Free People Senior Designer Dresses

Role Summary

Free People is seeking a Senior Designer to lead the development process of design project supporting the Free People Dresses category. The Senior Designer actively participates in designing seasonal collections, sewing/ mocking original ideas for key meetings, and supports the team to ensure that designs and resulting product are cohesive and appropriate for the Free People customer. The Senior Designer Dresses will also oversee one Assistant Designer.

The Free People Dress category touches several fabrications and aesthetics. A successful candidate will have a strong understanding across fabrications base and construction. They would have a strong vision for pushing new shapes, details as well as prints and embellishment. The Free People Senior Designer is passionate about trends, is all about newness and product elevation to constantly bring unique designs ideas across dresses, one pieces and sets!

Role Responsibilities

• The Senior Designer will lead the design creation, development, and execution of own brand product appropriate for Free People Dresses with a focus on Femmes, Sexy and Sweet sensibilities.

• Be able to recognize and accurately forecast fashion and cultural trends and understand how they relate to the Free People customer. As a Senior Designer Dresses, you will play a key role in collaborating, brainstorming, and presenting monthly trend direction for your category alongside the Design Director.

• Thrive in a fast-paced environment, constantly pushing new ideas, concepts as well as responding to business objectives with creative and innovative designs to move the category forward.

• Attend all fittings and support the Team through problem solving fit issues and communicating.

• Support seasonal development calendar for both Retail & Whls deliveries.

• Creative Contribution to the design process including sketching new ideas with the help of procreate and Adobe programs (Illustrator, Photoshop), researching new trends and ideas as well as utilizing ai platforms to increase creative research (such as MidJourney)

• Manage development and execution of all design packages alongside Assistant Designer and participate in all follow-up communication related to each package in partnership with the Design Coordinator & Product Development team.

• Strong initiative and point of view on design research and staying up to date with industry trend direction, color direction, and fabric innovations that can relate to the Free People target customer.

• Execute original design ideas through sketches and draped & sewn mocks to communicate design's vision in key meetings.

Role Qualifications

Bachelor's Degree in Fashion Design with 8-10 Years industry experience strongly preferred.

Creative & Trend Vision:

• Creativity is a must! Having a strength in pushing new ideas, silhouettes, and design concepts

• Demonstrate the vision to identify trends in their early stages and understand their impact to fashion, so we can be one step ahead for the aspirational customer.

• Expertise in taking aspirational ideas, focusing on the key details and make them work for a broader audience.

• Ability to research and report on industry trend direction, color/print direction, and fabric innovations approximately 9-12 months ahead of season.

• Excellent hand sketching and CAD skills in Procreate, Photoshop, Illustrator

• Ai knowledge/experience would be a plus!

Fabric/Sewing knowledge:

• Strong understanding of knits & Wovens fabrications and technical ability to apply that knowledge on to fits and designs

• Ability to drape, mock and sewing skills are a must.

Soft Skills:

• Strong sense of organizational skills as well as passionate of fast speed environment

• Excellent communication skills to communicate ideas and inspirations to others and to interact with Designers, Buyers and other Cross Functional partners. Collaboration across teams is key at Free People

• Some experience with managing 1-2 team members would be added value.

• Proficient in Microsoft platforms (Excel, Powerpoint, Word)

The Perks

URBN offers comprehensive Perks & Benefits to employees. Availability and eligibility to specific benefits may be subject to your location and employment status. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, PTO, generous employee discounts, retirement savings and much more! For additional information visit www.urbn.com/work-with-us/benefits

EEO Statement

URBN celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We are proud to provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, sex (including gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression), religion, creed, age, physical or mental disability, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, citizenship, service in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other protected characteristic as established by law. We believe strongly in fostering a safe, fair and respectful work environment. To ensure compliance with our non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, we offer anti-harassment training to managers and employees.