ABOUT

HWY is made to be lived in.

At HWY, we believe the best clothes aren't the ones you save- they're the ones you wear.

Most clothing today is made for moments - worn occasionally, rotated out quickly and replaced often. We think it should be the opposite.

Our pieces are designed to be worn daily, taken anywhere, and relied on no matter what the conditions. Not overly precious, not fast fashion, just well-made clothing thats up for the job.

Instead of needing more, we focus on fewer, better pieces -the ones you reach for without thinking.

For the road ahead.

HISTORY

The Start

Hi, I’m Chase, founder of HWY.

HWY started in 2015 in an old brick storefront on Sunset Blvd in Echo Park, Los Angeles.

I took the lease on 1286 W Sunset with the idea of opening a vintage store with some motorcycle parts and cool old stuff mixed in. A place to bring together a few different things I had been involved in — bikes, clothing, and whatever else I thought was cool.

The name HWY came from where I was at the time. The shop sat between three major highways in DTLA — the 110, the 101, and the 5 freeway. The 5 being part of the longest highway in the world. Sunset Blvd itself runs right through that area as part of Route 66.

But more than just geography, the name stuck because of what it represents.

HWY = Life. The parallels between the road and everything else are endless.

THE SHOP

I spent months building out the shop from literal trash I’d find —

construction site dumpsters, the side of the road, you name it. If I thought I could use it, especially if it was free, I’d drag it back and figure out where it fit. I even dismantled the ceiling of a friend’s garage to salvage the wood because I thought it would look right in the space.

Eventually it felt finished.

It was time to open the doors.

The shop was ready. The walls were filled. Everything was in place.

But I didn’t have any HWY shirts.

The Opening

The night before the grand opening, I made the first HWY graphic.

I had an old ARMY shirt and decided to trace the lettering. I started with the H, flipped the M upside down to make a W, and used the Y at the end. I drew everything onto a piece of thick paper I had lying around, then cut the letters out with a razor blade to make a stencil.

With some black spray paint and a handful of blank t-shirts, the first HWY pieces were born.

The next day was the grand opening. Those few HWY ARMY shirts were the first things to sell.

I was onto something.

At that point I had never made clothing before. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I knew I needed to make more of those shirts.

From there it just kept going.I started spray painting that same HWY stencil onto anything I could — t-shirts, jackets, skateboards, whatever was around. The shop would be filled with pieces laid out everywhere, drying on whatever surface I could find.

The Road

Before HWY, I had spent about five years building bikes and working with my hands — construction, warehouses, making artwork for skate and surf companies, and buying, building, and selling whatever I could make a buck on.

The shop became a place to bring all of that together. Not just clothing, but everything that came from that background — the work, the process, and the environment around it.

HWY grew from that. Since then, we’ve grown out of that little shop in LA and HWY has made it all over the country and the world. We’ve shipped to every continent (except the cold one where no one lives) and still can’t get enough of gas station coffee and chasing down the horizon.