Mark Lee

Country Road Menswear’s AW 2018 Selvedge Denim Trend Board & images. The inspiration boards were created 6 months before the official launch of new winter denim in February 2018, I was responsible for the creation of the final board which included images collected by myself and other members of our design team. These images were used internally, for our range sign off and for our VM team for store design direction.

The AW2018 denim launch coincided with the regional shift of our denim manufacturing, and required detailed briefings and clear direction for our new partners who were un-familiar with the Country Road design standards. New for our denim collection this season was the shift from sew-in labels to embroidery designs indicating branding and fit standards, and ‘Japanese Selvedge’ label call-outs. It was critical that I maintained the Country Road quality that customers expected, as well as the CR Menswear design aesthetic, including wash levels and colour standards.

I was responsible for briefing all new denim styles, and creating detailed tech packs. This included collating our current trim suite, and re-developing our existing logo shanks, rivets and leather patches This difficult process was executed entirely from our head office in Melbourne, by myself and the garment tech (as there was only room in the budget for the Designer to travel to Bangladesh to meet our new partners).