Todd Snyder (Q8000)
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Todd Snyder is a fashion house from BOF.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Todd Snyder |
Todd Snyder is a fashion house from BOF. |
Statements
Todd Snyder is feeling inspired. The last time he showed in New York was in February 2020. New York Fashion Week has morphed into an entirely different creature since—finding some much-needed fresh energy along the way—and after some time off the runways, Snyder is also turning a new leaf.He was a guest designer at Pitti Uomo this past January. The show was his return to the runway, and he went all out. “It was the biggest show I’d ever done,” said Snyder backstage before today’s presentation. “I pushed myself to a new place, and it was such a huge inspiration. That show gave me so much confidence.”And confidence was exactly what was in the air this afternoon. This was Snyder at his finest.The decision to show at Le Rock ticked a few boxes: Snyder has a store at Rockefeller Center, and it’s the iconic New York location that also inspired him to come back to the city where it all started for him. He also liked the idea of showing at a French restaurant in America, a nod to his original inspiration: Villa America, the French Riviera home of Gerald and Sara Murphy, two American expats who were known for their eclectic social circle, which included many artists from the Lost Generation. “Can you imagine those dinner parties?” said a bright-eyed Snyder. “I’ve been thinking about that lifestyle and what it would mean to bring it to America, always with that sensibility in mind.”That sensibility involves a sense of ease. “Americans, we go rogue often; we blur the lines between formal and informal,” said Snyder. He opened the show with a soft blush pink suit made in a suede-y linen that was light as air and felt like silk. He cut an elongated and relaxed silhouette, shaping his tailoring away from the body and employing his sumptuous knits to offer a hint of skin with their open, airy gauges and their slinky fits. “It’s about studying the drape and the way a garment sits on the body,” said Snyder. That much was clear. These were some very sexy clothes, aided by the intimacy of the setting—50 or so guests with models gazing directly at the attendees as they swirled around the room, salon style.Snyder quoted the South of France, but there was a certain Italianness to this collection; an ’80s Armani-esque sense of nonchalance and proportion made contemporary by his sumptuous and dimensional silk brocades, satin jacquards, and diaphanous printed voiles.
He rendered his tailoring in bright tones of melon, pistachio, lavender, and azure, “the most color I’ve ever done,” he said. The result was fabulous, inviting, and—worth saying again—confident.“I wasn’t thinking, Will this sell?” the designer said. “I was thinking of what inspires me, of where I want to go.” He meant that literally and metaphorically, looking at what’s next for his label. “I run a business, I’ve got 19 stores, and, of course, that’s important,” he continued, “but I’ve been focusing solely on that part and forgot about what inspires me. The show in Italy woke me up.” He may not have been thinking about whether this collection will or will not fly off the shelves, but it just might. An hour after the show, my phone buzzed with a text from a friend regarding Look 12: “Has Todd Snyder always been this good? Because I would wear the shit out of this suit!”
