[TEASER]

Estelle: Noah, we’re about quality, understated, have a foundation of dignity and ethics and have a point of view, stand up for what you believe. Everyone is welcome, except jerks.

[INTRODUCTION]

[Music, Winning! by EJ Cali, up and under]

0:14 Welcome back to Relentless, a podcast about the pursuit of farfetched ideas, unusual aspirations, or that perfect pair of sneakers. I’m the host, Maddy Russell-Shapiro. Relentless puts motivation under a microscope to investigate why certain people choose to spend their limited time and resources on a specific project. 

In this episode, I conclude my exploration of the New York City menswear brand Noah. This is the final episode about the brand and I suggest you listen in order, starting with Episode One. 

[SCENE: CREATING COMMUNITY IN PERSON]

0:50 [Sound of door opening]

Male voice: Good morning, how are you?

A critical element to the brand when it re-launched in 2015 was having a physical space of its own. The first shop opened in Manhattan, at the corner of Mulberry and Kenmare, in Soho.

[Sounds of people talking in store with music in background, continues underneath]

Within the store, which is relatively small, there’s a tidal ebb and flow of tourists and locals, regulars and first-timers, older and younger. The space is laid out like a living room, one that happens to have a few racks of clothing displayed along the perimeter. In the center of the room, a leather couch and two armchairs encourage visitors to sit and peruse the art books displayed on a glass-top coffee table. Or just talk to each other.  

The energy inside is calm and friendly compared to the bustling pace outside. 

Male Voice 1: This is a place where I come hang out, talk to the staff all the time. More times than not, I’m just coming in to chat, I’m not buying anything. That goes to the origins of streetwear. These brands were hangout spots more than anything. You pick up clothes here and there, but you just go to chill. 

Male Voice 2: Like a community center more than a store. 

Maddy: How do they accomplish that? 

Male Voice 2: People come just to meet. Aesthetic gives you that comfort to not just buy a t-shirt and leave. You can actually kick it. Everything makes it feel homey, from the carpets to the couch. 

During the busiest times, it sounds more like a house party than a shop.

[Sounds of store up and then fade out]

2:25 Co-founder Estelle Bailey-Babenzien specializes in interior design, 

My style has this global influence in terms of different textures and patterns. I like natural materials, wood and natural fabrications. I like texture, color. I’m definitely influenced by travel. 

And then, Brendon and I are similar, we both like classic things that feel modern and relevant. Classic things range from massive time frame, and different present times we refer back to different moments of the past and we bring them up to date or mix them with new things. 

The result is a cohesive vision that doesn’t strain against convention but moves fluidly through and beyond it. 

Estelle: I like public places that have small culture where you can go and isn’t necessarily about purchasing something, more about feeling inspired in the space. Leave feeling good.

3:30 The flagship store is the physical embodiment of the brand and its values.

[Lively sounds of store up and under]

Estelle: In terms of the store, I’ve tried to create this experience of it feels like a clubhouse. 7:46 We want to create environments in the store where you can come in to talk about politics or sports or whatever it might be.

A lot of work goes into creating a welcoming, engaging atmosphere,

[Store sounds fade out]

Visually, clothing has to look great on the racks. We need chairs to feel comfortable, music needs to be great, scent, smell good. All these senses that are important to create this environment. But then most importantly of all is the energy of the people in the store and energy they give to the customers and how that feels and how, if they’re interesting people themselves, do you want to have a conversation with them? We have people who have souls, interesting, dynamic, believe in what we’re doing and that translates. Also want them to give good customer service experience and make people feel important. 

4:45 Estelle compares the work in the store to that in a restaurant where,

You got to a restaurant, a waiter can make or break experience there. They can be rude,they can be amazing. Suddenly you’re in a better mood, having better conversations with your dinner guests. If they’re rude, everyone is talking about it. How these little things can affect a whole hour or two of your day. If Brendon is the executive chef, I would be the maître d’. If he’s in the shop, he’s talking to everybody, a natural—he enjoys conversations about important things. The graphic references, the fabrication, where it’s made and how it’s made, how we’ve managed to get this incredible wool for this price. It’s like when the chef comes out to the table to talk about the food and everyone is so excited. [laughs]

5:46 When I talk to customers in the store and ask how they got into the brand, frequently someone will mention an anecdote like this one about Brendon, 

When I came in here first time, the owner was sitting on couch. He invited me to talk to him. It was really interesting to experience. 

But in fact, Brendon and Estelle aren’t in the shop much. So the task of conveying the brand’s products, messages, values is entrusted to the team of young sales people.

