Senior Designer (Wovens & Jersey) - Maternity Cover FTC

COMPANY OVERVIEW:

With over 20 years’ experience supplying leading fashion retailers, Spirit delivers high quality womenswear and has become renowned for its bespoke design and sampling service. Spirit is a second-generation family business, who are proud of their long-standing customer relationships, while continuing to grow their footprint in the UK market.

POSITION OVERVIEW:

We are seeking a highly creative and commercially minded Senior Fashion Designer to join our supplier design team. It is a multi product role across Casual Wovens, Soft Wovens, Tailoring & Jersey.

Someone who can really get stuck in and be completely hands on. This is a really fast paced role, dealing with multiple departments across multiple customers.

The successful candidate will be responsible for driving trend-led, customer-focused product development across multiple retail accounts, such as Nobodys Child, Oliver Bonas and Whistles, translating market insights into commercially successful collections. Our customers rely on us to take the lead on trends so we really need to be ahead of the game, have our finger on the pulse and be all over the latest ‘new in product.

Prioritisation and communication is key here at Spirit. We need someone who can take the initiative to organise the pattern room accordingly and bounce from one job to another. You may be sketching one minute, discussing toiles with our customers/pattern cutters and setting up for customer meetings and presenting

KEY RESPONSIBILITES:

Design & Trend Direction -

• Research and interpret global fashion trends, catwalks, street style, social media, and competitor activity.
• Create seasonal trend boards, print direction, and key shape recommendations tailored to each customers requirement.
• Source and develop the latest fabric innovations and material solutions across a broad range of customer price points, ensuring a strong balance between commerciality, quality, sustainability, and performance.

Customer & Account Management -

• Present seasonal concepts and product ranges to retail customers.
• Build strong relationships with buying and design teams across key accounts.
• Respond quickly to customer briefs, providing creative and commercially viable solutions.

Sample Development -

• Collaborate with pattern cutters and sample machinists to ensure all designs, technical packs, and workbooks are followed precisely, resulting in well-executed samples that reflect the intended fit, styling, and quality standards
• Work closely with internal cross-functional teams to ensure all customer sample deadlines are met, maintaining clear communication throughout the development process and ensuring all submissions meet the required quality and design standards.