NOAH: CUT FOR THE CREATOR
Noah FW21 is, as ever, on point, offering a perfect collection to transition from the late summer into the throes of the soon to come winter months, a halcyonic homage and definite doff of the cap to head honcho Brendon Babenzien's obsession with homogenising tribes and subcultures that he came into contact with from his childhood to his adulthood /
"I was born in the 70's and have a very specific memory of the idea that you had to choose a music genre to identify with. It never sat well with me. I clearly remember a DJ losing his job after a radio station decided to change music formats and began burning disco records in a baseball stadium. The media picked it up and a so-called ‘war amongst genres’ was born,” Babenzien states.
With etiquette de rigueur and cultural aplomb, Noah compliments those that have traversed the New York boroughs and districts across the past 4 decades and manages to champion the nuances within — from the industrial goths to the skaters to the surfers to the hood rats to the finance district gents of the 80’s. Add to this a sense of brat-pack Andrew McCarthy meets early Beasties shaking hands with 90’s Ralph Lauren whist whistling for the Warriors to come out to play in there, to attach a considered fanboy element to the garms and their styling.
Noah also manages to be politely dismissive of age constraints and one can quite easily picture a 21 year old or a 45 year old, donning many pieces within the collection and styling it their way and that’s kind of the point — do it yourself, don't conform and advocate the spirit of the individual, the artist whatever the discipline, in any tribe you choose to join or identify with.
This is a collection cut for the creator and the creatives NO BOUNDARIES ALLOWED.
"It became clear to me that there is tremendous overlap culturally with creators of all types. Keeping all of this in mind for Fall ’21, we sought to celebrate and embrace the idea that creativity and creators should have no boundaries,” Babenzien says, which makes it clear that the designer wants - not unlike himself - the customer of Noah to be more secure in their opinions about music or popular culture in general.
If there was a deadhead sticker on the Noah FW21 Merry Pranksters bus it would probably say “BE YOURSELF BECAUSE IT’S NO ONE ELSE’S JOB.”
The FW21 collection is now being sold at Noah’s flagship stores in NYC and the Hamptons and will be available to buy online at noahny.com from August 19 and at DSML from August 26. New products will be released every Thursday.
