Todd Snyder opens Pitti Immagine 105 with punch

It’s a long way from a fabric store in Iowa to the capital of the Renaissance, but Todd Snyder deftly closed that gap with a powerful show to open Pitti in Florence on Tuesday.

Known as the king of collaborations in American menswear, Snyder cleverly combined everything from Tuscan fabrics and ideas from Canadian arctic trappers, to sharp tailoring and even a touch of Vincent van Gogh.

Todd partnered with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to include fantastic Van Gogh prints, from Provencal flowers to a blown-up image of desert boots, on silk shirts.

“Who would have wanted there to be a desert boot in the 1880s!” marveled Snyder, in a pre-show preview backstage inside the Stazione Leopolda, a disused train station used by Pitti for major shows. Snyder previously caused confusion among Italian editors by referring to the museum as The Met. Which made Italians wonder, “What is The Mat?”

Linguistics aside, this was a lucid and focused collection from Snyder, and a very excellent show backed by tunes from Joy Division and Jaime Córdoba.

While his multiple looks from Woolrich, where he was recently named creative director of the heritage brand’s Black Label, added plenty of freshness to the mountaineering. He even included a wild aesthetic that seemed perfect for this week in Tuscany. Landing in Florence this morning, one could only marvel at the snow-covered Apennines, as temperatures plummeted below zero across Western Europe.

The best thing about Snyder is that he has the self-confidence to combine Savile Row and a self-made man; tough Bear Grylls with his matinee idol.

For evening, his smart take on tuxedos and tuxedos in cream velvet (in petrol blue or soft rust) worked brilliantly with some slightly faded cotton piqué dress shirts. With clever styling by veteran American editor Jim Moore for Snyder. While his bold plaid, sleek street shorts, and bold boxy New England tailoring clicked.

Todd got his start in fashion as an assistant tailor in Des Moines and designed outerwear for Ralph Lauren before working at J. Crew. His has been a slowly boiling career. But today in Italy he seemed like a new fashion star.

The show was the opening catwalk of the three-day Pitti 105, the latest edition of the gigantic twice-yearly men’s fashion show, whose nerve center is the Fortezza da Basso, a huge medieval fortress in the central north from Florence.

Before the show, many European critics had audibly questioned the choice of a commercial designer like Snyder to put on a show at Pitti, an honor reserved for both legendary designers and truly innovative creatives.

“When I was invited to Pitti, I was completely impressed, excited and completely nervous. When I design, my process always starts in Italy. Most of the fabrics come from here, so I spent four weeks here working with artisans, passionate people who want to discover something that has never been made before and give it a twist,” explained Todd.

And today, the American designer silenced his detractors with his cleverly mixed collaborations, from Tricker’s super-heeled leather combat boots to John Hardy’s necklaces, complementing a grand modernist style.

In a word, easily the best menswear collection by an American designer this decade.