9 September 2024
Not unlike his fellow Iowan, Halston, Todd Snyder is a fashion designer whose broader impact has been widely overlooked. His talent is to make the conventional look just unfamiliar enough to feel new but still make sense. While at J. Crew at the tail end of the aughts, Snyder de-schlubbed mainstream US tailoring with the Ludlow suit. He also invigorated mainstream US retail with his Liquor Store concept, which saw Timex watches, Barbour jackets and New Balance sneakers sold alongside recast own-brand preppy-dadcore in a pleasingly den-like environment alongside the Ghostbusters firehouse in Tribeca. Snyder’s work at Crew is a turn of the century connective membrane between Ralph Lauren and Aimé Leon Dore (with a twist of Paul Smith’s merchandising irreverence). Plus his first-generation Old Navy was all gravy.A Lauren alum (of course), Snyder should really have been showing at Pitti years ago: This fair is the planet’s prime petri dish of mainstream Western masculine taste, and—in the US at least—Snyder has shown an MVP’s knack for divining the shape of consumer desire. Speaking backstage, he shared his cheat code: “Design for me is always about looking at the past while pushing forward. So there’s things like out of your dad’s closet, but reinvented.”The first half of this evening’s show was dedicated to his new Black Label collection forWoolrich, the Italian operated heritage US brand. Its most quintessentially Snyder-ized piece came in look 30: a padded woollen shirt in buffalo tartan with a popper attached hood at the collar. Snyder teased out Venn overlaps between the technical, militaria, and outdoors folk, playing cable knits and aran against aviators and regally long puffers above hunting boots. Sling bags with webbing straps added a satisfyingly utilitarian edge, while floral embroidered fleece sherpas lent an almost Tyrolean quaintness. You couldn’t tell if this guy was en route for a midwinter hit job or an afternoon at the farmer’s market—either way he was both insulated and cool.The second section was all Todd Snyder’s own label. This seemed a triple-whammy intersection between three main themes; 1930s anglo tailoring, 1950s militaria, and (most importantly) 1990s mainstream menswear. The mohair cardigans and long-skirted tailored jackets over wide-leg jeans took you on a flashback to aDetailseditorial, circa ’94—when this collection’s ideal audience’s infant impressions of menswear were being formed from their fathers’ shoulders.
High-waisted cinched combat pants in dark, lush silks were simultaneously adventurous. Roomy tailoring came cut in the herringbones and houndstooths that modern Italian mills weave far more richly than the English ever did, and a camp collar shirt printed with a Van Gogh (courtesy of The Met) further invited you to consider the classic, freshly.“I would say this is my favorite and most labored collection I’ve ever done,” Snyder said. The result was wrought in thought dedicated to clothing over concept: both familiar and new, which is tricky to do.
9 January 2024
A heatwave, Hollywood, and hospitality all contributed to Todd Snyder’s relaxed yet elegant La Playa collection. Having settled on a ’50s photo of Gary Cooper and John Wayne in Acapulco as a starting point, the designer went to Italy where he formed a bond with Riccardo Bruni of Lyria fabrics.“We communicated through fabric and it was just unbelievable.” The results of the partnership are subtle but effective, as in a classic Guayabera shirt unexpectedly cut in a dobby cloth. But it’s the pants that commanded most of the attention. They have higher waists (something also seen in an exaggerated form at the ready-the wear shows), a looser fit, and pleats.Snyder experienced the extreme heat of the Italian summer, and as if in anticipation of a repeat performance, many looks here had a sort of cooling functionality. These ranged from short shorts in a variety of lengths to a navy openwork cardigan that can be worn in place of a blazer. Also of note is a versatile mesh tank, to wear solo or use as a layering piece—perhaps under one of Snyder’s reimagined oversized power suits.Having asked himself how to make something familiar different, Snyder, as is his way, focused on “proportions and fabric.” What distinguishes this collection, he said, was the juxtaposition of the classic “against things that are not as known or as current.” Everything from ’70s-style gym gear to Jazz-era Riviera style is in the mix, plus pajama and safari touches. The edit might not be tight, but the beachy message is loud and clear.
11 October 2023
“There’s this ’50s thing happening,” wrote Todd Snyder in his fall collection notes. He’s correct, designers continue to mine a deep vein of post-war nostalgia and the result is a return to form, expressed through tailoring. That means Snyder is in his element. The designer trained in a tailor shop and when he first moved to New York he made all of his own clothes. “I know construction and how to put things together,” said Snyder, and it showed in this polished, yet relaxed collection, which he called American Classics.Miles Davis, Phillip Johnson, and Frank O’Hara were a few of the personal heroes Snyder had in mind this season; there seemed to be shades of Edward Hopper in there too. The designer played with three-piece suiting, proclaiming the return of the waistcoat. The high-necked ones were most distinctive, and might even make a viable alternative to finance bros’ Patagonias. Wishful thinking…Snyder’s tailoring fell softly around the body because of the roomier cut, but also due to the materials he used, including cashmere and piled materials. Velvet pants offered a rich and tactile alternative to corduroy, which was also on offer. Country tweeds and checked wools added rougher textures and rustic or collegiate elements. All the looks are grounded with heavy brogues. “I’m ready to move beyond sneakers, it was like a chance to turn that page,” said the designer with a laugh.The designer recently opened a new store in Los Angeles. In response to requests to dress glitterati, there are cashmere tuxes with satin lapels in unexpected hues like chocolate and pearl gray here. But when Snyder says “there’s a return to dressing up again,” he’s thinking across the board, not specifically about evening wear. And he relates this change in direction to the seismic changes we’re living through. Abandoning sweats for sartorialism is a way of distancing ourselves from the recent past.“I always feel like clothing is a way to cloud or cover people’s insecurities and I do think that that has a tendency to come out as you start to see things shift,” Snyder mused. “I always used to struggle about getting into fashion, but I used to work in a store, and I got such joy out of making somebody feel better about how they look or present themselves. I’m not saving the world, but for me fashion has always been about the person and understanding where their comfort levels are and pushing a little bit.
