Fashion Designer

Purpose of the role

We are looking for a Fashion Designer to shape Tekla's clothing line. Our core is textiles. Everything we make begins with the material: how it is woven, how it holds colour, how it wears over years rather than seasons. The clothing line is how that work extends into a wider product universe, and we are growing it carefully. A garment enters the range when the design earns its place, not to fill a gap.

Reporting to the Head of Product, you will work within the product team, under the direction and vision of our Creative Director and founder. This is a role for an ambitious designer who arrives with ideas of their own, and who wants to carry a garment the whole way, from first sketch to the finished piece. 

Key responsibilities of the role include, but are not limited to:

Design and collection development

• Design two collections each year, fall-winter and spring-summer, covering both womenswear and menswear, from research and concept through to approved samples.
• Own the research and direction for each season, and hold that direction through the whole collection rather than only the opening idea.
• Develop silhouette, proportion, colour, and material so that the clothing reflects the distinctive Tekla aesthetic.
• Work with the textile team on fabric development, using our own cloth wherever it serves the garment and sourcing outside it where that is the better answer.
• Produce design boards, drawings, and technical work that give the product and production teams something unambiguous to build from.
• Design footwear alongside the clothing, sharing references and direction so that the two read as one collection.

Direction

• Research materials, references, and market context, and come back with a considered position rather than a mood board.
• Help define what the clothing line stands for as it grows and keep it coherent with the wider brand.
• Bring proposals that stretch us, and the judgment to know which of them are ready.
• Prepare technical drawings and tech packs, and lead fit sessions through to approved samples.

Across the team

• Partner with merchandising on range architecture, pricing, and commercial balance.
• Work with sourcing and production on lead times, minimums, and feasibility, without quietly conceding the design intent.
• Contribute to styling, campaign direction, and launch material alongside the creative team.

We’d love to hear from you if you are/have:

• Experience designing clothing collections that have reached production, with a portfolio showing the full path from concept to finished garment. 
• A true creative sensibility, and a feel for quality: you can tell a very good product from an acceptable one, and say what makes the difference. 
• A clear position on silhouette, proportion, colour, and material, and the ability to say why a decision is the right one. 
• Real fluency with fabric: how it drapes, behaves, wears, and what it costs to work with. 
• Confidence with technical drawing and tech packs, and ease in a fit session. 
• The ambition to build rather than maintain, together with the patience that building actually takes. 
• Comfort working closely with commercial and production colleagues, and openness to their constraints. 
• Fluent English, written and spoken.
• An appreciation and understanding for the Tekla brand and product.

Your application

For your application to be considered, we ask you to include the following:

1. Your portfolio. We would like to see finished work, and how you arrived at it: research, iterations, the decisions you made and the ones you reversed.
2. Two mood boards of three to six images each: one that reflects your own identity as a designer, and one that reflects how you read Tekla. If the two sit in harmony, that is fine. If they do not, that is also fine. We are interested in how you see, not in whether you match us.

In all of this, we are looking at your point of view, your aesthetic, your understanding of how material behaves, and how clearly you can explain your reasoning.

A note on AI. We ask that the creative approach be entirely your own, from the references you choose to the reasoning behind them. Beyond that, use whatever tools you work with, and if you are selected, come ready to talk us through the decisions you made.