Job Title:
Menswear Designer
Location:
Manchester Office Based with Flexible hours
Department:
Creative / Design
Reports To:
Head of Menswear and Creative Director
About The Couture Club
The Couture Club is a contemporary men's and women's fashion brand rooted in modern luxury, street-inspired design, and strong brand storytelling. We pride ourselves on creating elevated apparel that blends trend-led graphics with timeless brand identity. Creativity, attention to detail, and authenticity are at the core of everything we do.
Role Overview
As Menswear Designer, you will be the driving force behind our seasonal collections, translating cultural shifts and high-level creative vision into market-leading products. Reporting to the Head of Menswear and Creative Director, you will support the end-to-end design process — from initial concept and range building to final production and wholesale delivery.
Key Responsibilities
1. Creative Vision & Market Intelligence
• Trend & Cultural Analysis: Interpret global cultural shifts and emerging menswear trends to ensure The Couture Club is leading in the menswear market
• Market Awareness: Maintain a deep understanding of our aspirational peers and direct competitors to identify white-space opportunities
• Brand Alignment: Collaborate closely with the Head of Product to ensure every garment aligns with the brand’s DNA and overarching seasonal vision
• Creative Mindset: Bring a proactive, can-do attitude, encouraging an environment of innovation and high-level creative problem-solving
2. Technical & Product Development
• Silhouette & Construction: Have rounded experience of working within different categories and understanding different fabrications and garment construction, constantly bringing newness to silhouette and analysing current blocks for improvements
• Franchises & Jersey: Jersey is a key element of our menswear range. Experience within jersey is vital in pushing our jersey franchises and ranges forward, including the ability to brief and collaborate with our in-house graphic designer in reimagining our jersey logos and bringing innovation to wash, shape and fabrication
• Fabrication & Quality: Source and select premium materials, demonstrating an understanding of weight, compositions, and durability to maintain our premium market positioning
• CAD & Tech Packs: Produce industry-leading CADs and comprehensive tech packs that minimise error and ensure a high first-time sample hit rate
• Fit & Garment Tech: Lead fit sessions in collaboration with Garment Tech, refining proportions to achieve innovative and commercial silhouettes
3. Strategic Range Management
• Range Building: Responsible for the architecture of the menswear range, ensuring a balanced mix of core staples, seasonal drops, and high-fashion statement pieces
• Commercial Awareness: The ability to read trade data and sales performance to inform future developments, ensuring creativity is always balanced with commercial viability
• The Full Lifecycle: Oversee the journey of a garment from the initial tech pack stage through to its launch, with accountability for the range
• Sign-off Ownership: Manage the calendar for design reviews and director sign-offs, ensuring the collection meets all deadlines
4. Supply Chain & International Relations
• Overseas Development: Confidently lead development trips to overseas factories to oversee sampling, troubleshoot production issues, and source new innovations
• Supplier Partnerships: Build and maintain collaborative relationships with suppliers to ensure we are seeing and developing the newest products and fabrics
5. Leadership & Collaboration
• Team Management: Manage and mentor junior design members, ensuring their growth and ensuring the output of the team meets the brand’s high standards
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Build strong relationships within the product team to ensure effective collaboration across design, buying and production
Key Skills & Experience
• Experience: 3–5 years of design experience within a premium menswear brand
• Agility: Proven experience working in a drop model and understanding the concept of designing in collections
• Communication: The ability to communicate design vision to both internal stakeholders and external suppliers
Desirable
• Experience at a premium or contemporary brand with a graphics-led or streetwear-influenced product handwriting
• Rounded category exposure beyond jersey — outerwear, denim, woven shirting or tailoring
• Established relationships with factories and mills in Turkey, Portugal or the Far East
• Understanding of pattern cutting and garment technology fundamentals, enough to hold a credible conversation in a fit session
• Experience briefing and art-directing graphic designers on logo, print and placement work
• Exposure to wholesale seasonal selling and how buyers select from a range
Success Metrics
• First-time sample approval rate and average number of sample rounds per style
• Tech pack quality — measured by the volume of supplier queries and corrections raised against them
• Critical path adherence on design deliverables and director sign-off dates
• Sell-through and full-price sell-through of the styles they own
• Strike rate on newness — how many new styles earn a repeat or graduate into a core franchise
• Growth of the jersey franchises season on season
• Delivery of the agreed option count and range balance across core, seasonal and statement product
• Development and progression of junior designers
Salary
£35k - £45k dependent on experience