Working Pattern: Typically 5 days in the office, with core hours flexible between 8am-6pm.
The Role
Are you a creative and forward-thinking garment designer with a passion for turning the latest trends into cool, wearable, and commercial clothes for boys? If so, keep reading as this could be the perfect opportunity for you…
As a Boyswear Garment Designer for The Set, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the aesthetic and range direction for one of NEXT’s most exciting own brands. The Set delivers effortless, stylish, timeless, and affordable pieces designed to mix and match seamlessly. We believe great design should be accessible to everyone, and your garment concepts will be central to that mission.
Based at our creative hub, The Barn in Market Harborough, you will join an ambitious, fast-moving team with huge growth plans. You’ll work closely with Buying, Merch and Product Tech teams to bring outstanding garment designs to life, balancing high end creative flair with sharp commercial awareness.
What You’ll Take On
- Design and Innovate: Create and develop inspiring, forward thinking boyswear garment collections that align perfectly with The Set’s clean handwriting, fit standards, and overall brand direction.
- Trend Research: Actively research global youth fashion, street style, runway, and social trends to identify emerging silhouettes, key details, fabrics, and trim directions for boyswear.
- Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Partner with Buying, Merch and Product Tech teams to translate seasonal product directions into cohesive, commercially viable ranges.
- CAD Creation & Tech Packs: Produce high quality, production ready flat CAD drawings, detailed tech packs, and clear factory specs using digital design tools.
- Sample Development & Fitting: Attend fit sessions and liaise with suppliers and buying teams to oversee prototype samples, ensuring design intent, fit, construction, and quality standards are met within strict deadlines.
- Present Concepts: Help build trend forecasting boards and present design ranges confidently during internal strategy and review meetings.
- Drive Growth: Constantly seek out new opportunities to elevate the boyswear offering, maintaining a strong balance between high level vision and technical design execution.
What You’ll Bring
- Creative Flair: A strong passion for menswear or kids fashion, with a keen eye for modern silhouettes, garment construction, trims, and detailing.
- Versatile Experience: Proven experience in apparel design. While a background in boyswear or menswear is ideal, we also encourage applications from designers with experience in womenswear or unisex apparel who can demonstrate a strong aesthetic transition to contemporary boyswear.
- Technical Proficiency: Advanced skills in Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator and Photoshop) for creating accurate flat CADs, technical sketches, and specs.
- Organisation & Agility: The ability to manage a high volume workload, balance multiple deadlines simultaneously, and adapt quickly in a fast paced environment.
- Collaborative Mindset: Excellent communication skills, a positive team spirit, and the confidence to pitch ideas, take feedback, and iterate quickly.
- Commercial Sharpness: A solid understanding of the NEXT customer, price architecture, and the competitive retail landscape.
- Education: Ideally degree level educated in Fashion Design, Apparel Design, or a related discipline.
Portfolios
To help us get a feel for your style, please attach a digital portfolio to your application. We are looking for work that demonstrates a sharp eye for the future of print , how your ideas can be commercially viable for NEXT, and showcases your direct design and CAD work. To help you put your best foot forward, we’ve put together a few top tips on what makes a portfolio stand out to our team.
Applications without a portfolio will not be considered.
Sponsorship
Candidates wishing to apply who would require sponsorship for this role will be required to meet the Home Office sponsorship requirements. For further information please see: https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa .
We encourage early applications for our roles, as our recruitment process begins as soon as the role is advertised. If we successfully fill the position, this advert may close earlier than planned.
At NEXT, we believe the best work happens when there are no barriers to collaboration. That’s why we are a Google-powered workspace. From your very first day, you’ll be using the full Google Workspace suite; Docs, Drive, and Meet, to stay connected and move fast.
If your previous experience is rooted in other software suites, don’t worry! We’ll point you to a digital Google toolkit the moment you join, packed with handy guides and insider tips to help you transition smoothly and hit the ground running.
#LI-Onsite
You know Next, but did you know we’re a FTSE-100 retail company employing over 44,000 people across the Next group. We’re the UK’s 2nd largest fashion retailer and for Kidswear we’re the market leader. At the last count we have over 450 stores, plus the Next Online and it’s now possible to buy on-line from over 80 countries around the world! So we’ve gone global!
