[JOBS] FASHION DESIGN ASSISTANT : SAHARA LONDON

Sahara makes clothes for the free-spirited, independent woman. It's a proudly independent, female-run, family business founded in the 1970s, it has 15 own brand stores and over 150 independent stockists across the UK and abroad.

We are looking for a Design Assistant to join our Design Team.

The Design Assistant is a pivotal role in the organisation of the muti product Design department which helps to support and facilitate the creativity of the department. It’s an important and a diverse role; one which also requires both excellent organisational, communication and design skills.

As a person, you will naturally be creative with a well-developed sense of colour and an innate love and knowledge of woven and jersey textile fabrics and prints. You will be able to work to tight deadlines within a fast-paced environment and thrive in a busy department with ever changing priorities. With a Design or Textile degree and internship/work experience under your belt you will be keen to progress in your Design path.

Core Responsibilities

Working within a busy design team, your responsibilities whilst not exhaustive, will include:

• Assisting in the research of trends within Sahara’s market, helping Sahara’s Designers to continue to develop and evolve Sahara’s collections

• Managing and maintaining the archive of past season's best-selling styles and keep records of all fabrics, ensuring the archive is kept well-organised and documented

• Ordering sample fabrics, yarns & trims where required and keeping a record of their costs and lead times

• Liaising between Production, Design, Merchandising and Wholesale departments, feeding back information on product performance and general comments where necessary

• Organising and maintaining records of departmental contacts, including suppliers

• Providing general administration support for the design department on a daily basis

• Organising retail store visits and foreign trips for Designers

• Handover collection to production at the endo of the season.

• Create seasonal line sheets for relevant departments.

Design based

• Independently source trims at trade fairs.

• Assisting the Designers with the production of their seasonal colour palettes, helping with print and fabric sourcing

• Art working: using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, work on recolouring and adapting selected prints and colour ways where necessary

• Manage colour standards and lab dips, helping to maintain critical path deadlines

• Managing the entire sampling fabric process in conjunction with the Design team, including packing and sending/receiving fabric rolls

• Setting up & maintaining a fabric database for each season

• Updating and archiving style files and physical samples

• Translating designer sketches & creating specs using Illustrator & Excel and actioning first samples with factories

• Amending samples for wholesale selling

• Design into fabric per season

• Taking notes in fits meetings and actioning second samples with factories

• Creating wall charts of fabric styles to help build the range planning of the collection

• Help with maintaining an archive of Saharas best sellers, season on season.

As a person you will:

• Have a fashion Degree

• Have knowledge of Pattern Cutting and Garment construction

• Have one years’ experience in a fashion Company

• Have excellent working knowledge of Excel, Microsoft, Adobe Illustrator, photoshop InDesign

• Be organised

• Have good communication skills

• Have can-do attitude

We offer:

• a competitive salary

• a generous holiday allowances

• flexible start and finish times in a friendly office

• discretionary annual bonus, where company performance allows

• access to exclusive perks and discounts via Perkbox