New York City brand Todd Snyder, which GQ calls “one of the best menswear” brands in the nation, has arrived in Orange County with its first local outpost at Fashion Island.
Founder Todd Snyder told the Business Journal that it made sense for his namesake brand to open at the Newport Beach shopping center as it has “a really strong presence of our own existing customer.”
While Fashion Island has several different men’s apparel brands, he said they are “not like ours.” Snyder categorizes his brand as “accessible luxury.”
While in New York City, “I saw a lot of opportunity out there as far as making better designs, and I thought luxury was crazy, overcharging for everything,” he said, adding that he saw nothing with great quality and a reasonable price.
He has designed his store to be a one stop shop for the guy, saying “How do we dress the guy from a tuxedo all the way down to a T-shirt?”
At his store, an “Italian suede worker jacket” can go up to $2,498 while tuxedos are no less than $1,200 and a pocket tee can start around $68.
The 2,200-square-foot store opened in June and joins other men’s apparel retailers such as Orlebar Brown and Huntington Beach-based TravisMathew.
His customers have included actors such as Matt Bomer, Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Gosling and musicians such as lead singer of The National band Matt Berninger, who asked Snyder to dress him for an upcoming concert tour.
“Todd Snyder’s arrival at Fashion Island underscores our commitment to attracting iconic, forward-thinking brands,” President of Irvine Company Retail Properties Ken Gillett wrote on LinkedIn.
From Luxury Wholesale to E-Commerce to Retail
After 20 years of working for fashion houses such as Ralph Lauren in New York, Snyder debuted his first luxury menswear collection in 2011 under his own name.
With mentors such as former J. Crew CEO Mickey Drexler, Tommy Hilfiger and Coach’s previous president Reed Krakoff, Snyder said he was fortunate to know good people in the industry.
“Having that experience and having those connections is what helped me endure, and keeps me going,” he said.
Snyder built his brand’s e-commerce side to exit the luxury wholesale channels he started in. The eponymous brand opened its first Shopify online store in 2012 and grew from there. Direct-to-consumer online sales now account for approximately 65% of its volume.
The company was acquired in 2015 by Pittsburgh-based American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (NYSE: AEO) for $11 million. It was AEO Executive Chairman and CEO Jay Schottenstein who encouraged Snyder to open the first brick-and-mortar by Madison Square Park.
Schottenstein has said that Todd Snyder could open 40 stores and be a half a billion-dollar business.
The brand’s annual sales are nearing $150 million a year.