[Music, Memory by DJ Synchro, up and under]

6:12 My name is Jason Boehm, I’m 21, currently I’m the store manager of the NY flagship location. 

Jason started working at Noah in college and more recently was promoted to manager. Tall with wavy jet black hair framing his face, Jason calmly monitors the store and welcomes visitors with a bright smile. 

[Music fades out] 

If you haven’t been to a Noah store, 

Jason: Music. When you walk into the shop, that’s the first thing you hear. We burn incense, so the scent. Then, being as friendly as possible. Not overbearing but making people feel comfortable. One I thing I noticed is how anxious people are when they shop. Here, we love to sit on the couch and have a conversation with you. That is the most important thing, is being friendly and putting people at ease. That’s how you get to start a relationship with a customer. It’s a positive experience.

I asked Jason about the values he and his team prioritize, 

First and foremost is caring, caring for the customer, caring about what you’re doing, having a purpose behind what you’re doing. We try to create a safe space for people. We’re sitting on this couch right now. Every day, ten different friends of ours, or regular customers, that come in to decompress a little bit from their day, we chop it up with them. So creating sense of community and space for people to come and hang out. I know there aren’t too many shops like that in the city and back in the day used to be a big thing for people. Having a space where you can talk to people and hang out.

8:06 Not everyone engages with the sales team. One afternoon I sat on the couch and watched as Jason greeted numerous visitors, “how are you,” “would you like to try that on,” “how’s it going.” Nobody responded. He turned to me and stated matter-of-factly, “I get ignored a lot in this job.”

But for those who do respond to the greetings and casual invitations to talk, conversations tend to start with a focus on the product.

Jason: What we talk about most with customers is our price point. Especially for younger kids, who are shopping more at Supreme and Palace, we are a little more expensive and they think we are in the same bracket. Which we are in certain cases, like t-shirts. If a kid picks up fishtail parka and sees it’s a thousand dollars, they’re gonna be like why the hell is this a thousand dollars?

This winter, Noah sold a water-repellant plaid fishtail parka for $988. Hence the reaction of the customers Jason encountered, 

Jason: We have to explain to them the material, the production behind it, beyond how it’s made, how it’s going to last you the rest of your life vs. two seasons. The actual design and look of it, how it’s a timeless piece. Things like that come into play. 

9:30 Vrn Powell, who also works in the store, explains, 

It’s very common for young people to come in, younger than me, just got paid and I really want this sweater but I’m trying to save my money. I’m like, save your money. I try to be as caring as if they were a friend. You work really hard, there’s tremendous pressure to have the newest item. And Noah is not about that.

As a result, brand loyalty builds such that people,

Vrn: Are connected on a deeper level than just a transaction. 

Save your money. Not the most common message from an apparel company. Brendon explains it this way, 

In theory, if our customers are receiving our message well, they know they don’t need to buy every single thing that comes out; they don’t need to follow every trend. We encourage people to be themselves and that’s it. And not really follow what’s happening, that could include even us. If you’re not into what we’re doing, don’t do it just because someone said it was cool. Like what we do or not. If not, don’t buy it. Cool. Fair enough. 

[Music, Memory by DJ Synchro]

[SCENE: INDIVIDUALITY & MENTORSHIP] 

10:55 For Brendon and for Noah, being genuine is intertwined with the primacy of the individual, 

[Music fades out]

The fundamental structure of our business, which is to do what we believe in and use the business to do some good things, which seems to be counter to what business traditionally does, is punk rock. It’s independent, it’s got its own mind, it doesn’t care what business is supposed to do. We just do what we believe in. To me, that’s always been the most punk thing you can do is to be yourself and stick to your belief structure and not join the herd. 

The theme of individuality came up frequently in these conversations. Like with Vrn, who works at the store. She’s petite and, in the winter that I was working on this story, she often wore a beret to keep her shaved head warm. 

I’ve lived in New York for ten years, moved here when I was 17. A lot of my education was cultural and it was New York City downtown, skate, hard core. 

Vrn can often be found perched on the arm of the couch in the shop, holding court with an audience of young visitors, talking about music. Or enthusiastically greeting small children and dogs that accompany shoppers into the store. 

You may recall that Vrn mentioned in an earlier episode that she’s a musician, 

I’ve been playing with Super Natural Psycho for four years. We make rock music We recorded an album two years ago, paid for everything ourselves. I don’t have a computer. Whenever I would get tracks that we made, I would play them in the shop cause they have nice speakers. I was playing it one day and Brendon came in. Yo, this is my band, we just made this record. He expressed interest in putting it out for us. 

