©2019 Saratoga Photographer.com
By Jill Nagy
Staci Snider has returned to Saratoga Springs and opened a women’s clothing shop at 18 Congress St., featuring her clothing designs.
In back of the shop is an atelier, or design studio, with a seamstress on duty.
The store, called Snider Fashion, stocks several dozen variations on the little black dress, most of them with an easy fit and a somewhat edgy look—a lot of crooked hemlines, but not much decolletage. She also sells jackets, skirts, pants, tops and jumpsuits, and some color, mainly bright primary colors, and some white, even an occasional print fabric.
“The brand is very much the Saratoga woman,” Snider said. She tries to design clothes that can be worn day and evening with only a change of shoes. (Her website shows several dresses accessorized with white running shoes).
Some of the styles have Saratoga-themed names: harness dress, Pharaoh jacket, Funny Cide dress, backstretch tank, and Whitney top, for example.
Prices range from $195 to $795 with an average price of $395, Snider said. The prices are listed on the Snider Fashion website, www.stacisnider.com, along with pictures of the clothes.
Snider was born and raised in Saratoga Springs and graduated from Saratoga Springs High School, where she was a track star. She earned a track scholarship to the University of Arkansas and, after college, ran professionally sponsored by Asics for several years. She competed in the one-mile run and also ran cross-country. She still runs, but not competitively.
“I now run to make sure I don’t move up in clothing sizes,” she said, and as a stress reliever. “When I hung those shoes up, there wasn’t a race left in me.”
Her fashion career began with a masters degree from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. As a graduate student, she interned at a fashion house in Mallorca, Spain, and, after graduating, worked at fashion houses in Paris and Milan and opened an atelier of her own in Mexico, which she ran until she was recruited to join Crescalla, her current brand, in New York City.
She stayed about five years with Crescalla before moving to Saratoga Springs, but, she said they still work together.
Snider returned to Saratoga because “I needed to bring more balance into my life,” she said, describing herself as an outdoor person, “more comfortable among nature than among concrete.”
Since opening Snider Fashion in mid-April, she said, business has been “fabulous.” She already had a following in Saratoga Springs and sells her clothing in several states and in Mexico. Earlier this spring, she had trunk shows in Texas, Alabama, and Ohio. Her brand is also available at Bloomingdale’s and other New York City department stores.
“We ship to boutiques around the world,” she said.
At the Saratoga store, Snider does her designing. The on-site atelier is used to prepare samples and to do alterations. Actual manufacturing is outsourced to workshops in New York City.
“Not even Prada has their own factory,” she noted. In addition to Snider and her seamstress, the shop is staffed by a sales employee and a college student intern.
The retail store is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Saturday. She also sells online at www.stacisnider.com. The telephone number is 518 306-6755.