” This accomplished fall collection should make it easy for fans to lean into that evolution.
21 March 2023
“An American somewhere—that’s actually how I design my collections,” Todd Snyder said at a preview of his spring lineup. Like his customers, the designer is happy to be on the move again after several years of closer-to-home collections. Following in the footsteps of Paul Bowles, Snyder made Morocco his destination this season, and took inspiration from ’50s photos of American expats in Tangiers.One of the distinguishing characteristics of this sun-kissed collection is Snyder’s use of textures and textural embellishments. Luxe grainy linen, sometimes with a herringbone pattern; macramé mesh; knits; and embroidery make for an intensely tactile and expressive offering. It’s a big departure—intentionally so—from his most recent outing: sartorial but not trad, even if the silhouettes are fairly classic.The touch-me quality of the garments plays into the sex appeal of these clothes. Snyder says there’s a touch of American Gigolo to the garments, meaning a sort of unfiltered, rugged masculinity that was common in Greed Decade imagery. “The ’80s, for me at least, are coming back,” he said. That being so, the designer’s popular waist-defining “ghurka” pants could have walked out of a classic movie from generations earlier. Speaking of time travel, one of the downtime options in the collection is a pair of soft, roomy Japanese denim jeans with a lived-in patina.Snyder says he’s designing for a dream of what’s next. This lineup is essentially a ticket to ride off into the sunset.
3 November 2022
The nubby textures and the color mix—blues, grays, oranges, and browns—of Todd Snyder’s fall collection evoked an autumnal East Coast mood. “Homecoming” was the emotion conveyed to me through the lookbook pictures, and later confirmed when I saw the clothes in person. Cozy as it was, this showing marks a reemergence of the brand, after two years of hibernation, in terms of public presentations, during which Snyder was fully focused on his stores and DTC orders.Despite the pandemic, menswear evolved during this period, and this lineup speaks to our new reality, being more generous, tactile, and comfort-focused than Snyder’s more recent offerings. Tweed trousers, for example, are cut with the ease of track pants; overcoats are roomy enough to layer over puffers; and rugby sweaters have a softness the more traditional jersey versions lack. “For the last 10, 15 years everything’s been so tailored, so perfect, and now…I feel a lot more relaxed and less fussy,” said Snyder—the man who designed the *Mad Men–*inspired Ludlow suit for J.Crew, helping to recast the look of menswear in the 2010s. “Where I see the big change is having things that have a casual, almost like a sweater kind of drape to them…. I just think fashion in general is a lot more fluid; the rules are kind of being rewritten as we speak.”Snyder can remember being riveted by Giorgio Armani’s game-changing soft tailoring. He says that menswear, mirroring the times, is in another period of transition, largely driven by street style and sneaker culture. “These guys are getting to a point where they’re bored with just doing the same old sneaker and a tracksuit and whatever; they’re trying to figure out what their next is,” he observes. “We’re in this cycle where you’ve got the uber-luxe [fashion], like, ‘I gotta get the hottest shoe, I gotta get the hottest whatever,’ and it is a bit excessive in a way. But then you’re seeing this kind of undercurrent of…not revolt, I would say, but just like this [feeling], like ‘it’s not important.’ And I think there’s a tension right now that’s happening.”This collection is aimed at the “New Americans” reference in its title; the men who are moving forward from both full-on polished suiting and track pants, without relinquishing the structure or ease they delivered. Snyder is playing with proportion and textured materials to bring novelty and relevance to familiar pieces. What it all boils down to, he says, is “freedom.”