12:45 Over the course of many months, Vrn and her bandmates worked with the design team, 

We did a small capsule collection with merch. T-shirts, long sleeves, hoodies, baseball caps, and we also pressed a limited amount of vinyl, which we’re selling in store and online. All the merch pretty much sold out in a week. A lot of people who bought the merch have no idea what it is [laughs].

Noah was following an existing formula for band collaborations which has been used for a variety of, well, more established bands. Like The Cure. And here Noah was, working with one of its employees in the very same manner, to promote her musical aspirations. When the final product was finally on the shelves in the store, Vrn says, 

I cried. For like a good 30 minutes. Seeing it in the store was incredible. 

In addition to the exposure the capsule collection provided for her band, this was also a formative experience for Vrn personally.

No one has ever said, dude, Vrn, I really want you to succeed. So much of my life has been a struggle, I’ve had a really crazy life [laughs],and a lot of cards were not stacked in my favor. To have somebody who is my employer and also somebody who is respected and I respect and who is so talented be like, yeah, I want you to succeed. Even when it gets hard I’m, like, ok, wait, there’s somebody that really wants me to succeed. It makes me feel good [laughs]. I can do things. I can do it. I can follow my dreams. 

14:45 The launch of the capsule collection was celebrated with an in-store live performance by Super Natural Psycho. 

[Sounds of gathering]

On a Thursday night in May, small groups of people were clustered on the sidewalk outside the store in the last light of the day. Inside, the clothing racks were empty, the couch was pushed against the far wall. 

All the guys in the band had to work that day, so they were coming in last second.

[Sounds shift to beginning of show, instrumental music by Super Natural Psycho] 

Our bass player dislocated his shoulder a couple days before, so our drummer had to learn all the songs on bass. Lot of moments when it could have gone horribly wrong [laughs].

15:25 Roughly a hundred people waited in anticipation. They were dressed in Noah and Supreme, vintage prints, and tie-dyed Super Natural Psycho t-shirts.

[Applause, instrumental music continues underneath] 

Vrn had been singing to herself all day long in preparation. The store was packed. The ceiling and walls were bathed in the trippy glow of projected swirling colors.

The air was hot and it was thick but that’s the best kind of air to play music in, it creates an atmosphere, a charged atmosphere. I was looking out at all my friends, and all my family, and all the customers I’ve talked to throughout this entire process, and everybody was there to support. They just wanted to have a good time. All I felt was happiness and love. I know that this is one of the most special moments of my life. It was beautiful. 

Playing music live, especially music we write ourselves, it is an artistic process that everybody who is watching is a part of. 

[Background music continues, Vrn singing]

It’s like a caterpillar coming out of a cocoon every time. It’s vulnerable and strange.

It’s amazing to be able to celebrate hard work. Most of the time when you work hard, you don’t necessarily get to celebrate it. For us to have that celebration, it helps kick start whatever comes next, gives us a beautiful foundation to keep going. 

[Music fades out]

17:20 Brendon is pragmatic about the variety of interests and dreams his employees carry with them, 

One thing we wanted to accomplish with the business, something Estelle and I used to talk about before we started was this idea that people aren’t going to work here forever. We might as well help them along their way. A lot of businesses are like, oh, you have some other dream? Figure that out on your own time, I don’t want to know about it. We have tried to encourage people to pursue what they want to do and when we can, we support them in it. 

I recounted to Brendon that almost everyone I spoke to in the company mentioned a way in which Brendon and Estelle were being directly supportive of their personal development or mentioned an idea they were pitching to the company as a way to combine a personal interest with Noah’s mission. 

I knew we wanted something like that but I didn’t know we were accomplishing it at all. Sounds like maybe we are a little bit. 

For Vrn,

I can just be myself. It’s hard to explain but it’s incredible. I feel grateful every day, every single day to be part of this company. 

[Music, Memory by DJ Synchro]

[SCENE: EMBODYING YOUTHFUL DRIVE AND CELEBRATING INDIVIDUALITY]

18:30 Brendon makes a direct connection between individuality and the protective wing of independence that shelters Noah.

[Music fades]

This company is an island of misfit toys. There’s definitely other places they can go and will go but at the moment they come here, it may be the only place for them, in that moment. [laughs] And that’s cool. I really like that. All these different people can come together and find something they can connect to here, to some degree make a living, get over a hump, pursue their artistic career while getting a paycheck while they’re still young and going to school. 

Why the focus on young people? 

Who wants to be old and grumpy? I am still pretty grumpy but I like this idea of being able to maintain a youthful exuberance, at least in my mind, with my ideas. 

