Senior Designer – Men’s Denim from System One

TEMP POSITION TITLE: Freelance Senior Designer – Men’s Denim
REPORTS TO:  Design Director                      
               
ASSIGNMENT CLARIFICATION:
This position/assignment is a temporary (HR to confirm specific range of dates.) You will be considered an employee of System One, our 3^rd party partner of our contractor population, and/or of your specific freelance agency.

POSITION SUMMARY:
This role is responsible for seasonally designing and executing the AE Men’s Denim assortment that relates to the seasonal concept and overall aesthetic and philosophy of AE.


RESPONSIBILITIES:
 

• Identify market trends domestically and internationally continually and evaluate trends as they relate to American Eagle.
• Working closely with design director, identify big ideas + key items that will answer the seasonal brief and business needs.
• Excellent sketching and vector cads skills that communicate proper proportion, details and constructions for presentation decks and 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.
• Have thorough working knowledge of raw materials and work with material team to source seasonal fabrics, attend weekly material meeting to manage requests and approvals. Support the design director with seasonal platforming needs for material pre-positioning.
• Partner with Design Director on seasonal presentations and key milestones and be able to confidently field questions from executive leadership team.
• Oversee 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. Proof the work and provide an extra set of eyes across all styles and bubble any questions and areas when further guidance is required from the design director.
• Partner with production team to schedule hand off’s 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.
• Supervise Assistant Designer and/or Associate Designer to assist in the development of that individual to grow to the next level.
• 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.
• Able to work in a hybrid environment, meaning that some work may be performed remotely but certain essential functions must be performed in-person/in-office based on the needs of the business.
• In person/in-office collaboration is required, the frequency of such in-person/in-office collaboration (e.g., portion of week, entire week) is dictated by business needs.  Such collaboration includes work centralized around product development, milestone meetings, fittings, and approvals.

• Bachelor’s Degree in Fashion or Art (or equivalent experience and education).
• Experience working in Apparel. Specific experience in denim fabrication and wash development
• 8+ years related experience
• 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. 
• Must be detail oriented, computer literate and able to handle multiple tasks at once.