Freelance Sweater Designer (Women’s)

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Remote

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Role Overview:

This role is responsible for seasonally designing and executing the AE Women’s Sweaters assortment that relates to the seasonal concept and overall aesthetic and philosophy of our brand

Sweater Designer Responsibilities:

• Research market trends domestically and internationally continually and evaluate trends as they relate to the brand.
• Working closely with Design Director, identify big ideas + key items that will answer the seasonal brief and business needs.
• Excellent sketching & vector cads skills that communicate proper proportion, details & constructions for presentation decks & techpacks.
• Apply seasonal color, print and pattern to the line post sketch reviews and work with Design Director to balance out according to the key focus palettes and color stories.
• Wash and color development seasonally to work with any new seasonal washes or any new wash on an existing fabric.
• Establish full working knowledge of raw materials and work with material team to source seasonal fabrics, attend weekly material meeting to manage requests and approvals.
• Partner with Design Director on seasonal presentations and key milestones and be able to confidently field questions from the executive leadership team.
• Maintaining seasonal decks with all up-to-date information on details, wash and color.
• Supervise techpack creation ensuring the assistant designer can correctly assemble all information needed to direct the tech team on the design intent.
• Partner with production team to schedule hand offs according to calendar deadlines aligned with Design Director.
• Attend and support all style fittings to guide the teams through fit comments, support and proof follow up actions.
• Trim/submit approvals along with color/print/stripe approvals. Gold tag, shade band and other color/material approvals.
• Support assistants with daily vendor emails.
• Partner with production team to achieve the highest quality product within the cost structure that is needed.
• Partner with merchants to ensure design is aligned on seasonal needs and changes throughout the season.
• Understands importance of training as a key role in developing their direct reports and guides them.
• Manage design team’s workload and day-to-day, help to prioritize through the complexity of overlapping seasons.
• Partner with Design Director on seasonal calendar and category specific deadlines to ensure these are achievable.

Sweater Designer Qualifications:

• Bachelors Degree in Fashion or Art (or equivalent experience and education).
• 6+ years related experience Experience working in Apparel; Knits/Sweaters experience is must.
• Keen eye for color, trend, detail and construction.
• Able to multi-task and prioritize based on business objectives.
• Working knowledge of Adobe Suite (Illustrator/Photoshop/Indesign) and Excel. PLM experience is a plus.
• Ability to act as liaison between many departments, excellent communication, and analytic skills.