Men’s Fashion Underdogs of Los Angeles Try to Conquer New York With Rocks and Rope

It’s probably fair to say that every designer showing at New York Fashion Week: Men’s has a goal in mind. For Joe Sadler and Derek Buse, the guys behind CWST, a fledgling label started two years ago in Los Angeles that was presenting for the first time during a major men’s fashion week, the goal was twofold: raise their profile, and rewire New Yorkers’ concept of West Coast style.

“We wanted to show them it’s not all palm trees and sunshine,” said Mr. Sadler, who designs the line.

He and Mr. Buse, who handles sales, were having breakfast at Balthazar in SoHo last Friday morning. They had flown in from Los Angeles days before and were crashing at the apartment of a friend who lived around the corner. They both looked, well, Californian.

Mr. Sadler, 35, had the focused gaze and athletic build of the college baseball prospect he used to be before blowing out his arm. He wore a white T-shirt, white Japanese seersucker pants of his own design and a black ball cap.

Mr. Buse, 33, tall and blond, resembles the actor Owen Wilson, only with a less distinctive nose. He was wearing a waffle-knit indigo-blue cardigan from his coming collection over an untucked white T-shirt.

Derek Buse, left, who handles sales for CWST, and Joe Sadler, who designs the line. Credit Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times
With only three days to go before they were to present their spring 2016 collection at an event for emerging labels called New York Men’s Day, the two men still needed to cast models, confirm the 16 looks they planned to show and prepare their stage set, which necessitated a trip upstate to collect more than 100 very large rocks. They hoped the rocks would evoke the desert landscape of Death Valley, which had inspired Mr. Sadler’s designs.

Such a presentation is a major expense for a small label like CWST, but the two men agreed that mixing with the New York fashion cognoscenti was worth the financial risk.

“Fashion editors and buyers take the brands serious that present,” Mr. Buse said.

Mr. Sadler and Mr. Buse aren’t exactly fashion rookies. Their previous take on sophisticated California style, Riviera Club, earned them a nomination from GQ and the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2011 for Best New Men’s Wear Designer. When they encountered trademark issues with a similarly named brand, though, they reluctantly dissolved the label, took a season off and regrouped as CWST. The name is their unorthodox rendering of the word “quest.”

Still, the pair seemed a little awed to be showing in New York alongside big names in men’s wear like Thom Browne and Michael Bastian.

“There’s such a good creative energy in this city,” Mr. Buse said. But, he added, “I don’t know if I’d thrive living out here.” A surfer, he is content living in a beach town south of Ventura, Calif., with his wife and two children. Mr. Sadler lives the bachelor life in Los Angeles’s Silver Lake neighborhood.

After breakfast, the men spent hours at their showroom on lower Broadway, selecting and dressing models with hard-edge features and names like Janek and Marcel. Then they returned to the SoHo crash pad.

On Saturday, they drove upstate, where another friend of theirs owns a cabin near Livingston Manor. The plan was to collect some rocks from Mongaup Creek, drink a few beers and enjoy the countryside. But finding usable rocks proved difficult and time-consuming, the East Coast examples being mossier than their Western counterparts.

Midway through a beer run Saturday evening, Mr. Sadler and Mr. Buse had a mild freakout. They contemplated all the work that remained ahead of the Monday morning show and drove back to the city that night.

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At 6 a.m. Monday, they were at the industrial space in the West Village where the event was to be held, awaiting their friends who were en route, driving a loaded U-Haul van that contained 105 stones in all, sun-dried and not too mossy.

Mr. Sadler arranged them in a circle on the white stage, but a crucial element of their set had been left upstate: 900 feet of white rope that was to be strung from the rocks to the ceiling and lit for effect.

Mr. Sadler and Mr. Buse exchanged terrified looks. They sent their friends on a frantic search for rope at a Home Depot, and the fashion crisis was narrowly averted.

Mr. Sadler hung 600 feet of the 900 feet of white rope available to him from the ceiling to the floor. The show began at 10:30 and soon filled up with fashion photographers and editors snapping pictures. The models lent an unbeachy edginess to the clothes.

That night, the two partners ventured to Brooklyn to attend a New York Fashion Week: Men’s kickoff party thrown by Amazon Fashion. The next morning, they were back in their showroom. They said they were glad to have made the trip. “When you’re in California,” Mr. Buse said, “you’re out of sight, out of mind.”

On Wednesday, Mr. Sadler rented another U-Haul and drove back upstate to return the rocks. Mr. Buse planned to stay in the city after having nailed down appointments with buyers from Nordstrom, the Japanese store Journal Standard and a men’s store in Brooklyn called Atrium, among others. The palm trees and sunshine could wait a few more days.