BANKOLE: Founder and Creative Director
Aug 2022 – Current
• Putting together a talented team, ex Adidas, Stella McCartney, Rapha, Cole Buxton, Dior, Cos and Giles Deacon to explore and create advanced contemporary womenswear and menswear.
• Creating a top class atelier in east London for the team and wider community to ideate.
• Consultancy and development for a few brands
• www.bankole.world
NAELOFAR: Head of Design
April 2019 – August 2021 | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• Head of Design at a low double digit million USD revenue brand.
• Tasked with elevating and expanding the product range and increasing revenue by 40% in the first 36mths. Achieved 55% revenue growth in 18mths.
• Leading a talented team of designers across all levels ranging from womenswear, print and accessories, totaling 7 direct reports.
• Implemented and expanded new product categories: Apparel, activewear and leather goods.
• Setting the tone of voice for all design, media and communications across the business ensuring they’re in line with the company DNA and Aesthetic.
• Delivering a yearly product calendar to be signed of by the board of directors capable of hitting and exceeding financial forecasts.
• Initial implementation, expanding and streamlining the product development and production processes to save loss in cost and support an expanding product range.
• Working closely with Head of creative to plan, art direction and deliver a monthly/yearly marketing calendar and strategy for own sales channels and external sales channels.
• Instagram social media growth from 500k to 900k in 2 years (70% + growth)
• Trend analysis and weekly and monthly review of sales.
• Trips to China and Indonesia for sourcing and product development
• Daily team meetings and fittings session with designers and pattern cutters.
• Weekly meeting with board of directors for strategy meetings and review.
VARIOUS NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL BRANDS: Freelance Designer/Consultant
Nov 2011 – Present
Working with a range of clients and brands in-house and from my studio office, delivering:
• Seasonal new, innovative print and material and design solutions with seasonal themes.
• Artworks for print, knit, jacquard, intarsia, embroidery and various techniques.
• Creating renderings for trials and approval.
• Design and develop seasonal hardware, trims and adornments.
• Provide trends forecasting for colour, materials and shapes.
Clients include:
MARY KATRANTZOU
RALPH AND RUSSO: HAUTE COUTURE AND READY TO WEAR
NICHOLAS KIRKWOOD | LVMH FASHION GROUP
AUSTIN REED
PEDRO LOURENCO - ZILVER
CHAOS FASHION
LES GIRLS LES BOYS
BEAUTY PIE
YOUNG AND GLOW COSMETICS
COLLIER BRISTOW
And a range of confidential clients
FITFLOP: Fabrication Designer
Apr 2016-Nov 2017 | London
• Sole Fabrication Designer working to a commercial brief on delivering fabrication designs on cost and to deadlines.
• Deliver seasonal new, innovative print and material design solutions with seasonal theme / stories for products in conjunction with Materials team and Design team.
This includes: laser cut design, prints, emboss textures, hot fix studs /crystal placements, jacquard & weave patterns etc.
• Develop print and materials designs with the Product Development team in Asia ensuring all the aspect of the work are clearly communicated to the PD team including size, scale, colour, fabric references etc.
• Design and develop seasonal hardware, trims, adornments, and other footwear design ideas.
ALLSAINTS: Freelance Accessories Designer
Oct 2015 – Apr 2016
Freelance Accessories Designer at Allsaints working on the new and well received accessories range.
Duties include:
· Working with the accessories designer and consultant to design ranges for four quarterly drops.
· Researching new bag shapes and constructions.
· Technical drawings at 1:1 ratio to enable factories to have a CAD ready files for construction patterns.
· Designing Bags, SLGs, Belts and Soft accessories.
· Tech packs for all accessories.
· Creating artworks for various leather techniques.
· Designing hardwares and trims.
IVY PARK: Freelance Print Designer
Nov 2015- Dec 2015
· Sole print designer working with the head of design to develop prints for a newly created Sportswear Brand.
· Designing original prints from brief.
· Creating Print packs for factories.
· Recolouring and setting repeats for bought artworks from various vendors.
· Brand set to launch in 2016
NICHOLAS KIRKWOOD, LVMH GROUP: CAD/Textiles Designer
Jan 2014 – July 2015
Sole CAD/Textile designer at the luxury British footwear designer Nicholas Kirkwood.
Duties include:
· Working with Nicholas from brief to create original artworks for print, jacquard, lace, laser cutting, and various techniques for leather.
· Assisting the design team to conduct seasonal research for materials techniques, footwear structures.
· Conducting and managing the seasonal colour palettes.
· Creating Shoe mockups for visualization and proposals.
· Producing and engineering the uppers CAD structures for factories in Italy.
