This is an edition of the newsletter Box + Papers, Cam Wolf’s weekly deep dive into the world of watches. Sign up here.
Last Monday, a few hours before his brand’s collaboration with Timex went on sale, Noah founder Brendon Babenzien woke up, turned to his wife, and said, “I hope we sell these watches.” He didn’t have to wait long to have that hope answered. When the watches dropped at 11 a.m., Babenzien’s phone began buzzing uncontrollably with notifications. The $200 timepiece—which features a Cartier Tank-esque rectangular case and an elegant sun-and-moon complication—completely sold out in less than a minute.
Noah and Timex only produced 200 pieces of the aptly-named Sun and Moon for the watch’s initial run. That number felt big to Babenzien, but it turned out to be not nearly enough to meet the demand. “At first, the customer base was mad because they couldn’t get it,” Babenzien said over the phone earlier this week. “And we were like, ‘Oh, that’s awful. I would hate to feel that way as a customer—to really want something and not be able to get it.” Babenzien isn’t merely pandering to an aggrieved customer base with his words, either. After the watches sold out, he and the rest of the Noah team quickly started working on a way to make it right.
The movement powering Noah’s new Timex was supposed to be discontinued after last Monday’s sale. But recognizing the outsized demand for the Sun and Moon, Timex and Noah pleaded with the manufacturer to make one last run before they’re gone forever. Earlier this week, Noah announced the watch was back as a pre-order for as many people who want to buy the watch. While they won’t ship until April 2025, just imagine the size of the eventual shipping notification that’ll hit Babenzien’s phone now that the watch is made with soon-to-be terminated materials. I caught up with Babenzien about making the hottest $200 watch of the year and pulling together this last-minute preorder. If you’re interested in purchasing the watch, act fast—the pre-order closes today, June 21st, at midnight EST.
Box + Papers: How was this past week for you?
Brendon Babenzien: It’s been totally nuts. This business, Noah, is not built on the scarcity model, selling out, and hype. But I think because of my history [working at Supreme], we get talked about a lot adjacent to other companies that operate that way. [In reality,] we buy things at these really reasonable clips.
And in this case, it was just lightning in a bottle—everything just came together. The watch is great. The price is great. And I think the way people are thinking about products right now, this watch was correct, and we just got the numbers wrong, which is cool.
What do you mean when you say that it was “correct”?
I’m not like a watch guy, right? I don’t collect watches. I have a decent watch a friend gifted me once. I’m a pretty low-key person, but I have my weird suspicions about watch culture, just because of people I know. And it felt like, well, the look is great—we all know that it looks a bit like a [Cartier] Tank, and that’s a gorgeous watch. It’s one of the only watches that, if I were to ever buy a watch for myself, I might buy a Tank, right?
Read the full article here
.jpg)
