By: Jill Manoff | Link to article
The Glossy 50 honors the year’s biggest changemakers across fashion and beauty.
For Todd Snyder, who launched his namesake menswear brand in 2011, hosting a runway show at Pitti Uomo in January wasn’t just his 2024 highlight, but it was also the highlight of his whole career.
“I knew it was going to be an epic moment, so — after some self-doubt — I threw myself into the process,” he said. He recalled meeting with his brand’s Italian mills and weavers to “create things nobody’s done before” and subsequently “pushing the boundaries of what men can wear” with his 80-look fall 2024 collection.
“I had stopped doing shows and even lookbooks during the pandemic and had convinced myself I didn’t need them anymore because my business was skyrocketing,” he said. “But the experience rebuilt that muscle of building a [runway] collection and got me hooked again.”
He added, “There were a lot of moments this year that kind of just blew me away.”
Based on customer demand, Snyder made many of the runway pieces available in a new, limited-edition Collection line made in Italy and Portugal. It has been worn by celebrities including Jake Gyllenhaal, Sterling K. Brown and Matt Bomer.
“We want to maintain a ‘good, better, best’ strategy, making sure the ‘best’ is made up of pieces that can stand up to a luxury player,” Snyder said. Currently, Todd Snyder sells everything from $60 T-shirts to $6,000 shearling coats.
While the runway show increased brand awareness and prompted some product expansion, Snyder called the brand’s retail expansion its biggest growth vehicle this year. Before the pandemic, Todd Snyder operated just two brand stores, both in NYC. Today, it has 19, averaging five openings per year since 2020.
Snyder credited Jay Schottenstein, executive chairman and CEO of Todd Snyder parent company American Eagle Outfitters, Inc., with driving the store expansion. Snyder, meanwhile, has ensured each store is “special,” retaining the brand’s reputation for offering discovery. For example, in New York, the brand’s top sales market, the brand has a 5,000-square-foot Madison Avenue flagship housing a tailor and a coffee shop. It also has a Tribeca-based “Liquor Store” offering a hyper-curated product selection in an 800-square-foot space.
“We take a hub-and-spoke approach to our stores,” Snyder said. “We have a flagship and also smaller experiences [in the same city].”
In late 2023, as his company was reaching the $100 million revenue milestone and prepping for its first international runway show, Snyder realized he was “moving into the big leagues,” he said, and strategized accordingly. That included hiring a communications consultant and a new head of performance marketing. And this year, with the brand pacing to exceed $130 million in sales, it’s been “planting seeds” for international expansion. That has included trading a U.S.-focused PR company for KCD, which has four global offices.
Also necessitating a more global view is Snyder’s position as creative director of Woolrich’s new Black Label line, announced in November 2023. Woolrich, a nearly 200-year-old outdoor apparel brand, has dedicated fanbases in Asia and Europe. Prior to Snyder taking on an official role at the company, his brand had partnered with Woolrich on product collaborations, in keeping with its routine of putting fresh spins on iconic products. Todd Snyder’s other collaborators have included Champion, since 2012, and Timex.
Within five years, Snyder hopes to operate 40-50 stores and reach $500 million in annual sales.
“We definitely see white space, so we’re trying to grab market share,” Snyder said. “You’ve got your top-tier luxury players, which are crazy expensive right now. And then you’ve got this huge swath of brands on the lower end, like Buck Mason and J.Crew. And then it’s wide open.”
As such, Snyder said, “We’re just getting started.”
