Senior Buyer in City of London

Department: Product / Buying

Reports to: CEO / Founder

Location: London, Hybrid

About Chinti & Parker

Chinti & Parker is a British luxury knitwear brand known for craftsmanship, colour and playful design. The business is entering an important phase of commercial reset and growth, with a renewed focus on product clarity, sourcing discipline, margin improvement and tighter seasonal execution.

Role purpose

We are looking for a Senior Buyer to lead the commercial buying process across knitwear, with selective support across adjacent categories where commercially justified. This is a hands-on role for someone who can translate creative direction into a focused, margin-accretive and deliverable range. It requires strong product judgement, supplier management, costing discipline, critical path ownership and the confidence to bring structure into a founder-led environment. The Senior Buyer will work closely with the Co-Founders, Design, Production, Planning to ensure the range is commercially balanced, properly costed, bought with discipline and reviewed with clear learnings.

Key responsibilities

• Knitwear buying and range execution
• Own the commercial buying process for knitwear from range build through to delivery.
• Partner with Co-Founders and Design to translate creative direction into a focused, commercial and brand-right range.
• Build seasonal range plans by category, style, colour, price point, margin and risk.
• Ensure the range balances Heritage, Playful Collectibles and Modern Wardrobe Knits.
• Challenge option count, colour count and duplication to keep the range tight and commercially focused.
• Support selective adjacent category development only where it is brand-right, margin-accretive and commercially justified.
• Sourcing, costing and margin
• Lead supplier negotiation on cost price, MOQ, lead time, payment terms and repeat flexibility.
• Build clear garment costings and challenge supplier pricing with evidence.
• Support cross-quote testing across appropriate suppliers to benchmark cost, quality, lead time and capability.
• Work with Production to build a supplier matrix by category, capability, cost, margin, lead time and risk.
• Protect and improve intake margin while maintaining the quality and brand handwriting of Chinti & Parker.
• Partner with Planning to ensure margin assumptions, order values and trading implications are clearly understood before buy sign-off.
• Critical path and supplier management
• Own the buying critical path across responsible categories, from proto and sample review through to order placement and delivery handover.
• Hold suppliers and internal stakeholders to agreed timelines, decisions and deliverables.
• Identify risks early and escalate clearly, with recommended actions.
• Build simple, repeatable processes for range sign-off, costing, sample tracking, order placement and supplier communication.
• Establish a weekly product, sourcing and critical path meeting rhythm with clear actions and owners.
• Trading and post-season learning
• Review trade performance by style, category, colour, yarn/fabric, price point, margin, discount, returns and sell-through.
• Translate trading performance into clear future-season recommendations.
• Partner on planning inputs, including sell-through assumptions, margin risk, stock exposure and repeat/chase/cancel/defer recommendations.
• Support tighter buy discipline by ensuring decisions are informed by previous performance and current trading evidence.
• Feed product and sizing learnings into DTC, marketplace and wholesale execution.
• Cross-functional working
• Work closely with Design on product direction and range sign-off.
• Work with Planning on commercial planning inputs, margin, stock and trading implications.
• Work with Production on supplier delivery, costing and critical path.
• Work with ecommerce, marketplace and wholesale teams to ensure product information, range selection and product stories are commercially clear.
• Support marketplace range decisions by considering fit, sizing, imagery, copy, returns risk and customer expectations.

Experience required

• Proven Buyer or Senior Buyer experience in a premium or luxury fashion environment.
• Strong knitwear experience is essential.
• Experience in woven, jersey or adjacent categories is helpful but not essential.
• Strong understanding of garment costing, supplier negotiation, intake margin and critical path management.
• Experience working in a founder-led or entrepreneurial business where process needs to be created and embedded.
• Track record of improving margin, supplier terms, range focus or buying discipline.
• Comfortable working with relatively tight option counts where each SKU needs to earn its place.

Skills and attributes

• Commercially strong, numerate and margin-focused.
• Strong product judgement, with respect for creative direction and brand handwriting.
• Confident challenging cost prices, supplier assumptions and range duplication.
• Highly organised and process-driven.
• Clear, direct communicator who can hold suppliers and internal teams to account.
• Comfortable working at pace in a small team.
• Strong Excel / Google Sheets capability.
• Able to balance creativity, commerciality, margin and operational reality.

Success in the role

Success will be measured by:

• Clearer, tighter and more commercially balanced seasonal ranges.
• Improved intake margin and supplier terms.
• Better costing discipline and sourcing transparency.
• Fewer late decisions and critical path surprises.
• Stronger post-season learning and future-season recommendations.
• Better alignment between creative direction, commercial planning and buy decisions.
• Improved full-price sell-through and reduced markdown risk over time.