We were lucky to catch up with Noga Bensh recently and have shared our conversation below.

Noga, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

The first project of my brand BENSH called “Individual” is the most meaningful to me. This collection and dance piece, for which I collaborated with over 30 kind-hearted creative professionals, is an integration of fashion and dance moving together as a device that is gradually peeling the layers of the non-human and human animals’ delicate relationship. This concept is explored in various methods which visually and conceptually blur the lines, silence the differences and instead highlight the similarities, reminding us humans of our animality.
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We have partnered with two inspiring non-profit organisations, the first, Tamerlaine Sanctuary and Preserve, whose mission is to rescue and rehabilitate, advocate, and educate the public, on behalf of farmed animals. The second, Collective Fashion Justice, which works to illuminate the interlinked injustices in fashion supply chains and transition to a fashion system that upholds total ethics.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am an Israeli, New York based fashion designer and choreographer, founder and creative director of BENSH, the first vegan demi-couture fashion house, associate brand manager of Brave GentleMan, and a Parsons School of Design BFA (Hons) Fashion Design graduate.

I create ethical vegan fashion inspired by moving bodies, trying to catch a moment in the midst of movement, a visual and conceptual blur, inviting the viewer to explore and engage beyond the product that is the garment.

In May earlier this year, we had our BENSH brand launch event at Designers Collab in Williamsburg. We showcased a live dance performance choreographed by Art.IrkA, Daan Bootsma, Edromar Undag and myself, to sound produced by Greta Gallmeier.
We screened our fashion film, directed and edited by Kynza K-j with DoP Ace Buckley.
We also exhibited the collection’s photoshoots captured by photographer Brandon Thomas Brown and starring models Speranza Jane Johnson, Jason Pettigrew, Jade Pierre, Anne Kreamer, Paolo Hinestrosa, Phernegize Manigat, and more.
Finally, we had a panel discussion with panelists Joshua Katcher, founder of Brave GentleMan, author, activist and educator, Peter Nussbaum, co-founder of Tamerlaine Sanctuary and Preserve, Radhika Subramaniam, a curator and writer, and myself.

BENSH’s environmentally-friendly ethos and commitment to the highest quality of sustainable craftsmanship, trickles down to every detail of our production process. We rely on the expertise of the atelier’s dedicated team, based in New York. Our work asks to slow down the rapid pace of the fast fashion industry by implementing a made-to-order business model. Concerning sourcing, we up-cycle materials mostly from Fabscrap, a non-profit organisation working to maximise the usage of unused textiles.

My fashion/choreography journey embarked when I started dancing at three years old and this hobby developed into an intensive professional creative endeavour.
I went to Thelma Yellin High School of The Arts, where I majored in ballet. Due to an overuse injury caused by point shoes and high intensity, I had to go through ankle surgery and quit dancing. My path took a different route, instead of moving forward with a professional dance career, I fulfilled full two-year service in the Navy Intelligence. During which, I simultaneously worked and studied sewing and pattern making at Shenkar College. After the army, I built my portfolio at Hastudio Art and Design Foundation, as well as at Central Saint Martins in London.
I then began studying at Parsons Paris, where I worked remotely as an interior design project manager for Carmelo Vacation Villas, interned for showrooms during Paris Fashion Week such as Retrofête, and collaborated with artist Kathleen Ritter.
I then transferred to the New York campus of Parsons School of Design, interned for the avant-garde brand threeASFOUR, accomplished to work to this day for the vegan menswear brand Brave GentleMan and finally launched my own brand.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The driving force behind my creative practice is the well being of animals and the freedom to create around (through fashion) and within (through dance) our body.

My goal is to keep creating humane luxury fashion integrated with movement. The high-end garments and performances are meant to function as an invitation to an accommodating discourse, questioning the current destructive standard of the relationship human animals and non-human animals currently have, with the purpose of propelling a change of systems through the cultivation of empathy and self reflection.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The fulfilment I feel from my work comes from interactions with people and animals. For example when one of the models I worked with said to me “your garments make me feel beautiful and confident.” Or when a guest of the launch event reached out to me to say in hindsight, “…after the panel the entire ride home my wife and I discussed our relationship with animals in our own lives.” Interacting with animals who were rescued and feeling like I can somehow tell their stories through my work, that’s the greatest reward.

All these validate for me that I must keep going, the human kindness apparent in all these cases inspires me and if one animal is rescued as a result of my work, I did my part.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.benshnyc.com
• Instagram: @bensh.nyc
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/noga-bensh-8831ab1a3

Image Credits
Photographer Brandon Thomas Brown.