We are recruiting on behalf of a highly successful and growing fashion company for an experienced Design Manager to join their London-based team.
This is a key leadership position, responsible for driving the creative direction and product strategy across multiple fashion categories, while managing and developing a talented design team.
You will bring a strong commercial mindset, exceptional trend awareness, and extensive experience within a fast-paced fashion environment. This role would suit a proven design leader with a passion for product innovation, team development, and delivering commercially successful collections for major retail customers.
Main Responsibilities Will Include:
- Leading, mentoring, and developing a team of designers across multiple product categories.
- Driving seasonal trend research, range planning, and collection development across.
- Overseeing the design and development process from concept through to final product.
- Creating commercially relevant collections that align with customer requirements and market opportunities.
- Working closely with product development, sourcing, technical, and merchandising teams to ensure a seamless product lifecycle.
- Presenting design concepts, trend direction, and seasonal collections to customers and internal stakeholders.
- Identifying new product opportunities through market analysis, trend forecasting, and competitor research.
- Building and maintaining strong relationships with key retail customers and international partners.
- Supporting business growth through innovative product development and customer-focused design solutions.
- Undertaking international travel as required.
Person Specification:
- Previous experience as a Design Manager or Senior Designer with a vast amount of experience within fashion design.
- Previous experience managing, mentoring, and developing design teams.
- Strong product development experience across jersey, knitwear or related fashion categories.
- Experience working across womenswear, menswear, and/or childrenswear.
- Excellent understanding of trend forecasting, fabric development, garment construction, and product innovation.
- Strong commercial awareness with the ability to translate trends into profitable product ranges.
- Confident presenting to customers, Buyers, and senior stakeholders.
- Excellent communication, organisational, and leadership skills.
- Passionate about product, innovation, and delivering market-leading collections.