L.A. designer Scott Sternberg’s Entireworld gets ‘cozy and comfy’ with Nordstrom

Entireworld, with its cozy, thoughtfully designed basics — think sweatshirts and sweatpants as well as underwear, T-shirts and socks — debuted as a direct-to-consumer brand about two years ago.

Since then, its founder, L.A.-based designer Scott Sternberg, has taken the Entireworld goods to traditional retail avenues — a pop-up shop with the furniture brand Design Within Reach last May and another in downtown L.A. in November.

And this week, Entireworld expanded its reach by bowing its men’s and women’s items at eight Nordstrom locations — the Grove in Los Angeles and South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa as well as in New York, Dallas, Miami, Seattle, Chicago and Vancouver, British Columbia — and on shop.nordstrom.com.

Sternberg said it’s the brand’s most extensive wholesale partnership to date. Entireworld merchandise available at Nordstrom ranges from $15 to $135, and will be available through March 8.

The in-store collaboration with the Seattle-based retailer allows Sternberg to create an entire world for Entireworld, his latest fashion venture. (The designer founded the label Band of Outsiders in 2003 before splitting with it in 2015.)

“When Band [of Outsiders] was over and I was thinking about what I wanted to wear, I wanted to make sweatsuits,” he said by phone on Wednesday. “I wanted to do something incredibly pure, where color was the main design element. The aesthetics are so easy to understand in terms of shape and color. It works really well in a physical environment for that reason. It’s so tactile. Everything’s meant to be incredibly cozy and comfy. In that sense, it needs a physical environment to properly sell itself.”

And that’s where the fluorescent-lit geodesic domes and simple wooden-box shelves that are in select Nordstrom stores across the country come into play. The spaces give Entireworld fans a way to experience the brand away from the two-dimensional world of social media.

After all, as Sternberg sees it, these candy-hued pieces and plush items from Entireworld are best experienced in real life — and in real time.

One goal for the project, Sternberg said, was to create an “interesting visual space where people can feel like you’re somewhat speaking to them on a personal level. They’re going to geek out over that and post that.”

The Entireworld spaces are just the latest of the ongoing fashion series that is overseen by Sam Lobban, vice president of New Concepts for Nordstrom. (A recent venture allowed Lobban to collaborate with Chris Gibbs, owner of Union, which has stores in Los Angeles and Tokyo.)

“Scott’s unique ability to take familiar styles and make them feel fresh and exciting is super-relevant for Nordstrom customers,” Lobban said. “Maintaining the spirit of the brand visually and physically in-store was the best way for it to feel true to what he’s doing.”

Sternberg’s success lies in how he’s been able to imbue his work with emotion — to make clothing feel not like merely textiles on a hanger but symbols of a certain type of lifestyle — and Nordstrom, as a retail platform, is allowing him to push this idea further outward.

“Through New Concepts, we’re really excited to partner with brands or businesses that have an interesting story to tell,” Lobban said. “And Scott’s take on classic American sportswear, the visual references in the way he brings the brand to life, felt like a really good opportunity to show our customers something we thought they’d be excited by.”

With the collaboration with Union last year and now Entireworld, has Nordstrom caught the California bug that’s sweeping the fashion industry?

“SoCal aesthetics have been making a strong impression on fashion trends for a few years now,” Lobban said. “There’s a wider trend of people dressing more and more casually in a wider set of circumstances — outside of just lounging around the house at the weekend. And L.A. designers really nail cool laid-back style across a whole range of styles: rock ’n’ roll, streetwear, surf, West Coast preppy.”

Sternberg said while designing Band of Outsiders, the California influence was more purposeful. However, with Entireworld, it’s baked in by virtue of him being a longtime resident. “Good or bad, I’m never burdened by or led by what everybody else is up to,” he said. “I just want more people to catch our vibe.”