Solely responsable for 9 members of staff over Menswear & Boyswear, increasing to 14 members of staff within the first 2 years due to business growth with existing customers and increasing our customer base.Responsible for budgets, including bought samples, travel and developed samples. To motivate the design team and encourage customer focussed design work.Creating a seasonal calendar to provide direction and requirements for fabric ordering, trims, trade shows, shops and customer development.Checking and approving all fabric and sample developments. Financial targets met and exceeded year on year.

-Working as a freelancer for TU clothing on their Mens knitwear range. Mainly covering their fairisle and Christmas ranges. -Designing and actioning samples directly with the factories and suppliers.-Trend analysis.

- Working within a design team for a busy global clothing manufacturing company.- Responsible for developing and presenting seasonal fashion trends, colour forecasts and competitor analysis; which enables the design team and customers colour to create their range. - Creating seasonal garment ranges for our showroom and customer requests.- Regular trips to Bangladesh, India, Shanghai and Hong Kong developing garment ranges and conducting buyer meetings for their season range build. Also liaising with factories in Sri Lanka and Pakistan.- Designing and developing fabrics.- Bi-annual Trend book.- Fabric sourcing.- Liaising and working directly with buyers/customers.- Directional shopping and research trips including Paris, Florence, Amsterdam and New York.Responsible for all product areas which included Shorts, Trousers, Swimwear, Outerwear, Jersey, Sweats, French rib, Fleece and Knitwear. Due to the company success and expanding design team I went on to specialise in Jersey, Sweat, Fleece and French rib product.

- Designing casual trousers, jersey t-shirts and polo’s for Tesco, Sainsbury’s and George.- Working directly with the buyers.- Developing seasonal fabric and sample ranges.

Developing and presenting a seasonal trouser range for Marks and Spencer. I also designed a range for a New York brand “Boston Harbour” who supplies to Bloomingdale’s, Saks and Macy’s.I was responsible for managing and training an assistant designer who went on to become a senor designer.My duties involved regular sourcing and development trips overseas to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Paris and Florence; visiting both fabric mills and factories, developing a good relationship with both Far Eastern and European suppliers. I also participated in directional shopping and research trips to Florence, Paris and New York.I have the ability to also design and develop trims and fabrics, to work closely with the garment technologist on fit and block development, to follow product through from initial sample development to bulk production.

I began my position as a junior designer assisting the head of design with developing ranges including Suits, formal trouser, outerwear and blazers.My duties included meeting with fabric and trim suppliers, UK shop reports and putting together design boards and fabric swatches for presentations.Following my year as the assistant I became the head designer for the company, also managing and training my assistant. This extended to the following rolls:• Responsible for initial trend ideas • Designing fabrics, which were made in offshore factories.• Presenting ranges to High street buying teams including Topman, Burtons, River Island, Next, Tesco, Matalan and BHS.• Development trips to Romania Factories.