you put him
Speaker 7: onto one roof and kind of like see what happens
Speaker 7: from there, and we were super successful. We had like
Speaker 7: a print story in Vanity Fair, New York Times, did
Speaker 7: something online.
Speaker 3: The Corner Store Collective was a hit, and it taught
Speaker 3: Johnny valuable lessons that would prove useful when it came
Speaker 3: time to work with Brendan and Noah. But before Johnny
Speaker 3: would end up there, he still had some surfing to do.
Speaker 7: After that, my two partners at the time, they were
Speaker 7: still in college and so they went back to school.
Speaker 7: I was older and I still had this like itch
Speaker 7: to scratch of like wanting to go travel the world
Speaker 7: and surf. So I went to Hawaii for a while
Speaker 7: for that whole season and kind of like did my
Speaker 7: time there. But during my whole time in Hawaii, I
Speaker 7: was like really thinking about New York. When I came
Speaker 7: back from Hawaii. Is when I got an apartment.
Speaker 4: In the city.
Speaker 7: It was just literally like a glorified locker just to
Speaker 7: like have your clothed, shower, rest your head, and then
Speaker 7: get out the next day like from sun up to sundown,
Speaker 7: and then some you were just like out in the city.
Speaker 3: Now living in New York City and with the background
Speaker 3: so similar to Brendan's, Noah landed on Johnny's radar Quickly.
Speaker 3: The shop, located at one ninety five Mulberry Street, became
Speaker 3: a cultural destination. The store offered a comfortable, inviting atmosphere,
Speaker 3: and customers came for the vibe as much as the clothes.
Speaker 5: In the shop. It's super important to create this atmosphere
Speaker 5: in this experience that feels informative but not intimidating, super welcoming,
Speaker 5: because it's all about the experience right when you go
Speaker 5: into one of these shops. We try to also create
Speaker 5: that experience online a little bit by just showing people
Speaker 5: what we're interested in and what we care about, and
Speaker 5: that kind of draws the attention. People that care about
Speaker 5: this kind of stuff are then drawn to our brand.
Speaker 3: One of those people that was drawn to the brand
Speaker 3: was Johnny, who we continue to keep tabs on Noah.
Speaker 7: As funny as it may sound, this is going to
Speaker 7: sound super like cliche, but as I was doing an
Speaker 7: investigation into the brand and I checked out the about page,
Speaker 7: I'm always like, that's something that I'll always like look
Speaker 7: on when it comes to whatever it is, you know,
Speaker 7: I'll always be like, what's your mission statement. What you're
Speaker 7: about say, it's create the best possible products that inspire
Speaker 7: our staff, partners, and customers to seek adventure and actively
Speaker 7: engage in the world around them. Expand on what it
Speaker 7: means to be a clothing brand by breaking down the
Speaker 7: walls of where the brand customer relationship begins and ends.
Speaker 7: Share our adventures with our customers and encourage them to
Speaker 7: share their adventures with us. Promote goodness, and challenge conventional wisdom.
Speaker 7: And when I clicked on that and kind of like
Speaker 7: read it, like what was said like really resonated with me,
Speaker 7: and it was kind of like the thing that was
Speaker 7: just like kind of pulled me into the door or
Speaker 7: it was like I kind of want to be around that.
Speaker 7: Like for me, that's like science they all delivered, you know,
Speaker 7: that was like I don't see other brands in that
Speaker 7: space like talking that way.
Speaker 3: With a clear, impactful mission statement and the help of
Speaker 3: Brendan's pedigree, Noah quickly received rave reviews from both the
Speaker 3: press pen customers.
Speaker 5: Obviously, you know, Brendan being from Supreme gave us an
Speaker 5: advantage where people were interested to see like what it
Speaker 5: was going to be and what it was going to
Speaker 5: look like and we got some great press from that
Speaker 5: because everyone was I did to.
Speaker 1: See what it was.