Assisting with seasonal designer collaborations and special projects:
• PETER PILOTTO
• ERDEM
• ROKSANDA ILINCIC
• SUNO
• VICTORIA'S SECRET
• DISNEY
BURBERRY: Mens CAD Freelancer
Oct 2013 – Oct 2013
· Working with the Menswear Designers and Product developers to accurately draw garments for Prorsum, London and Brit for the Burberry digital catalogue and tech packs.
· Assisting other CAD departments: drawings for Non apparel (all accessories) and Childrenswear.
· Developing artworks for all Burberry Hardwares and Trims.
FENN WRIGHT MANSON: Print Designer – Fixed Term Contract
Mar 2013 – Oct 2013
· Sole Print Designer at Fenn Wright Manson.
· Working with the Head of design, the assistant designer and buying/production team to deliver a range of prints for five phases/stories seasonally.
· Hand Painting/Drawing, Scanning and recolouring vintage prints, creating engineered prints, placement and allover prints.
· Liaising and preparing print artworks and packs for European and Far East Factories.
MATTHEW WILLIAMSON: Print Designer - Freelance
Nov 2012 – Nov 2012
· Assisting the print designer with the A/W13-14 Escape print collection.
· Hand painting floral motifs.
· Creating print packs for European print factories.
· Assisting with print placements.
· QC print meterages.
ROLAND MOURET: Research and Development Graphics/Textiles Designer
Apr 2012 – Oct 2012
· Liaising with the collection development assistants and print factories across Europe to deliver accurate strike- offs and production meterage of all print artworks seasonally.
· Conducting colour, surface embellishment and print trend analysis and research seasonally.
· Generating print artworks for each seasonal collection.
· Assisting the knitwear designer and knit product developer with technical illustrations and creating artworks for Jacquards, intarsia, Bouclé, laces etc.
· Making all design and technical illustrations for tech packs for the collection development team and production teams.
· Acting as a point for research and design development for Monsieur Mouret.
DIANE VON FURSTENBERG: Design Studio Print Trainee/Design Assistant
Oct 2011 – Jan 2012
· Sketching and Development of prints and motifs for mainlines and special projects.
· Print design file management.
· Designing Cad Jacquards for the Pre-fall and fall 2012 collections.
· Assisting the Head of Print in all CAD designs across multiple lines including the mainline, accessories and Homeware collections
· Overseeing the CAD development and workflow of the DvF Gap kids fall 2012 collaboration
· Generated proposal designs for the DvF/Vogue Obama 12 Tote bag project: Submitted design chosen for the final design.
A majority of my time is spent developing textile and print designs using Photoshop and Illustrator, working on creating tech packs. I also worked on approvals and worked closely with production.
Other responsibilities include creating original prints, organization of all print pitch sheets by season.
WGSN: Production Controller
Sept 2010 – Sept 2011
· Liaising with contributors from across the world and all design and content teams to produce and deliver new content.
· Maintaining the digital archive.
· Processing and retouching all necessary images.
· Uploading up to 2,000 images a day during peak periods such as catwalks.
· Responsible for inputting all images and building reports on the WGSN Content Management system holding more than 5 million images.
· Ensuring content is delivered to the planned production schedule.
· Providing a fast, effective, high-level digital service.
· Working across multiple time zones.
· First point of call for any troubleshooting.
· Hosting and co-hosting Webinars.
· Recording, editing and broadcasting Webinars to be used as marketing material.
· Maintaining all FTP servers.
· Liaising with multiple photographers and runners to ensure deliver of all Runway shows across multiple fashion weeks.
· Developing a vast knowledge of the WGSN Style guide taxonomy used for describing and tagging all images.
· Good working knowledge of current show designers across the key four catwalk cities to speed up efficiency in tracking down images from specific shows.
Key Competencies Specialist Areas:
Creative direction, Marketing and Strategy
· Experienced creative with a demonstrated history of working in the luxury goods, apparel and jewelry industry.
· Experienced in building, motivating and guiding teams to deliver seasonal company needs.
· Skilled in Trend Analysis, Textiles, Apparel, and Visual Communication and Colour forecast and development.
· Able to transform a brand through creative and strategic planning.
· Able to align market position and develop collections that are competitive in pricing and achieve strong sell through.
Education:
University of the Arts London BA (hons) Digital Media Production: (2010)
University of the Arts London Surface Design Degree: (2008)
University of the Arts London ABC Award Creative Business Start-up: Distinction: (2008)
University of the Arts London Digital Arts Diploma: Distinction: (2006)
Awards:
Chris Williams Bursary for exceptional individual performance (2008)
JM Dent Bursary Award for exceptional commitment to studies (2006)