“How do you make it not summer, but not fall?” was the question Scott Sternberg posed when approaching the dubiously named pre-fall season. His answer involved cooking up a very Sternberg-ian scenario: a chilly Malibu beach inhabited by his muse, the love child of Joan Didion and Klute, circa 1972. “A little bit sexy and a little bit bookish,” said the designer, plying the collection with the perfect tension of tomboy and flirtatious free-spirit via easy layers. A groovy, vaguely retro black-and-white Peruvian knit looked great over a micro-floral-printed maxidress. There were the signature Band of Outsiders stripes, tailored denim and a plethora of boiled-wool-jersey trucker jackets with shearling collars to fight the post-midsummer’s night beach breeze.