Speaker 5: It was an excellent platform for us to launch from, actually,
Speaker 5: and it was a great captivated audience from the beginning,
Speaker 5: and we really appreciated that. So, I mean, and you know,
Speaker 5: nobody knew of me. I'm just liking the background, and
Speaker 5: that's I'm happy to sort of be in that role,
Speaker 5: just in the background, sort of helping to manifest and
Speaker 5: build and bring everything together. And I guess being in
Speaker 5: love kind of gave him a little extra motivation and
Speaker 5: that extra push, you know, like we were like part
Speaker 5: that partnership kind of drive. And in hindsight, maybe you know,
Speaker 5: it would have been definitely safer because like right after that,
Speaker 5: Supreme like sold or got that massive investment.
Speaker 3: Shortly after leaving Supreme, the brand sold the VF Corporation
Speaker 3: for a whapping one point two billion dollars. Brenda missed
Speaker 3: out on the payday from Supreme, but he had gained
Speaker 3: everything with his own brand.
Speaker 5: Everyone got nice big checks and like great, but we
Speaker 5: missed out on that. But what we did gain was
Speaker 5: something that we felt really good about. And you know,
Speaker 5: it's definitely not been like the easiest ride. But it
Speaker 5: was received really well and people were supporting, were supportive
Speaker 5: of what we were doing. I don't know, it was
Speaker 5: just a funny time. I wasn't really thinking. And I
Speaker 5: think when you're pregnant too, and then you give me
Speaker 5: you're just in this mode of you have this extra motivation.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of women when they're pregnant actually
Speaker 5: start businesses funnily enough, because it's just this time of
Speaker 5: like you've purpose driven, and we just were young minded,
Speaker 5: had this you know, like new family coming and I
Speaker 5: knew it could work. I knew it could work.
Speaker 3: No success was instant, and the company was profitable from
Speaker 3: year one, but the seemingly overnight success was actually a
Speaker 3: long process of foundation building by the team that happened
Speaker 3: over years.
Speaker 5: We were like profitable from year one, which was really
Speaker 5: incredible and impressive at the time because I think we
Speaker 5: did have a really good business plan that didn't rely
Speaker 5: on a massive investment at the beginning. It was like
Speaker 5: slow and steady, and even now, because we have in
Speaker 5: our minds to be a heritage brand, like we want
Speaker 5: to be around for a long time. This is not
Speaker 5: a model that we're trying to build a business fast
Speaker 5: and super successful and get super hype and then sell
Speaker 5: it for millions of dollars. Like, that's not what we're
Speaker 5: trying to do. We're trying to grow a family business,
Speaker 5: a heritage brand that will be around for a really
Speaker 5: long time, making really good stuff. And we're down for
Speaker 5: the slow and steady thing. And actually we never really
Speaker 5: wanted to be like a hype brand at the beginning,
Speaker 5: because then you can just fall off the edge of
Speaker 5: the cliff and then nobody cares anymore.
Speaker 3: As in the years since it's launch, Noah has established
Speaker 3: itself as a true staple within the men'swear world, and
Speaker 3: no fashion tends to be led by trends and youth,
Speaker 3: Brendan is still finding inspiration, creativity, and the will to
Speaker 3: push Noah forward.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the inspiration comes from like negative shit, but like
Speaker 1: you like it motivate you to do something, so like skateboarding, surfing,
Speaker 1: like these things like those are the expression of something
Speaker 1: that comes before it. Like you mentioned the word curiosity earlier,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. You still want to see things that
Speaker 1: when you know things, are still interested in what's going
Speaker 1: on out there. And if you can retain that, you
Speaker 1: do extend you're kind of like we're not just like
Speaker 1: your relevance, your creativity, like you can still be.
Speaker 2: A part of things.
Speaker 1: And what's really interesting is like historically there's rules, but
Speaker 1: they're bake Like who made these rules? Right that, Like
Speaker 1: you get to a certain age and then you got
Speaker 1: to like behave a certain way, address a certain way.
Speaker 2: Like they're kind of silly, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: So like if you can kind of withstand that and
Speaker 2: like push back on that, you stay a part of everything.
