He’s back!
After an absence of four-and-a-half years, Todd Snyder is returning to New York Fashion Week.
The designer had been one of the few menswear designers who still presented his collection in New York, but a change in focus and a shift away from wholesaling made him rethink his strategy. The last time he showed in New York was February 2020.
However, after Snyder was selected to be a guest designer at the Pitti Uomo show in Florence in January, it reawakened his love for the runway.
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“Doing the show in Florence in January was a great moment for me and the brand,” he said. “It was the biggest show I’d ever done — 80 looks total: 50 from the Todd Snyder collection and 30 Woolrich Black Label. I got my mojo back and fell in love with shows again.”
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Snyder also serves as creative director of Woolrich’s new premium collection: Woolrich Black Label by Todd Snyder.
The Florence show was held in front of 800 people at the Stazione Leopolda, the first train station to be completed in the city in 848.
“I’ve been so focused on growing our own retail, I forgot how invigorating it was to do a show,” he continued. “And as an American designer, it made sense to do it in New York.”
But don’t expect a big extravaganza. Instead, Snyder is planning an intimate, salon-style presentation for approximately 50 guests.
“The January show was the biggest showcase I’d ever done and I wanted to change it up and do something different,” he said. “I’m going to be talking more about the process and the craft.”
Snyder will narrate a majority of the looks, highlighting the inspiration, fit, fabric and construction of each. It will be similar to the presentations the designer has held the past four years where he personally walks editors through the collection and provides these types of insight into the season.
The spring collection will include a lot of tailoring, he said, a category he believes will be more important going forward. To prepare for his show at Pitti, Snyder spent months poring over fabrics and patterns at his favorite Italian mills to make the collection memorable. It also served to showcase his expertise in tailoring, a skill he started to develop as a young man when he was still living in his home state of Iowa and worked with local tailors to learn to make his own shirts. “The show in Florence reinvigorated the whole process for me,” he said.
Snyder continued to home in on this craft for the upcoming collection and is eager to share his process with the invited guests. “It needs to be talked about,” he said.
But the spring collection, which he’s still working on, will not only offer tailored pieces. “It will be a mix, so expect to see military references, coastal living pieces. It’ll be a juxtaposition of tailoring infused with other influences,” he said.
The show will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Sept. 8 at Le Rock in Rockefeller Center. The location was chosen for several reasons, Snyder explained. One of his favorite Todd Snyder stores is located at Rockefeller Center, he said, and the restaurant “ties into the theme of what I’m designing for the season.” He declined to speak in much detail about the inspiration for spring, opting to keep at least something under wraps, but was quick to compliment the location.
“We wanted to do something meaning and iconic and there’s nothing more iconic in New York than Rockefeller Center,” he said. In addition, the owners of Le Rock are the same as those of Frenchette, a highly regarded restaurant in Tribeca near the Todd Snyder store in that neighborhood. Snyder has become friends with the owners and even held a party at Frenchette in February to kick off the fall season of New York Fashion Week.
Snyder’s return to the fashion calender begs the question of whether he will return to wholesaling his collection. When he showed at Pitti, he began testing the waters and found a lot of interest from retailers to carry the line. But he put the brakes on taking the plunge until he has the proper structure in place to accommodate any potential customers.
“We’re still very DTC [direct-to-consumer] but we’re entertaining doing wholesale down the road,” he said. “Wholesaling requires a completely different infrastructure. We’re still focused on expanding our own stores and e-commerce, but we plan to eventually open wholesale again.”
Snyder, whose business surpassed $100 million in sales last year, currently operates 19 stores around the U.S. including one that just opened at 1165 Madison Avenue in New York. He created the eponymous line in 2011.