Senior Designer

Our Client is looking for a hands-on Senior Apparel Designer who lives and breathes Women’s RTW. This isn’t a “moodboard-only” role, you’ll be in it from the first spark of an idea all the way through to the final garment hitting our customer’s closet.

We’re a founder-led brand, moving fast and building something special. We need someone who is visionary and innovative, but also extremely organized, detail-obsessed, and commercially sharp, someone who can connect the dots between concept, brand, cost, and execution every step of the way.

About the Role

You’ll own each drop-based collection end-to-end:

Concept → line plan → fabric/trim sourcing → design → print development → fit → development → merchandising → production → delivery.

You should be just as comfortable sketching and building out line architecture as you are in fittings, cost reviews, and trend decks. You’ll partner closely with the Founder, but you’ll be expected to run with it — driving the creative vision and the process with very little hand-holding.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the full lifecycle of every Women’s RTW drop with precision, speed, and taste.

• Concept and build cohesive, brand-right collections — thinking in full merch plans (silhouettes, color stories, fabric mix, price ladders, and SKU balance) rather than one-off pieces.

• Be innovation-forward: push new ideas, shapes, and details that feel elevated, modern, and true to The Bar.

• Design with fit and construction front and center — sleeves, shoulders, lengths, proportions, all the details that make pieces feel “wow” on the body.

• Source fabrics and trims independently, build and maintain a materials library, and develop seasonal palettes and print directions that feel unique to the brand.

• Develop prints and graphics (or brief them clearly) that support each collection story.

• Use design programs modern AI tools (Illustrator, CAD, PLM, AI image generation, etc.) for ideation, visualization, and workflow efficiency — you should be excited about where design is going, not resisting it.

• Own merchandising logic:

• What’s missing from the collection?

• What anchor pieces and “wow” moments do we need?

• How does this all ladder back to the customer, our margins, and our launch calendar?

• Work closely with production and factories (domestic and overseas) to ensure clean tech handoff, correct sampling, on-time revisions, and strong bulk execution.

• Stay obsessively plugged into trends: constant market research, shopping the competition, watching what’s happening in RTW, and translating that into smart, brand-right moves.

• Keep a tight handle on timelines, calendars, and drop flow — you are the organized center of the design process, not the chaos.

• Partner with E-com and Marketing on styling, storytelling, shoot direction, and launch readiness so the product narrative feels tight and intentional.

• Confidently present concepts, line plans, and direction to the Founder and broader team.

Who You Are

• 5-10 years in Women’s RTW design — contemporary or advanced contemporary strongly preferred.

• A true maker thinker: you can dream up a collection and map out the full merch plan, line sheet, and development path.

• Obsessively detail-oriented — you notice the things most people miss: stitch type, button choice, lining quality, print scale, hanger appeal, web imagery, etc.

• Extremely organized: you thrive on structure, checklists, Trello/PLM boards, and clear timelines. You don’t drop balls.

• Deep technical understanding of construction, draping, patternmaking, and fabric behavior — you care about how things are built, not just how they look on a sketch.

• Trend-obsessed and market-aware: constantly researching, shopping the market, tracking competitors, and staying a step ahead of where the customer is going.

• Confident using AI and design software as everyday tools — Adobe Illustrator, CAD, PLM, plus AI workflows for research, mooding, and visuals.

• Strong merchandising instincts — you know how to balance hero pieces with core styles, manage SKU counts, hit margin targets, and still make the line feel special.

• Comfortable working directly with factories, from proto to SMS to bulk, and problem-solving when issues arise.

• Able to take a holistic view of development — not just isolated creative moments, but how everything connects: design, cost, fit, margin, storytelling, and delivery.

• • A clear communicator who can articulate rationale, direction, and feedback directly, calmly, and efficiently.