Design Manager - Ladies Nightwear - Part-Time 12 month Fixed Term Contract - 3 days a week

A unique opportunity has arisen for a Mid-level Design Manager to join our Ladies Nightwear team on a Part-Time basis (3 days a week) reporting into the Lead Essentials Design Manager. We are looking for a strong experienced designer for our Ladies Nightwear team, ideally an expert in the Nightwear/Intimates market. We are looking for someone with a great eye for detail and a strong creative handwriting, with a proven track record of developing commercially successful product.

You will be a strong influencer and be great at taking team members and managers with you on the creative journey. Having a clear and logical approach to moving forward the department’s creative strategy with seasonal presentations to key stakeholders. You will be responsible for:

• Spotting the latest trends, communicating them with confidence and clarity to the design and buying teams along with any key leadership stakeholders, and translating these into commercial designs that our customers will love.
• Setting the graphics direction for each range and working closely with our Graphic Designers to develop original prints and artworks that our customers will want to buy.
• Working closely with your Buying, Merchandising and Technical colleagues to ensure ranges are commercial and balanced.
• Compiling accurate technical brief packs and working closely with your suppliers to achieve “first sample, right sample”.
• Ensuring sample comments are fed back to suppliers in a timely manner.
• Understanding best and worst lines to influence seasonal strategy and product opportunities.
• Pushing design constraints of costings and fashionability forward, whilst problem-solving.
• Owning the design critical path and supporting trend, development and production critical paths to ensure business deadlines are met.

You will need:

• Proficiency in designing using Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop. Powerpoint and 3D Design (CLO) software experience is a bonus.
• Comprehensive understanding of garment construction, fabric & printing techniques.
• The ability to create detailed technical brief sheets with excellent attention to detail, to communicate your design vision clearly to your team & supply base.
• A team player with great interpersonal and communication skills, ability to build strong relationships with colleagues and to be able to collaborate.
• Ability to mentor and develop an Assistant Designer.
• Amazing organisational skills.
• Ability to prioritise and work in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to manage the whole design and development process from trend research and sample development through to range-building and fits.
• Proven previous experience designing Ladies Nightwear for the UK market.
• Excellent commercial and market awareness and innovative thinking in research.
• Proven experience producing new and innovative designs to fast-paced deadlines, with a strong hit rate.

The successful candidate needs to be flexible to work in our head office 2-3 days per week (Tuesday -Thursday), with occasional flexibility to work from home.

We always welcome a conversation about flexible working, so talk to us throughout your application about how we can support. We’re proud to be an accredited Disability Confident Leader, where everyone’s welcome. That’s why we commit to providing a fully inclusive and accessible recruitment process. If you need support with your application, click here for more information. And if you’re interested in joining our team but don’t tick every box, don’t let that hold you back from applying.