24 March 2022
“There will come a time in your life where you will ask yourself the serious questions,” began the soundtrack at Todd Snyder’s fall 2020 show. “Am I happy with who I am?” rang out as an algae-green suit took the runway. “Do I have a life, or am I just living?” hung in the air over a fishing vest. The connection here between Underground Revolution’s 2002 club track “Transition” and Snyder’s collection, which featured a collaboration with L.L.Bean, was the transcendentalist idea of finding oneself in nature.Backstage after the show, Snyder spoke fondly of his youth in Iowa, spent hunting and camping in L.L.Bean apparel. Those memories informed Snyder’s riffs on everything from Bean’s duck boot and tote to a slim-cut suit in the brand’s signature red flannel. Where Snyder thrives is in transforming the quotidian into the coveted; his corduroys, intarsia knits, and just-pleated-enough trousers will have serious appeal when they hit stores this fall.But opening a show with a pointed audio and visual message about existentialism as tied to the splendor of the American landscape can be fraught at this particular moment in our climate crisis. For its measure L.L.Bean utilizes recycled polyester in a majority of its garments—remember polyester, however recycled, is still a chemical compound—and can refurbish its duck boots seemingly ad infinitum. But the cases of canned beer, dozens of neoprene koozies, and individually wrapped whoopie pies by the hundred outside the show didn’t exactly send a strong environmentalist message.In the end, Snyder’s beer and snacks aren’t going to be the main things that threaten his Iowan plains—nor are they going to be the most egregious symbols of waste at the fall 2020 shows. Even the environmental impact of his production will be small compared to other brands’ practices. But as the flagship designer with the highest profile supporters at the act formerly known as New York Fashion Week: Men’s, Snyder had an opportunity to take a big stand for nature—especially considering the message of his collection was celebrating the ways man can engage with his environment. Yes, it’s nitpicky to hold him up as an example, but Snyder is a born leader. And he’s a born pragmatist, as evidenced by the clever ways his clothing merges high fashion instincts with a casual, practical sensibility. A goal for next season.
6 February 2020
Todd Snyder was the head of men’s design at J.Crew in 2008 when the brand opened its “Liquor Store” on a quiet corner in Tribeca. It was a bar turned men’s shop that quickly became a destination for the younger, cooler, more downtown kind of J.Crew guy. In retrospect, it was also an early indicator of experiential retail. With its velvet furniture, dark wood paneling, and vintage chandeliers, it was a place you could actually, you know,hang out—and maybe pick up a cashmere sweater or varsity jacket, too. When Snyder heard the store was closing earlier this year, he called the owner, presented his ideas for revamping the shop, and eventually signed a lease.It was no doubt surreal for Snyder to take over the space he helped create a decade ago. He covered the massive bar, walls, and ceiling with a high-gloss sage paint; added a coffered ceiling; installed more lights; and filled every nook and cranny with mid-century furniture, cases of vintage watches, and coffee-table books. Like J.Crew, his assortment is accessible, ranging from nicely priced Todd Snyder x Champion hoodies to luxe suede trucker jackets and bespoke suits. The aesthetic isn’t so different either, though Snyder’s is understandably a bit more sartorial and boundary pushing. It’s easy to imagine guys who wore J.Crew in their 20s—and have spent enough time in New York to elevate their style a bit—wanting to invest in Todd Snyder in their 30s.While he put the finishing touches on the shop, Snyder took a break from the Spring 2020 men’s shows. Instead, he photographed a lookbook inspired by ’70s-era tennis greats like Björn Borg and Guillermo Vilas. He joked that they were the original “bad boy” athletes, despite their cute little tennis shorts. Spring borrowed from their fine-knit polos, louche tracksuits, and terrycloth shorts, plus leisure suits (i.e., matching camp shirts and shorts) and ’50s-era bowling shirts. Much like Borg’s style—a blend of preppy tennis gear and bohemian stuff, like flared jeans and jewelry—Snyder wanted it all to feel like a mix of thrift store finds, with multiple decades and influences represented. That’s how most men and women dress these days, anyway, even if they’re not conscious of it.Tailoring is a strength for Snyder—the back room of the Liquor Store is dedicated to suits, and he’s starting a bespoke program later this year—and for Spring, he introduced new, vaguely feminine colors and interesting textures.
