Footwear Deisgner

**Triple Wimbledon champion Fred Perry founded his brand in 1952. He was the son of a cotton spinner, who played and fought his way through, always with style - and despite the establishment. Today, Fred Perry is a global community of over 370 employees, all inspired by the Laurel Wreath and what it represents**

**PURPOSE**:
Working within the Fred Perry design team and being responsible for researching, designing, and assisting in the development of a focused, on-brand, commercial men’s footwear collection from a given brief within a set time scale.

We are looking for a very creative designer with experience working for a brand who has the vision and desire to design styles that will take the Fred Perry footwear business to new levels.

**KEY RESPONSIBILITIES**:
**Design**
- Highly creative with a vision for a final product.
- Deliver briefs and long-term strategy with an innovative and commercial approach, always with relevance to Fred Perry.
- Strong attention to detail, particularly with regards to material selection, colour selection, and branding.
- To produce clear and detailed artwork and design work for each design and handover as tech packs to the development team.
- Meeting deadlines and working well within the prescribed timelines.
- An understanding and appreciation of designing to target price points. Reviewing prototypes and seeing samples through to sign off.
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**Research**
- Enthusiastic understanding and appreciation of the Fred Perry brand.
- Strong knowledge of global trends and markets.
- Arrange comparative store visits and identify competitor innovations.
- Ability to share information and present seasonal trends.
- Visit trade shows and go on research and development trips when required.

**THE PERSON**:

- A minimum of 3 years working specifically on footwear design and a proven track record of successful designs working with a sports, lifestyle, or fashion brand.
- Working with both and having spent time developing designs in European and Far Eastern factories.
- Strong working knowledge and skills using Illustrator and an understanding of PowerPoint, Photoshop, Word, and Excel.
- Proven experience of delivering strong, innovative designs with commercial success.
- Understanding of all relevant moulding processes and footwear constructions.
- Good knowledge of pattern cutting and last (block) selection.
- Having presented designs to a high level to directors and heads of departments.
- Experience in people management.
- Ability to work well and forge relationships with the team, other departments, and suppliers.
- Willingness and enthusiasm to develop styles by spending time in factories when required.
- A motivated and proactive approach.
- Trend spotter.
- A good communicator with proven and confident presentation skills.
- Accurate with attention to detail.
- Working well under pressure and multitasking.

**HOURS**:
We actively encourage our teams to have a good work/life balance and so we are pleased to offer flexible working shifts at Fred Perry HQ. Our core shift hours are from 10am - 4.30pm and so employees can choose to start and finish early, or start and finish late. (i.e. work 8:00am-4:30pm, or 10:00am-6:30pm etc). We also have 30-minute early finish on Fridays.

As we continue to work in a more flexible way, the Head Office acts a brand hub, where we can all connect and collaborate with one another. This role is a mix of office based (London) and remote working. We will expect the employee to come into the office regularly for face-to-face meetings and to work alongside their team on collaborative projects.

**BENEFITS**:
We are proud to offer a wide range of benefits to all our staff, and continue to reassess what our community needs from us to thrive. We don’t want to be a good company to work for, we want to be a great one. Here are some things we currently offer:

- Annual performance-related bonus
- Competitive salary, reviewed every year
- Generous staff discount and regular sample sales
- Generous pension scheme with 8.5% company contribution
- Option to buy an extra 5 days holiday annually
- Enhanced maternity and paternity packages
- Life insurance
- Private healthcare
- Cycle to work scheme
- Early finish Fridays
- Season ticket loan
- 25 days annual leave plus Bank Holidays
- Annual Birthday vouchers
- Regular opportunities to attend gigs / events