Crystal Padmore

Soft Woven designer, working across dresses, blouses, skirts, jumpsuits, playsuits and jersey dresses. Working collaboratively with the design director to interpret trend concepts into commercial designs across strong, cohesive capsule collections for the Topshop customer every 4-8 weeks. Working closely with both long lead and short lead suppliers, and print and fabric mills to source key fabrications, trims and prints for each product story.
• Working closely with the senior team to contribute to brand strategies, increasing profit through design development across soft woven product.
• Working closely with buying and merchandising teams to build strong cohesive collections ranged to specific store tiering and price architectures.
• Gathering and using relevant internal and external information to drive product and range development for the Topshop customer.
• Producing hand sketches and detailed s¬pecification packs to send to suppliers for prototype samples.
• International travel for inspirational and product development trips.

Worked across multi-product design for a variety of Far Eastern supplier's, developing capsule showroom collections to be presented to their customer's for the season. My main product category focus during this time, was casual and smart outerwear.

Designed the first Lost Ink Plus collection to launch on international wholesale platforms Zalando, Asos, Wehkamp, Shop Direct and Bloomingdales by SS18. I managed the design across multi-product outerwear, denim, tailoring, soft woven’s, jersey and a 35% mix of dresses from initial concept through to pre-production using diverse sources of inspiration.
• Contributed to company trends, colour palettes, and print narratives across both core and plus, whilst establishing the brand handwriting.
• Worked closely with the buying team to ensure we delivered a fresh, balanced, customer focused range from concept to production, presenting back to senior management in monthly meetings.
• Continuously analyzed sales information from global wholesale partners and reacted in-season with speed to market capsule collections.
• Managed and mentored the assistant designer within the plus department, growing her development to junior design level within two years.
• International travel for inspirational and product development trips.

Managed and solely designed the Lipsy dresses and separate’s account for this London based Supplier, with production in Romania, liaising directly with the Lipsy buying teams to create brand focused product on a monthly basis.
• Worked alongside the Lipsy in-house buying teams on their celebrity exclusive collections, including the Michelle keegan, Fleur East, and Ariana Grande ranges that saw strong sales success.
• Researched and presented monthly trend boards directed at the Lipsy target customer, identifying new trend areas of opportunity and updates of best sellers.
• Built strong relationships with suppliers and worked closely with them to source the newest materials for product development.

Lead designer for casual jersey day dresses and tops, supplying to Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins, Topshop and Lipsy. Communicating designs with an in-house pattern room and European factory production.

Worked across multi-product for this supplier to New Look. Romania and Sri-Lanka production.

Worked across multi-product for this independent street-wear brand.

Worked on the production line for this independent ethical brand.

Developed a luxury ethical womenswear brand that was successfully stocked online including ASOS marketplace and in boutiques across Yorkshire.

Trend forecasting intern for Mudpie and head office intern for Aurora Fashions.