Brendon Babenzien understands that collaborations are commonplace in fashion today. Observe the bevy of luxury Maisons, industry icons, and established celebrities teaming up with one another as proof that collab culture is a defining moment in the modern era.
Despite some of these one-off capsules and product lines bringing together the biggest names in the game, few bear the fruit most would expect from a heavyweight partnership.
Instead of delivering on the massive hype with intentional vision and quality design, typically, we’re left with something that feels bland and unimaginative – slapping conjoined logos on an oversized tee just doesn’t seem to cut it anymore.
But the Noah co-founder isn’t worried about what everyone else is doing. Shifting his focus toward creating high-quality collections that fit the brand’s vision, Babenzien has cultivated a niche community that understands not everything needs to be so clearly identifiable.
From partnering with GUBI for a special edition of the global design house's MR01 Chair to enlisting everyone's favorite one-eyed cartoon sailor as the focal point of its Spring/Summer '22 collection, the Noah team chooses to operate outside the mainstream trend cycle. With an emphasis on timelessness, Babenzien centers his work around doing what matters most to him, and if it generates buzz, so be it.
“I’m always kind of pushing back on what the popular culture of the day is,” Babenzien shares as he reflects on his design approach for Noah. “Historically, for (Noah), we’ve created fairly simple items. Now, we're trying to see how far we can stretch that and if we can make more interesting things that still live in that space.”
And for Noah’s latest collab with PUMA, Babenzien and company do just that– in a very unconventional fashion.
As a follow-up to the duo's exclusive Made In Japan sneaker, the second PUMA x Noah joint collection, which features a series of garments inspired by the indelible sporting style of the 70s and the American debut of the classic PUMA Star, the two brands illustrate a playful and irreverent story by turning the bold stunt of streaking on its head.
Historically, streaking is one of the most polarizing acts in culture, splitting opinions on whether the stunt should be considered crude and pointless or a bold protest against societal expectations.
Either way, interrupting a passionate athletic showdown for a few moments of notoriety takes a lot of guts and is pretty funny when you think about it.
Tapping into the light-hearted and foolish spirit of the crude escapade, PUMA x Noah imagines an inverse world where a fully-clothed offender stuns a completely nude audience as he abruptly interrupts an intense tennis match – where the players are also nude if couldn’t have already guessed.
Decked out in some of the collection's most notable pieces, the would-be streaker ducks and dodges law enforcement as attendees shield their eyes from the “vulgarity,” leaving us to wonder what it would be like to live in a world where putting together a chic look is considered obscene.
“(Streaking) is something that is of the time we were trying to capture in the collection, so it synced up nicely,” says Babenzien. “We just liked its humor; I don't think anyone overthought it too much. It was more just like, "Well, that's fucking strange. Let's do that."
Featuring garments like a velour vest, a cotton twill painter cap, and a rugby-style collard shirt, PUMA x Noah leverages the signature East Coast sport-prep aesthetic the downtown NYC brand is known for to give an updated take on a specific moment in history.
Ahead of the collection's July 1 release date, we caught up with Babenzien to dig deeper into the inspiration behind the capsule, what kind of intentions he brings to collaborations, and how this creative campaign came to life.
What ethos and design inspiration is Noah operating from currently? Is there a new direction you're trying to move in, or are you just sticking to the old formula?
There's not really a new direction. I think there is a natural evolution, but even within the evolution, you only go so far before you start to circle back on yourself. We all tend to reference moments in our life and use those moments as inspiration. For (Noah), we're pushing it a little bit. We're challenging ourselves to make better stuff within the space we operate in.
Are all these collabs that Noah does a way for you guys to push that boundary?
Honestly, we do the least amount of collaborations compared to some of our peers. I guess you just do things when they make sense, right? There's been a lot of incredible products and art put into the world, and it almost feels like a responsibility to share information with people.
We do the things that are really meaningful to us and where we think we can contribute to the conversation.
What standards do brands need to meet in order to collaborate with Noah, and how has PUMA lived up to them?
When it comes to collaborations today, we’re looking for like-minded people who understand us and are coming to us for the right reasons. I'm looking for creative thinkers as partners, people who are going to let us do what we do well and not try and force us into some other thing.
In the case of PUMA, I went in fairly skeptical. I was like, "You're another big footwear/sportswear brand, I don't know if those are really the right fit for us creatively." Quickly, I learned that how PUMA thinks is very creative. They seemed really open to discussing new ideas and new possibilities, both from a product standpoint and from a messaging standpoint. That was a really great thing to learn about them as an organization, and ultimately, it's why we're working together.
How does this latest capsule with PUMA fit into the vision of meaningful design that you've described?
It's funny because it's still leaning on some of the simple things that we believe in at Noah. It's an old tennis sneaker from back in the day, really classic and super simple. It takes on the personality of the wearer. That's the kind of thing that I gravitate towards; products that can be malleable to whoever's wearing it.
Thinking about inspiration, what references did you use to inform this collection?
In the late 70s and into the early 80s, there was a lot less stuff available; clothes, sneakers, etc. People from different communities, backgrounds, personalities, and what have you shared a lot of the same products and just used them in their own way; there was a lot of overlap.
In this case, we liked the idea of making stuff that was kind of tangential to tennis, it's more like people wearing whatever they want for whatever activity. For a lot of people that I knew that were playing tennis back then, they just had cool stuff anyway, so it all looked good regardless.
What was the driving force behind creating such an off-the-wall campaign like this one?
It went through some iterations. First, it started with us focusing on the crowd and the importance of the fans. These sports and these superstar athletes literally do not exist without the fan base. We loved that idea, but it just kept evolving, and we wanted it to have a little bit of humor.
At some point, we engaged in this idea of this really upside-down world of the streaker. This is something that kind of originated back in the 70s, and we liked that link. The idea that there could be people with no clothes on and we’re trying to sell clothes felt kind of funny and weird.
How does this specific collaboration differ from the work you guys did with PUMA before? What aspects did you want to keep and expand on?
The shoe itself is fairly simple. It's something that already existed, and we thought, "Hey, we want to do that shoe again because almost no one has seen it.” I think the shoe was only available for several years in Europe; now we’re just shining a light on it.
Then with the apparel, you're trying to imagine things that perhaps didn't exist. We wanted to create some of the items that are definitely from the time, and some of that should have been made during the time.
Are you intentionally trying to use products born from collaboration as teaching moments?
Maybe organically because we are working with this shoe that had really limited release globally. In that sense, it's automatically a teaching moment because even if you're a big-time sneakerhead, you may never have seen this shoe, or maybe you've never seen it in person.
But there's still something there, is what which I find interesting. But I think probably more important to us at Noah is the question of whether it is a good shoe or not; that's priority number one.
