The following article was originally printed in the November 2025 Issue of Slush. To get more articles and subscribe, click here.

Interview by Norm Schoff

It’s easy to forget that Noah Brown is only 21 years old. This is partly because he’s always been around—a High Cascade staple in the days when lanes still existed and Danimals had a Signal board under his feet. But it extends beyond just a physical presence; there’s a maturity to him as well.

I met him at his apartment in downtown Salt Lake City, his black hair a far cry from the trademark green that earned him celebrity status as a young camper. We took a stroll around the block for some coffee before settling into our interview. We walked, talked, caught up. As he spoke, I thought about where I was when I was his age—where most people are at 21. At that age, it’s hard to even know what you want to do in life, let alone be doing it. But Noah understands both. He wants to sew, and so he is sewing.

His apartment is gloriously bare, with concrete walls and high ceilings. It’s the exact type of place you’d expect a creative to live and work from, but I don’t mean this in a bad way. If it’s a cliché, it only is because now that I’ve seen it, I couldn’t imagine Noah living anywhere else. We sat in his living room—a coffee table made of cinder blocks and wire racks between us—and talked about the things that had brought him to where he is today.

How long have you been sewing?
There was an after-school program I went to, and there was a couple who ran this program—a lady, Thuy, and her partner, Sean. It was essentially an art after-school program called San Francisco Skate Club. Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday they would take us skating, but they would feed us and help us with homework. They also had every art supply, and so they had sewing machines there. The couple that ran it had community friends who were in different sewing businesses, so people would come in every so often and teach a class. The first memory was—someone came in who was a costume designer, and they taught us how to make a coin pouch. But Thuy’s best friend worked at Levi’s, and she put me in touch. This person at Levi’s came in after school one day and was like, what do you want to learn? I said, I want to make pants and a jacket. And she just taught me—what is a pattern, how to cut, how to sew a straight stitch, how to do all the basics when I was 12 or 13. And then I took a break. I moved to Colorado. 

Growing up, I broke an insane amount of bones, so I was always doing other stuff, and I was just obsessed with skateboarding and snowboarding. I moved to Colorado when I was a freshman, broke my arm mid-winter, bought a sewing machine, and just started teaching myself from there. And then the next year—sophomore—COVID hit. Literally all of COVID, I just kept teaching myself. YouTube. A lot of YouTube. I know that's kind of some different things, but there were probably two to three main moments that started it.

Yeah, it seems like there were those overall big moments along the way—those big eras. But do you have a specific time where you’re like, oh, this is really clicking?
COVID. Being so young and so really depressed, confused. I needed to do shit. So I found something to do. I was like 14 or 15. COVID had me at home. Being under a mandatory lockdown, I think, was a big thing of like, all right, I'm gonna try this.

This whole time you’re snowboarding too—except when you were hurt. So how do you see the relationship between fashion, or just making something in general, and snowboarding?
The biggest reason why I started sewing was because I was very much into clothing and snowboarding—obsessed with snowboarding. But nobody made clothes that fit me. I was a pretty small kid until a few years ago. And I was also obsessed with fit. But really, the biggest thing that got me into sewing was like, oh, I can make my own fit of snowboard pants. That was the first thing I taught myself how to make—snowboard pants. That was an obsession: how do I look like Dillon Ojo or whoever, when I can’t even fit into a size small army pant? How do I recreate the people who I look up to? And that was the biggest thing with starting sewing—clothing and snowboarding, it all ties into each other.

Can you talk a little bit about this past winter? What were you filming for, and who were you filming with?
This past winter, we filmed another Dustbox video. Nate Hanson was the filmer. I think it was kind of a change—there were certain friends who were doing their own projects. I've had so much help filming in the past, but this was more on our own.

Was it successful?
It was successful, yeah. It was definitely a turning point in clothing. You know, how do I manage both?

I was gonna ask—how do you manage both? Do you take winters off from sewing?
Recently it's been pretty easy. Most of the stuff I've made has been my own stuff, and it's on my own schedule. It's not an outside source coming in and being like, we need this by this date, and blah, blah, blah. But now where I'm at is—I have these people who need stuff by exact dates, and there's no workaround. But usually I'm like, all right, it's winter, I don't need to sew. Or in between trips, I'll make the things I want to make.

Is it basically like you get offered jobs and you accept them and make stuff for people, but then you don't do that in the winter?
I mean, with that, it just really started in May. May was a turning point where I got jobs that I wasn't getting before, which turned into other opportunities. So now I think this next winter would be something I need to figure out.

You've been making some pieces for some big names. Who have you been making stuff for, and how did that come about?
The first job that kind of gave me some momentum was I did a few outfits for Kendrick Lamar. He had a huge national tour. The stylist that did that—her name is Zara Mirkin—she's an amazing stylist. One of my really good friends, Jonas [Harris], works under her as an assistant. But I knew her in passing. She got the job, and I got a message saying, hey, could you make something in like a week? I said yeah. And then I worked an 80-hour week. But he wore my stuff, which is kind of rare. These stylists, they can pick and choose, and usually they have a hundred things, and then the artist or celebrity wears like 10 of them. So I was really lucky to get picked and he actually wore my stuff, which was amazing. But that first job kind of set me up—just gaining momentum within that world of customs and certain stylists. Now my recent job is Playboi Carti, doing a lot of his tour stuff.

Is that a trip for you, to see these people wearing things that you've made?
Yeah. I mean, Playboi Carti is someone who I think me and my generation have all listened to. I remember being in, like, seventh grade and listening to him on SoundCloud every fucking morning going to school. It's pretty surreal. And there are some other names that I can’t say, but there's a few jobs that I'm really excited about, that I'm really grateful for.

Do you have a favorite piece you’ve made?
To be honest, not really. I kind of hate everything I made like a month ago.

Really?
Yeah. I'm still in a really big learning phase. I really don't know anything, to be honest. I’ve just made it work, and I've taught myself and I've learned a lot. But I think every new thing I make, I'm really excited about—but I'm more excited for the things I haven't made because I'm getting better.

There's that adage—in whatever medium the artist has: writer, painter, sewer—that’s like, there’s no piece as good as the one you're currently working on. And then you finish and you’re like, what the fuck was that. I don't know if you feel that’s true?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, kind of true. There are things that I love that I've made. I think everything in total—all of it combined—I like, because there's a lot of bad stuff that has made my work better. Does that make sense?

For sure. Just learning from your mistakes.
Yeah.

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