Senior Creative Visual Merchandising Manager

Job description

As Senior Creative Visual Merchandising Manager, you will lead the central visual merchandising team to deliver all style choice visions for brand, windows, directives and alignment. Your aim is to provide a world class visual and ensure our brand values are at the heart of everything you do.

Main responsibilities

1. Have a clear visual merchandising plan for each season ensuring that it is commercial and aligns with the latest vision of the Brand.
2. Work closely with the CEO to ensure you understand the direction he wants to take the business.
3. Have the confidence to present back to members of the exec thoughts and ideas for VM direction and challenge where necessary.
4. Have great working relationships, collaborating with a wide range of stakeholders across various departments to ensure alignment of focuses.
5. Work closely with the brand teams to ensure that the brand vision and product direction is communicated and delivered consistently across all stores while ensuring that Best Expression is always maintained for external customers e.g. Wholesale.
6. Provide clear communication to stores ensuring the message is clear globally.
7. Ensure that outside of key setup weeks, visibility in stores globally is high supporting Store Leaders, Area Leaders, Area Visuals and franchise partners in ensuring the correct journey is landed.
8. Oversee the windows team ensuring the window designs are suitable for all store formats regardless of size and are in line with the brands vision and delivered in line with deadlines.
9. Work with key stakeholders to train teams to deliver best expression across all areas of the business.
10. Continually evolve the visual direction of the brand, by understanding the market and product to keep us competitive.
11. Support the windows team ensuring the window designs are in line with the brand vision and delivered alongside best expression updates.
12. Ensure the Brand framework is kept updated and cascaded to VM Teams.
13. Work with the Central Finance Team to ensure that the VM budget is managed effectively.
14. Support with event set ups ensuring the best expression of the brand is delivered.
15. Manage the VM Critical Path to ensure key dates are hit for product launch.
16. Forward plan 12 months in advance for when best expression will be delivered and how we will deliver it.
17. Always think about how we can make things simpler and easier for stores whilst maintaining the integrity of the brand.
18. Work with the merchandising team to understand what product hits and when, having a clear communication plan for how this is delivered to own retail stores to ensure they execute it properly.
19. Attend and influence buy meetings adding a visual/retail perspective.
20. Create key look outfits to be used across all channels for the season.
21. Ensure that our Head Office showroom spaces always look their best and are set up for best expression.
22. Create and manage strong working relationships with retail Heads of Territories and the Wholesale Director to ensure we are all aligned and reacting to country specific feedback.
23. Support rest of world franchise stores with their execution of the brand guidelines.
24. Be a strong, supportive leader who drives consistency and great visual direction through good communication and planning.

Ideal candidate

1. Strong in visual merchandising leadership, preferably within fashion, retail, or a similar industry.
2. Able to create and implement visual merchandising strategies that align with Superdry’s brand business direction.
3. Strong interpersonal skills to collaborate effectively with various internal departments, including branding teams, merchandising, and retail teams.
4. Confident in presenting ideas and strategies to senior leadership and stakeholders, with the ability to clearly communicate messages across global teams.
5. An experienced manager with the ability to coach and lead teams.
6. Strong in project management skills with the ability to manage the VM critical path.
7. Able to continually evolve the visual direction of the brand based on market trends, customer insights, and product knowledge.
8. Able to create visual merchandising strategies that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also commercially viable and aligned with Superdry’s goals.
9. Experienced in working in a global environment with an understanding of how to cater to various regional requirements.
10. Familiar with the retail and wholesale landscape, including understanding product availability and collaborating with merchandising teams to communicate product delivery timelines effectively.
11. Willing to travel as needed to support global store teams, events, and key business initiatives.

Package description

1. 25 days annual leave, plus bank holidays, we also offer a holiday buying scheme.
2. An additional day off to celebrate your Birthday.
3. Family is massively important to us, so we have a broad range of family-friendly working policies in place, including enhanced maternity, paternity, and adoption leave.
4. Company Pension scheme.
5. All employees are covered by our Life Assurance policy whilst working at Superdry.
6. A big staff discount – naturally. Because we know that you love to wear Superdry, you’ll benefit from a 50% discount in store and online.
7. Our Head Office is home to our very own store for staff only where you can treat yourself to heavily discounted sample stock.
8. A health cash plan is open to all employees.
9. Flexible working and core working hours between 10am – 4pm to help you achieve that all-important work-life balance.
10. Access to onsite parking and as part of our sustainable development goals, we have a selection of electrical car parking points freely available to staff.
11. A range of learning and development materials to help you in your career and grow with us.
12. We like to give back, so we allow our employees time off for volunteering work.
13. A global employee assistance plan in place that you can access anytime you want - it’s free and confidential.
14. You’ll also have access to a Cycle To Work Scheme and an excellent Car contract hire/purchase scheme.
15. A range of local discounts with businesses across Gloucestershire.

At Superdry, everyone has a voice and we want to hear it. We create environments where individuality can flourish and is celebrated as part of who we are as a brand. We’re incredibly proud that over 90% of our people feel strongly that they can be themselves at work.

We want to meet people with varied backgrounds because we understand that diversity of thought encourages new ideas to thrive, fueling creativity and enabling us to do better work. We want to build a team which represents a variety of backgrounds, styles, perspectives, and skills; we hire people based on their merit and potential.

We also welcome conversations about flexible working for all roles at Superdry and will always accommodate it where possible.

Please note that some jobs may be closed earlier than the published closing date if we get a high volume of applications. We therefore advise that you complete your application at your earliest opportunity to avoid disappointment.

About the company

Superdry is a British, founder-led brand with a truly global presence. We’ve been proudly creating world-class product for almost two decades, offering genuine choice to our customers with our curated style collections.

Our mission is to be the No. 1 sustainable style destination, delivering product that is authentic with unmatched quality and true integrity, much like our people.

We are on an ambitious journey to serve our diverse community through a premium brand that’s focused on the future, prioritises sustainability, leads with craft, and celebrates culture. We need talented people to join us on the adventure, is this you?