Overview
The Responsible Materials Partner will be a central point of contact within River Island for material expertise. Playing a key role in providing new sourcing, development and trend direction across fabric & yarn to our Design and Buying teams across home production and brought in suppliers. This role will provide value through optimising material sourcing, scaling up consolidation and negotiation on core fabrics and seasonal volumes. This is achieved by working closely with Buying, Design, Fabric Tech, Sustainability and the Home Production teams. The role is instrumental in ensuring that we offer on-trend, new fabrics that support in achieving our sustainable material targets as well as quality & best priced offer. Department:
Sourcing & Ethical
Location:
Head Office, Chelsea House What You'll Do
Drive the delivery of River Island key fabric trends to the BMD teams alongside the design trend presentations seasonally outlining newness on materials, yarn, print, washes and finishes. Deliver regular fabric trend reports through social media, catwalk, fabric trade show, comp-shops as well as weekly fabric newness meetings. Lead speed to market fabric sourcing strategy to deliver fast track production focus via HP. Join weekly trade meetings to sign off fabric trading opportunities at speed. Work with the buying teams to structure sustainable fabric strategies to deliver sustainability commitments with biggest impact, robust certification and minimal margin impact. Identify core volume fabric pots, seasonal volumes and speed to market fabric trends. Suggest new pot moves on to ensure core lines offer the newest fabric updates. Build fabric price architecture with buying teams to deliver margin and quality. Support bulk fabric negotiation & cross costing core fabrics & HP orders to contribute to the delivery of departments margin targets. Maintain an effective in-house Fabric Library & action sampling for development samples. About You
Significant experience of woven and jersey fabric purchasing & production, as well as fabric printing process’. Strong understanding of new sustainability legislation and sustainable fibre switching implementation. Experience in building fabric strategy working across multiple departments, regions and critical paths. In depth knowledge of fashion trends, interpreting market intel, and comp shops. Knowledge of product critical paths and open/cross costings. Confidence in reading fabric technical reports & specs. Global material supply chain knowledge and contacts essential with robust relationships. Collaborative, highly organised, able to prioritise. Agility and ability to absorb change in line with business priorities. Strong negotiation skills. Confident presentation skills and excellent communication skills. About Us
We’re a much-loved brand with an exciting future. Our Islanders are a diverse bunch of bright, talented people who love working together – and are proud of the work they do. Progression here can take you in all kinds of directions. This is what a career at River Island is like. And this is where yours starts. This role is based at our Head Office in West London. What we can offer you
Generous 50% staff discount so you can treat yourself to the latest products, and a bargain staff shop on site; Reducing Islanders everyday expenses through discounts, benefits, financial advice, wellbeing solutions and more through Reward Gateway; A free onsite gym, subsidised restaurant & café; Flexible working; 25 days paid holiday, with option to purchase additional holiday twice a year. We also offer flexible working requests, healthcare option through AXA, a generous bonus scheme & private pension, and family support for maternity, paternity, adoption & fertility treatment. We are committed to safeguarding all employees and to equality of opportunity for all applicants.
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