About me

I am a highly ambitious, innovative and commercially minded designer, with 15 years experience within leading English and American brands and an infectious interest in all areas of men’s and women’s design. I graduated with a first class honours degree in Fashion Design from the University of Leeds in 2006, and was head hunted for my first graduate job as Men’s Sweater Designer for Abercrombie and Fitch. In 2008 I moved back to the UK and accepted the position of Menswear Designer with Jack Wills, where I became their knitwear specialist. Afterwards I widened my experience to head up womenswear at Devon based nautical heritage brand, Quba sails, before I took the opportunity to join Arcadia group to design Knitwear and Essentials for Burton Menswear in London.

In 2016, my family and I moved to Manchester, where I joined supplier SRG Apparel Ltd. In November 2017, I was head-hunted by Cobalt, where I took a senior position owning the Next Mens and Baby Boys account. In June 2018, I accepted Mens Senior Knitwear design with Whispering Smith, where I built strong relationships with Boohoo and ASOS. I’m excited to see where the next stage of my career will take me.

EXPERTISE

  • Highly experienced, with over 15 years experience in knitwear design.

  • Good commercial awareness, able to create marketable on trend collections to maximise the product margin.

  • Career spanning many areas of mens, womens & boyswear casual & formal design.

  • Detailed knitwear & yarn knowledge.

  • Pre production and photo shoot direction for seasonal look books.

  • Strong colour awareness, ability to translate trends into beautiful, wearable palettes.

  • Can quickly build strong working relationships with customers & factories.

  • Mentoring junior members of the team.

PERSONAL SKILLS

  • Extremely conscientious & hard working.

  • Highly self-motivated.

  • Strong organisational skills.

  • Confident presentation skills.

  • Passion for design detail.

  • Experienced team player.

  • Good attendance and punctuality.

TECH SKILLS

  • ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR / PHOTOSHOP / INDESIGN.

  • BASICS IN SHIMA SEIKI KNIT

  • MICROSOFT WORD & EXCEL

WORK EXPERIENCE

WHISPERING SMITH - SENIOR MENS KNITWEAR DESIGNER - June 2018 - Aug 2020 - MANCHESTER

I over saw the entire mens knitwear collection from concept to sales, designing up to 200 pieces per season for online and high-street giants, such as ASOS, Boohoo MAN, French Connection, Zalando etc.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Owning the client relationship, including face to face client briefings, extensive physical and online research, conceptual design, construction of detailed production packs and specs, full management of factory relationships, thorough examination of sample garments to ensure a high level of attention to detail has been met.

  • Presenting full ranges to clients and our European offices, securing and finalising orders in partnership with merchandising.

  • Full company stock ranges, as well as bespoke made to order designs.

  • Cross costing all of my designs with global factories and forming strong working relationships with them.

  • Inspiration and production trips to Rome, Milan, Copenhagen, New York and Bangladesh.

  • Regularly presenting my collection to our offices from around Europe and to all our customers.

COBALT KNITWEAR LTD - SENIOR MENS KNITWEAR DESIGNER - Nov 2017 - May 2018 - MANCHESTER

Here I owned the Next account for mens knitwear as well as delivering the baby boys’ knitwear account too, widening my experience from menswear to children’s wear.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Research new trends and design concepts, creating CADs on both illustrator & Shima Seiki software for the Next customer.

  • Traveling to customer meetings on a regular basis to present new product.

  • Creating specifications for designs and liaising directly with the factories daily.

  • Sourcing and developing new yarns and stitches for sampling.

  • Managing and mentoring junior members of the team, while delegating the work load.

  • Regular research shopping trips in Manchester, London and Copenhagen.


SRG APPAREL LTD - MENS KNITWEAR DESIGNER - June 2016 - Nov 2017 - MANCHESTER

My first role working for the supplier side of the business, gaining valuable experience and insight, whilst further improving my technical understanding of knitwear.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Looking after the Burton account, including designing for their Summer 17 & Autumn 17 collections.

  • Actioning all designs with our factory, creating detailed specs and overseeing all of the development for the account, ensuring that the customer is always satisfied.

  • Creating a new smart brand for the business, an area that had not been previously developed. SRG relied on my expertise to do this. Together we developed a range of knitwear, outerwear and jersey for more formal occasions. This included developing new smart yarns from scratch, colour palettes, trend and direction for the brand and the overall styling, then presenting the new range to our customers.

  • I was also heavily involved in creating the trend and direction book for SRGs Autumn 17 season. This included the colour and trend direction for men's knitwear.

BURTON, ARCADIA GROUP - MENS KNITWEAR & ESSENTIALS DESIGNER - June 2015 - June 2016 - LONDON

Being employed by Arcadia gave me great experience in high street and commercial design, through working in a fast- paced environment and designing a high number of styles each season across multiple product categories.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Research and analysis on catwalk and high street trends, to create seasonal direction for both smart and casual product.

