Todd Snyder on His Return to New York Fashion Week

It’s twenty minutes before Todd Snyder’s Spring 2025 show at New York Fashion Week and the backstage area is in a state of beautiful, organized chaos. Models are darting to and fro, some with half-unbuttoned shirts, others fully dressed and waiting in line to be photographed. There are clothes hanging on racks, and there are people everywhere, each seemingly responsible for a different task. At the center of it all is Todd Snyder. I worry about taking too much of Snyder’s time right before the show—after all, guests are already arriving downstairs—but from the way he’s walking around the room, fiddling with fabrics and chatting with models, it’s apparent that Snyder is thorough in all things; I get the feeling I couldn’t rush him through something even if I tried.

This meticulousness is evident in every aspect of the show, called “Villa America”—featuring 1920s French Riviera–inspired clothes and an intimate, salon-like setting at Rockefeller Center’s Le Rock restaurant, which allows editors, influencers, and writers to sit at tables while models meander around them. (A nice touch: The menus on each table are not actually menus at all but rather detailed look-book descriptions of the show.)

“It’s exciting and daunting at the same time,” Snyder says. It’s been four and a half years since he last showed at New York Fashion Week, and his return reflects what the collection is all about: an unhurried, leisurely lifestyle. “My business was growing fast, and I wanted to make sure I was focusing on that,” he says of the gap between shows. “I’ve always been focused on the business aspect, and for me, it’s almost been like an awakening. When I did the show in January in Italy, it really hit my heart, and it tugged on all the things I love about design—it’s tailoring, it’s fabric, it’s the make.”

The collection uses Lyria textiles from Tuscany—rustic, rugged linens that “play between the rough and the refined,” he tells me—as well as sueded Solbiati linen that feels like silk from the Loro Piana mills and textured slippers in collaboration with Turkish footwear brand Sabah. It’s a cohesive patchwork of inspiration, with Snyder’s tailoring and timeless elegance at the heart.

“This season, more than any, it’s really about studying the drape and the fit of a garment,” he says, pointing me toward models in oversized, elongated blazers, boxy coats, and straight-legged pants. “In my tailoring especially, things are a little bit oversized, but there’s always a sharpness to it. Shoulders are still drop-shoulder, but the waist gets more refined and defined. It’s really me continuing to study tailoring and leaning back on all the things I fell in love with.”

At this point in the backstage area, a group of models has formed a small yet energetic dance circle in the corner, and others are already lining up in the hallway, ready to head downstairs and walk Le Rock’s makeshift runway. Only about ninety people will be in attendance for this show—a heavy contrast to the eight hundred at Snyder’s Pitti Uomo show in January. “I just wanted it to be special and intimate, I didn’t want it to be big and grand,” he says. “We’ll see what we do going forward, but I wanted to do something small, especially being the first show I’ve done in New York for almost five years now.”