If the termseersucker suitmakes you cringe, Snyder’s solid mauve version will easily change your mind; in fact, you may not even recognize it as seersucker. Without the usual country club stripes, it has a great, rumply texture, and is light and crisp enough to wear in August. Snyder even made a black seersucker tuxedo, with the lapels and waistband in lustrous satin. A particularly irreverent groom might wear it to his wedding as it was styled here: with Birkenstock sandals.
20 September 2019
Sometime in 2017 Todd Snyder gave up big seasonal inspirations and started mining his own personal history. The strategy has worked swimmingly, leading Snyder to one of his best collections ever for Fall 2019. Boiled down, the lineup was a ’90s-does-’70s rendition of Midwestern Americana, with lemon and sky striped grungy sweaters, wood-paneling-color grandpa cardigans, rock star shearlings, Western shirts in dusty azure and pale rose, and an Iowa State sweatshirt (his alma mater).Snyder’s own life story is so richly intertwined with that of America’s sportswear obsessions; since he started by producing smart menswear at Polo Ralph Lauren and then The Gap many years ago, each piece here felt like a walk down memory lane. Only rather than sepia-toned, this bit of nostalgia was in Technicolor: On the runway it was a rainbow of fluorescent lights to evoke a suburban basement, in the clothes it was a rich palette of jewel box colors.In addition to these clever twists on menswear staples, Snyder also offered some more challenging ideas. Will dudes come around on superwide-wale corduroy trousers or an amazing technicolor puffer? On the runway, the collection was optimized for Insta-appeal. That’s a pro for the lethally suave gents that dotted Snyder’s front row, snapping away on their phones like dandy paparazzi. But for the consumer not familiar with the fact that underneath that street style coat is a pair of plaid trousers that evokes an Iowan fall made with tender love and care? Well, maybe they’ll never know. The high gloss of a fashion show has a purpose, but Snyder could benefit from being a little scruffier, a little more soulful around the edges.
5 February 2019
When Todd Snyder offers you beer, you take it, right? In this case, cheery models at the entrance of his Spring 2019 show—the big finale of New York Fashion Week: Men’s this season—were passing out Threes Brewing’s Vliet in wave blue cans with neon orange Snyder-branded koozies. Guests were just scooping them up, myself included. (Hey, it’s been a long—and hot!—men’s week here in New York, and a little liquid courage is a welcome antidote to the serious business of fashion.)More than just getting everyone giddy, the beer served to set the scene for vacation vibes. Snyder looked to his grandfather’s closet for inspiration again this season, taking the tentpoles of retro resort dressing—leisure suits, Hawaiian shirts, and knit polos—and infusing them with a modern loucheness. Added into the mix were sport references, courtesy of Snyder’s long-running partnership with Champion, and a bit of irreverence courtesy of the Kangol hats and tie-dye tees many of the models wore. In truth, most of the models were indistinguishable from the guys in his front row, with their ironic swirl prints, hibiscus-patterned shirts, and sport shorts. And that speaks to the bad taste turned good moment we’re in but also to Snyder’s strength in redefining and polishing current menswear obsessions.But what of the future? Amid the interpretations of things we know and love, Snyder sent out a dyed seersucker suit that was every bit as whimsical as it was practical. Front row gents, take note.
12 July 2018