  • Building fresh and commercial Knitwear, Loungewear, Underwear, Sock and Knitted accessories collections together with my buyers each season.

  • Sourcing new yarns and stitches to meet the seasonal trends and the needs of the customer, whilst ensuring that all product is machine washable and easy care.

  • Presenting during trend direction and range building sign offs, alongside my buying team.

  • Regularly travelling to Europe and China for both inspiration and production trips.

  • Styling fresh new looks for the window displays by month for each season, to draw the customer into the store and make sure our product is easy to shop.

  • Mentoring junior team members to help develop their skills.

QUBA SAILS - SENIOR WOMENSWEAR DESIGNER - April 2014 – June 2015 - SALCOMBE, DEVON

Here I translated my experience into womenswear and owned the whole womenswear collection.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Researching and designing the womenswear collections, ensuring that we kept to the bands nautical heritage roots.

  • Designing across all categories including jersey, fleece, knitwear, outerwear, wovens, dresses, skirts, swimwear and accessories.

  • Confidently presenting the direction and designs to the board of directors each season.

  • Generating design specs, putting the collections into work with suppliers, and forming good supplier relationships.

  • Giving direction for the women’s photo shoots both in the studio and on location, whether it was hair and make-up or styling the outfits.

  • Creative input into the catalogues and CAD booklets that go out to wholesalers.

  • Visual merchandising press events and presenting the collections to wholesalers.

 

JACK WILLS - MENSWEAR MULTI PRODUCT DESIGNER & KNITWEAR SPECIALIST - APRIL 2008 - APRIL 2014 - LONDON

Being a multi product designer for Jack Wills allowed me to develop skills in a wide range of product areas. During my time there, I was made Knitwear specialist, based on my knowledge and experience in this area. Working for JW taught me to be determined, resourceful and innovative, whilst giving me the confidence to develop my designs independently. In addition, I developed important team management skills whilst deputising for the Menswear Manager.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Researching both traditional, heritage British pieces and current trends before designing the range each season, that is both on brand and innovative.

  • Working together with the Menswear Manager and Junior Designer to create ranges, often alternating between different product areas each season, allowing me to gain a wide range of experience across a broad range of product categories.

  • Designing the full knitwear and knitted accessory range every season, developing new stitch and cable designs, yarn blends, patterns and silhouettes.

  • Designing the jersey product, including polos, rugbys, henleys, t-shirts and the gym and loungewear ranges.

  • Presenting the direction, inspiration and ranges to the Directors and Company owners each season.

  • Taking charge of the running of the design team when the Senior Designer is out of the office.

  • Travelling for research, inspiration and production to New York and Hong Kong regularly in order to create the best ranges possible each season and put them into work.

 

ABERCROMBIE & FITCH - ASSOCIATE MENS SWEATER DESIGNER FOR RUEHL - Oct 2006 - March 2008 - COLOUMBUS, OHIO, USA

My experience at Abercrombie was invaluable and I gained a detailed knowledge and understanding of knitwear design, whilst learning how a foreign design company operates. I was so successful in my role that I was promoted to Associate Designer after 18 months with the company. This job taught me to be well organised, work as a valued member of a team, to believe in my work and own my product.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Designing all ranges of sweaters and knitted accessories each season, including core cardigan, crew neck and V-neck packages and more specialty pieces for Christmas, such as Fair Isle and cable patterned hand knits.

  • Presenting these ranges to the CEO, Menswear and Ruehl directors regularly.

  • Commenting on all factory submits for fit, design details, and fabrication. Approving all submits and ensuring that communication with the factories is efficient and productive.

  • Maximising areas such as hand feel, whilst sourcing new yarns.

  • Production trips to Hong Kong, and shopping inspiration trips to New York.

 

RIVER ISLAND - MENSWEAR DESIGN ROOM ASSISTANT - July 2004 - July 2005 - LONDON

In June 2005, I finished my one-year industrial placement with River Island, as part of my degree. This gave me a fantastic insight into the fashion industry, increasing my knowledge and allowing me to develop new design skills.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Assisting all the designers on the menswear team with a variety of tasks, to ensure the smooth running of the department.

  • Creating colour cards, trend boards and putting together new looks for each season.

  • Accessory design, creating graphics, branding and customising garments.

My placement was so successful that River Island provided me with full sponsorship for my university collection, and asked me to return as a full time member of the team upon my graduation.

EDUCATION

  • The University of Leeds, September 2002 - July 2006. Fashion Design BA (IND) - 1st Class Honours.

  • Lytham St. Annes High Technology College - September 1995 - July 2002. Three A-Levels - grades A-C, One AS Level - grade B and nine GCSEs - grades A*-B.