Speaker 2: David Byrne.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how old he is, but like I
Speaker 1: see him, you seeming openings and he's around, he's riding
Speaker 1: his bike, Like he's still relevant, he's still curious, still creating, right,
Speaker 1: you know when you think about the path from thirteen
Speaker 1: to fifty one, you know, I'm like kind of still
Speaker 1: the same person doing the same thing, which I love. Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've managed to do what I set out
Speaker 1: to do, which is like stay connected to these things.
Speaker 1: But it's rewarding, you know, And I think I used
Speaker 1: to be really concerned about aging, but you know what
Speaker 1: I realized is like I know everything I.
Speaker 2: Know because I've been around for so long, Like I.
Speaker 7: Can use that information being as environmentally conscious as you can.
Speaker 7: If you're creating something, there's going to be a byproduct
Speaker 7: to it, and what is that byproduct? The neat thing
Speaker 7: is is that we, you know, want to commit to
Speaker 7: keeping that shirt, garment, whatever it may be in rotation,
Speaker 7: you know, not to kind of discard it for reasons
Speaker 7: that it's like not holding up.
Speaker 5: It's scary because we're going from like pop. It really
Speaker 5: feels like we're still a mom and pop brand and
Speaker 5: I think people think we're kind of bigger than what
Speaker 5: we are. But you know, I'm still going to the
Speaker 5: store here and like fixing stuff, and you know, it's
Speaker 5: like a mom and pop family sharp Still it just
Speaker 5: still feels like that, which I think is part of
Speaker 5: the beauty and I want it to I want every
Speaker 5: store to have that feel. It's an exciting time to
Speaker 5: think about, well, how do we maintain the ethics of
Speaker 5: the brand and that feeling and the soul of the brand.
Speaker 5: And it's all about really just caring for your people
Speaker 5: and for your team and for them really caring about
Speaker 5: the brand still sort of kind of building the family,
Speaker 5: but keeping that trust and that kind of connection to
Speaker 5: each other within the company, and then also to the
Speaker 5: customers and the community around it.
Speaker 4: The story of Noah is one of second chances.
Speaker 3: When Brendan left Supreme the first time, he gave Noah
Speaker 3: a shot and realized quickly that he was neither ready
Speaker 3: to lead nor had his personal vision come into focus. Thankfully,
Speaker 3: he was able to return to Supreme to continue to
Speaker 3: hone his craft until he felt prepared to revisit Noah.
Speaker 3: With ten more years of storytelling and brand building under
Speaker 3: his belt, Brendan then knew how to weave his interest
Speaker 3: in surf, skate and a roots nautical aesthetic into a
Speaker 3: coherent and comprehensive identity. And just as important, the addition
Speaker 3: of Estelle imbued Noah's second iteration with an entrepreneurial acumen and.
Speaker 4: A focused philosophy.
Speaker 3: Together, they knew how the clothes should look, how the
Speaker 3: business should operate, and how the brand should make you feel.
Speaker 3: And with that unity of purpose, Noah has booked the
Speaker 3: fast fashioned industry trends and built a generational foundation for
Speaker 3: idea generation. I'm Noah Callahan Bever. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 3: the All Angles podcast presented by will Packer Media. If
Speaker 3: you've enjoyed this episode. Please don't hesitate to like, comment
Speaker 3: DM or tell a friend to tell a friend about
Speaker 3: Idea Generation and the All Angles Podcast. We can't do
Speaker 3: any of this without your help, and honestly, your support
Speaker 3: means everything.
Speaker 4: We do this for you, and we can't do it
Speaker 4: without you.
Speaker 3: This episode was brought to you by Will Packer, Executive
Speaker 3: produced by John Balachik and Helena Ox. Original music by
Speaker 3: Valentine Fritz, editing sound mix by Nonsensible Production, and hosted
Speaker 3: by me Idea Generation founder Noah Callahan Beveret Idea Generations.
Speaker 4: All Angles is a Will Packer Media podcast