Todd Snyder, the designer, has remarked on multiple occasions that he enjoys working with brands that possess an expertise in certain categories he could never replicate. He could never make a better dress shoe than Alden, for example, so he has worked with the Massachusetts shoemaker since he ran J.Crew Men’s in the 2000s.
That modest deference has made the New York-based menswear meastro a notable name in the watch community. A long-running partnership with Timex has yielded some of the American watch brand’s best releases of this century.
Snyder has also worked with notable indie brands like Unimatic, Weiss and the young Swiss watchmaker Aera Instruments. The designer first worked with Aera in 2024 through his Woolrich Black Label collection, and the collaboration has now been renewed under his eponymous brand.
The Aera x Todd Snyder D-1 Diver offers a refined and pared-down version of the watch brand’s signature diver. The foundational influence of diver designs from the 1950s remains, but the overall look has been further minimized and given a neutral revamp.
The collaboration features two watches in nearly opposite monochromatic color schemes inspired by Snyder’s time trekking across Iceland.
Both feature a matte black DLC coating on a 44mm titanium case and bezel frame, with the “Blackout” reference using a black dial, bezel insert and strap, while the “Whiteout” has those elements in white.
