THE JOURNAL
Why this buy-less, buy-better brand from Supreme’s former design director has cross-generational appeal.
Wherever he is in the world, Mr Lono Brazil gets stopped in the street almost every day by people who want to take his picture. He’s not a celebrity, he’s just got a very interesting look.
That’s why the guys who run in-the-know New York menswear brand Noah took note of Mr Brazil when he happened upon their SoHo store a few weeks back. And when they got talking to him – the store deliberately doubles as a hangout for the neighbourhood – they soon realised why. “Yo, this dude, Lono – he’s dope,” was the general view.
Chicago-born Mr Brazil, 55, has been a divining rod of the zeitgeist for the past 30 years. In the late-1980s, he worked the door at legendary New York nightclub Nell’s, which took up the baton from Studio 54 as the place to be seen – if you could get in. Mr Brazil got to know everyone and hung out with the Downtown art crowd, notably the late, great Mr Keith Haring. In the mid-1990s, he moved to LA, where he worked with the Beastie Boys among others as director of marketing/artist development at Capitol EMI Records. He was in and around Mr Shawn Stüssy’s original Stüssy Tribe in the early days of streetwear, and has stayed at the forefront of fashion and culture ever since, an “influencer” of the analogue age.
He’s lived in Tokyo, Paris and London. He’s a house music DJ (MrBrazil), a spoken-word poet, a voiceover artist, a life coach – as well as a father of three boys, aged 17, 22 and 29, who all pilfer his clothes and his music collection. And over the past three years, he’s embarked on yet another career, becoming one of the most in-demand models in menswear.
All of which made Mr Brazil a perfect match for Noah’s exclusive capsule collection for MR PORTER. It was a job his sons were particularly adamant he should pursue. “I’ve modelled for a lot of top brands, but when I mentioned this opportunity, Noah, [my sons] were like, ‘Dude, you’ve got to do that!’” he says. “I’ll talk to them about other things and they’ll go, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, but are you still doing the Noah thing?’”
Mr Brazil is sitting down to breakfast with Mr Brendon Babenzien, the founder and designer of Noah, in a café across the street from the Noah store. Mr Brazil’s New York apartment is just around the corner (he is currently living between SoHo and Haggerston in east London).
“One of the pillars this business was built on is the idea that the young and old share everything these days,” explains Mr Babenzien, 45, formerly the design director at cult label Supreme.
As the skaters of yesterday have become the creatives and thought-leaders of today, so Mr Babenzien believes the gap between young and old has shrunk considerably. “It used to be like, ‘Dad is Dad, he’s into his thing and there was no understanding,’ they weren’t sharing a lot of culture. But we like this idea of keeping young mentally and emotionally, and not falling into the trap of, ‘Well, I’m old now, it’s a wrap.’ Lono is a guy who embodies what we’re about. He’s an older guy who is still quite young in his outlook. He’s active, he has incredible taste in style, he trusts his instincts, he bridges that gap between young and old and he does it organically.”
This capsule collection spans everything from T-shirts and hoodies to, somewhat surprisingly, suits. The pieces are designed to be mixed and matched, worn together or not, as you wish. “Some people think suits are only for weddings and work,” continues Mr Babenzien. “Others think they communicate formality or are only to be worn when trying to appear more conservative. We’re not sure where all of this came from because, like most things in life, a suit is only as interesting or uninteresting as the individual wearing it.”
The clothes reflect the varied and eclectic mash-up of interests and inspirations, not just of Mr Babenzien but of his friends, his staff, and of course his customers – which explains Noah’s cross-generational appeal. He cites two of his staff, one who is a great skater who also happens to be a serious birdwatcher, and another who plays in a band but teaches yoga in his store each Tuesday. “As individuals we are not one-dimensional,” he says.
“The collection feels very New York in its mixing of traditional East Coast prep with the more rugged NYC outdoors, and Italian-made tweed blazers with jersey rugby shirts and hoodies,” says MR PORTER Buying Manager Mr Sam Lobban. “There’s also the more literal mixing with the Loro Piana baby camel hair fabric being used on a hoodie and cap combo.”
“I really like how it was designed to be styled,” adds Mr Lobban. “It takes the term ‘smart casual’ to a far more literal level, and I like the idea of these seemingly very different references being brought together in a natural way – as in, not how a style book told you to dress but outfits built from people’s everyday wardrobe.”
At £650 for a hoodie, albeit a baby camel one, it ain’t cheap. But then, price is one of the other pillars on which the business is founded. “Our prices are actually what things are supposed to cost,” explains Mr Babenzien. “They’re the real prices, and what I mean by that is you pay a certain amount for a fabric, you pay a certain amount to ship that fabric, and you pay a certain amount to a factory that the factories reuse to pay their employees well, give them vacation time and health insurance, and so on and so forth. So we pay more for those garments, which then goes into the final price. It’s really a simple equation.
“A jacket that is $89 is probably a lie, and the reason it’s a lie is because somewhere back through that supply chain, there’s somebody who’s making nothing. Can’t live, can’t send their kids to school, doesn’t have enough food or clothes or good housing, whatever it is. So that price is a lie, it’s not real.”
This is a brand with a conscience and Noah’s website carries its mission statement: “As a brand, Noah seeks to take a stand against many of the appalling practices of the fashion industry. Our clothes are made in countries, mills and factories where tradition, expertise and human dignity take precedence over the bottom line. We donate portions of our profits to causes we believe in. We speak out on issues we find important, and try to help give voice to the people and organisations we care about. We do this humbly, but with a firm belief that a responsible brand is a healthy one; that putting our values on the line pushes us to do our best.”
Mr Babenzien grew up as a music-obsessed skater and surfer on Long Island, an hour’s drive from Manhattan but 10 minutes from the beach, in the suburban sprawl between the city and the well-groomed Hamptons. (We shot this story in and around Rockaway Beach, on the south shore of Long Island.) As a teenager he worked in the local surf and skate store which doubled as a communal hangout space – a vibe he has successfully recreated in his own store (designed by his wife, Ms Estelle Bailey-Babenzien). His old boss used to ring up surf companies and berate them for using environmentally unfriendly Styrofoam chips in their packaging.
Of course Mr Babenzien recognises that the fashion industry he is part of is highly polluting. “So with Noah, I had to say ‘How can we do it and be smarter about it and be less detrimental?’ And the solution I came up with is basically: let’s just make a better product that people will keep, and let’s talk to our customers about consuming less and being more focused on their own individual style and less about what the current hot shit is.”
This “buy less, but buy better and keep it” ethos again plays into the idea of older guys staying cool, refining their sense of style over the years rather than being caught out by ever-changing trends. Mr Brazil nods his head. “A lot of my clothes – the stuff my sons love to raid – I’ve had for 30 years and they still look cool,” he says.
With that they finish breakfast and go their separate ways. Mr Babenzien walks across the street to his store, Mr Brazil heads in the other direction. He’s not gone 50 yards before he is stopped by someone who wants to take his picture.