Product expert with a demonstrated history of working for international companies in the apparel and fashion industry. Skilled in Production, Sourcing, Trend Analysis, Digital, Textiles, Sales & Account Management, Product Development & Product Merchandising. I provide freelance expertise for Production in the UK and Sourcing in Portugal.
Establishing and maintaining a fully updated Critical Path and Delivery Schedule for E-com and Wholesale partners. Booking production slots with factories, mainly CMT. Negotiating costs, minimums and lead-times in order to achieve optimum conditions for production and deliveries. Raising POs for factories, Mills and Trims suppliers. Overseeing quality control process. Liaising & organising with the factories for the shipments & deliveries schedule Monitoring the entire production process, from sketch to delivery in DC. Liaise with Buyers for prices, FOB delivery details and Order Confirmations. Be the point of contact for international buyers and store owners regarding all commercial and sales issues. Build relationships with international buyers to make sure collections are properly represented, request and analyze sell throughs, promptly offer reorders. Monitor incoming payments from designated stores, create shipping overviews and account statements. Use of Zedonk, Shopify and Mintsoft.
Managing relationships and communication with a broad range of cross functional teams across the company (Design, Production, Sourcing, Product Development & Planning, Buying, Visual Merchandising and Marketing). Ownership of the seasonal Critical Path working closely with the Design department and the Pre-Production, Sourcing and Sales team. Responsible for developing clear and effective product-strategies including Range planning, facilitating global market's needs functionality, quality, prices and financial margin targets. Margin Management, working closely with the Product Development departments in order to manage production costs ensuring RRP targets are met, establishing seasonal drops taking into consideration commercial needs as well as production feasibility. Support and collaboration with the Design Team during the development of the seasonal collection to balance out between design vision and commercial goals. Responsible for the final product selection of the seasonal range. Creating DEM Calendar for our e-commerce and marketing team, pushing key products or categories. Creating story telling for our Retail team and developing Product book for our stores. Training our Retail team about the new collection themes. Work closely with the Wholesale & Franchise team to identify key opportunities focusing on emerging markets. Key point of contact during our sales campaign for our Wholesale partners. Work closely with Buying and Planning teams to identify carry over products, and introduction of new products for our Never Out of Stock Range. Agreeing with seasonal visual merchandising guidelines ensuring key product specifications are taken into account once launched in store. Working with the Marketing & E-commerce team to orchestrate key product pushes for the season ensuring it reflects any seasonal marketing activity or campaign shoot.
Managing the entire customer order process from account creation, technical developments, pricing, sampling to shipments for high-end tailoring luxury brands in UK. Recording and monitoring sales figures, providing weekly and monthly reports to Senior Management including predicted and forthcoming sales activity from quote follow ups. Communicating effectively with the ops team and factory in order make sure that the CP is followed and delivery dates respected. Market research and advising wider team on trade events, product development and competitor activity. Providing input / feedback on product to the Product Development Technical Team to maintain a commercially viable collection. Creative manager and responsible for our house brand building- Bladen Tailoring (100 years old), Translating fashion trends into a strong commercial collection. Creating CP together with the Ops team and inform the relevant teams and pre-book factory capacity for sampling and bulk production. Developing the collection plan for the season, traveling to fabric fair and selecting fabrics and trims. Deciding on quantities, timings and prices for each collection. Creating specs and taking part to fit sessions. Overseeing the pattern room for the development of the styles. Responsible for meeting budgetary sales and margin targets through constant monitoring and managing commercial success (incl. product lifecycle management, pricing, promotions, sales initiatives) Managing our sales agents across Europe and UK.
Responsible for the development of Calvin Klein Menswear- wovens Main point of contact for the Vendors and Mills; Advising Design/ Merchandise regarding technical possibilities and limitations. Working closely with the Buying offices and vendors to control the status and changes to the styles, follows up on deadlines for proto samples, lab-dips, sales samples and pricing. Responsible for delivering BOM on time according to the buy plan; Working on fabrics and styles allocation according to range plan, margin and price points; Engineer cost prices and work with Design to achieve target margin Prices negotiation of make up prices / cost prices with mills and factories Responsible for briefing, developing and tracking all proto and fit samples for each season of the collection as well as pro- active planning; Fabrics development from design to bulk; Placing orders of cloth/yarn/trims for proto and SMS in accordance with the Critical Path; Follow production on site, ensuring all the procedures, quality and fit standards are followed according to Calvin Klein's standards; Approval of lab-dips, judging samples on details, measurements, fit and workmanship. Continually update and improve the quality of product fit; including internal quality process Manage fit requirements with factories and ensure that they are trained appropriately and understand our requirements. Providing feedback to the brand on fit issues and proposed solutions; Coordinating and ensuring that all the systems are updated and matching as per internal information (ISIS, LL Database etc). Working closely with the designers for range presentations to markets; Cross functional negotiations with Design, Marketing and Suppliers Ensuring that the buy documents are kept up to date with the latest cost prices, info, fabrics, trims.
In conjunction with the designer, manage all sample development across the manufacturing base to secure timely in store delivery. Develop and present all garment accessories and trims, in line with seasonal design development. Chase and manage all trims, labels and fabrics to facilitate timely product development. Actively participate in fit sessions, taking precise notes which can be passed onto and understood by suppliers. Maintain the buy sheets and development documents Control and log all samples and prototypes Ensure all forms of Product Communication are standardised across all buying departments where possible. Publish weekly product launch information including any selling benefits. Compile initial department critical path in line with agreed launch dates, liaising with manufacturers to ascertain key development deadlines. Ensure all development is in line with the department critical path and notifying key personnel if this drifts. Notify all suppliers and key departments of approvals, failures and delays to keep critical path on track Ensure marketing department are kept fully aware of all new developments via NPD and regular updates Ensure all forms of Product Communication are standardised across all buying departments where possible. Consult and advise the Production team on all issues involving fabric orders, quality issues and deliveries. Assist in the production of all Range Presentations to stores through various media
Planning, coordination and control of manufacturing processes based in Italy. Overseeing the production process, drawing up a production schedule; Ensuring that the production is cost effective; making sure that products are produced on time and are of good quality; Estimating costs and setting the quality standards; monitoring the production processes and adjusting schedules as needed. Confirm fabric, trims and leather sampling orders/bookings & bulk capacity bookings with mills/suppliers/ tanneries; maintaining strong relationships and sourcing new mills/suppliers/ tanneries when required; Liaising with design team to oversee product briefs and sampling requirements for Tailoring, Shirting, Outerwear, Denim, Leather Accessories, shoes and Womenswear; Identify suitable leathers, fabrics and trims to guarantee best possible interpretation of design brief; Knowledge of construction & leather materials of fashion handbag, shoes & small leather goods. Developing the collection in line with customer and commercial objectives. Coordinator for MTM/bespoke products.
Liaising with customers, production team and designing team and report back to the Managing Director. Consulting customers on fit, style and cloth. Setting up technical specs and orders on the internal system. Following the development of the garment from the scratch to the final delivery. Active part in fit session taking notes of amendments to pass to the tailors based in Italy. Controlling invoicing and overseeing logistics for the final delivery of the garments. Updating customers on the progress of orders, fit sessions and deliveries. Organising Managing Director's day to day appointments between USA, France, Italy, UK and Japan. Keeping updated a very 'A" plus luxurious 'niche' clients list.