That’s where skateboarding, not the core of this business but it’s a core of my life, even when I’m not doing it, it’s still as influential as it’s ever been. I could go a year without skating, it’s still right there, at the forefront to everything. I still can’t drive down the street without seeing a spot and like, that looks like it might be fun to skate. It’s with you forever and that’s a young thing. I feel like the people who figure out who get to build a life where they get to keep some of that young stuff in their life, they’re the ones who have it figured this out. Whether pro-skater, pro-surfer, whatever allows you to stay connected to youth culture, you’re one of the lucky ones. Growing old is not fun. It really isn’t. I don’t care what anyone says. [laughs]

You got one shot at this thing, we think. It should be fun and it should be interesting until you’re done. You should keep trying to learn and have a good time and explore things. Those are all young-ish things.

Maddy: To what extent were your tastes set by experiences as young person? In all the references you draw on in this work, the music you care about, does it all point back to you, Brendon, circa age 14 to 18? In a box?

Brendon: Hundred percent. Every inch of what we do here more or less refers back. Some of the newer things, like the suiting, is sometimes stuff that came later in my life, sometimes it’s first-time stuff, there are things that are brand new. But the core of what we do is from memory, experiences. We’re not really innovating at all. The overall idea might be innovative to some degree, when you piece all the parts together, but by themselves, each part is something that’s already existed. I’m ok with that.

The embrace of a youthful mindset and the commitment to supporting the individual endeavors of employees are expressions of a broader message that Noah enacts but also broadcasts: think for yourself.   

[Music, Memory by DJ Synchro]

[SCENE: NOAH AS A MODEL] 

21:55 For Brendon, all the effort and ambition and creativity, all that work comes down to this,

[Music fades]

At the end of the day, we really believe this business is both a vehicle for ideas and change and to some degree a weapon against tyrannical behavior, whether it be in business or politics or society in general. And the clothing is kind of secondary to the ideas. The ideas are the things that really matter, the things we’re saying. The actual infrastructure of the business, who works here and why and how we treat them and how we treat our customers, and what do we do with the money that’s made. 

Making ethical decisions is a self-imposed challenge to which the Noah team rises on a daily basis. And for as long as these choices are left to the market, as long as these kinds of business practices are optional, then we are all reliant on owners like Brendon and Estelle to make the right ones. 

To be clear: for businesses, behaving ethically is a choice. 

The kinds of decisions highlighted in this story about Noah, those are all within the realm of possibility for any business. Think of Noah like a demonstration project, providing a view into one possible future. 

[SCENE: NEXT ON RELENTLESS]

[Music, Wonder by EJ Cali, up and under]

23:10 Reporting on Noah raised more questions for me than it answered. So I decided to continue my investigation and extend this series by branching out beyond Noah. Relentless is going to spend a little more time on two fundamental ideas to help fix the sustainability problems of the apparel industry: producing less and consuming smarter. Upcoming episodes will feature designer Mara Hoffman and stylist Rachael Wang. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app or sign up for our mailing list on our website so you know when each episode releases.

For today, I leave you with a few more questions to prompt action. 

What part of this ethical fashion quandary resonates most with you? The human rights aspect? The environmental? What adjustment could you make to your wardrobe choices that would support the kinds of changes you’d like the industry to make?

Besides buying new clothes, how else do you use dollars to vote for a company’s success? To whom are you currently giving the most money? How could that company improve in terms of labor rights and the environment? What other companies are already doing better? 

The conversation continues on our website, The Relentless [dot] org and on Instagram at The Relentless Podcast

[CREDITS]

[Music transitions to Look At the Stars by DJ Synchro]

24:25 Relentless is produced by me, Maddy Russell-Shapiro, and is recorded at Bryght Young Things with the help of Dan Navetta. Sarah Holtz was the editor of this episode.

I can’t say it enough: thank you to Noah. Thank you to Brendon and Estelle and Beau for granting me such broad access to their team over so many months. Thank you to everyone whose interviews were included in this story: Brendon, Beau, Corey, Estelle, Jasmine, Jason, Vrn. Thank you to others who spoke with me on background. And an appreciative shout out to all the dynamic individuals who work in the store on Mulberry and whose company I enjoy on each and every visit.

Music for Relentless is provided by Building Beats, an awesome nonprofit that teaches young people in New York City’s schools how to DJ and make music. Today’s music was produced by DJ Synchro and EJ Cali. If you like the music, please consider supporting Building Beats! 

Everything you need to know about the show and this series is available on our website, The Relentless [dot] org. Subscribe through your podcast listening app. 

And come back for the next episode!