Samantha Aprea

Freelance apparel designer specializing in performance and lifestyle activewear, outerwear, and sportswear. Clients include New Balance, ASICS, Bauer Hockey, and tasc Performance. If you are looking for help, let's connect!

As the Design & Development Manager, I was the primary designer and developer for all products in the well-known men’s category and new women’s category. I created and managed our product line consisting of 40+ existing SKUs and 45+ new SKUs, meeting the target margin of 51% for our direct-to-consumer business.
- Crafted the seasonal concept, color, and fabric story to drive our innovative new category of performance clothes for the work day.
- Managed the sample development and technical design processes with external vendors, and owned creation of customer-centric fit blocks by aligning industry-standard measurements with customer feedback
- Established the company’s first Product Calendar to ensure completion of key milestones, enable cross-functional task alignment, manage internal and external teams, and guarantee on-time product launch.
- Using the human-centered design process, conducted customer feedback events and field testing to connect with customers and direct future product decisions.

As a Designer II - Outerwear, Baselayer, and Hunt/Fish Apparel, I designed 24+ product SKU’s per season across active and traditional outdoor product categories to meet the needs of both loyal and new L.L. Bean customers.
- Collaborating with Consumer Insights and Merchandising, led the evolution of the Traverse activewear and outerwear category targeted at the new L.L.Bean customer.
- Directed calendar creation across 3 product categories throughout 4 design seasons to enable efficient but flexible project management of the design workload.
- Selected as a SuperUser to transition the apparel design teams to the FlexPLM system, leading the customization of our PLM interface to enable consistency across teams in the US and Asia.

As a Designer II - Apparel/Product, I designed performance training apparel and sport uniforms for adidas NCAA and Team divisions, designing 30+ SKUs per season at target margins of 44-54% across multiple business units.
- Researched and presented seasonal trend stories to our global teams that were used company-wide by design, merchandising, and marketing business units.
- Created the first Sideline-specific color palette to establish consistency across printing, dyeing, and graphic applications across all team collections.
- Designed and developed the first protective equipment system for adidas lacrosse, collaborating with engineering and innovation teams to complete prototyping and testing.

As Creative Director, I led innovation and design initiatives for new business concepts, consulting for active and outdoor clients including Ibex, tasc Performance, AOA Activewear, and Dick's Sporting Goods.
- Created design strategies for clients, complete with projected line plan assortment, target price points, market and trend analytics, and customer insight research.
- Created and adapted unique design solutions to meet the client’s needs, complete with concept development, product designs, initial patterns and prototypes, product development tech packs, and materials sourcing.

As the lead Apparel Designer, I was the sole designer for consumer and military product lines, executing all product design, patternmaking, sample sewing, and product development in-house before starting factory operations.
- Implemented the first product development process and PLM system at the company.
- Under the Berry Compliancy rules, I sourced US-made materials and managed relationships with 4 US-based factories to execute 25+ SKU’s across our military and consumer product categories.