Assistant Designer

Overview

Karen Millen is a premium womenswear brand celebrated for flattering fits, meticulous design, and a dedication to detail. From elevated everyday essentials to timeless investment pieces, every piece is thoughtfully created for the modern woman, combining sophisticated design with enduring quality. Join us in shaping the future of fashion with a brand built on heritage, innovation, and exceptional design.

The Role

As an Assistant Designer, you’ll play a key role in researching emerging trends and developing soft woven designs that reflect our brand’s identity. You’ll work closely with Senior Designers across the soft wovens category, contributing to seasonal collections with a focus on embellished and embroidered pieces. Previous experience as a Design Assistant, ideally within wovens or surface design, is essential. A solid understanding of development processes, artwork creation, and product lifecycle management is expected.

A genuine passion for artisanal techniques, especially the rich textile craftsmanship of India, will help you flourish in this role.

• Researching, developing, and designing soft woven ranges including seasonal silhouettes, colour palettes, fabrications, and crafted details.
• Creating and developing embellishment and embroidery concepts, including artwork packs, placement layouts, and trim direction.
• Bringing prior experience in managing fabric libraries, tracking samples, building range boards, and supporting design meetings.
• Preparing presentation materials, supporting photoshoot planning, and assisting with coordination across the design room.
• Responding to trade and sales insights to develop commercially relevant, design-led product.
• Staying up to date with global craft and fashion trends—particularly textile traditions from India—and translating these into thoughtful, elevated designs with suppliers.
• Collaborating with the technical team on initial fittings and reviewing construction details.
• Building strong relationships with suppliers, guiding factories on craftsmanship, construction, materials, finishes, and trims.

• A design-based degree is preferred, along with previous experience as a Design Assistant, ideally in soft wovens, embellishment, or embroidery.
• A supportive team player willing to go the extra mile during high-pressure periods.
• Someone who identifies trends early and isn’t afraid to lead them.
• Confident working at pace, with a flexible and solution-focused mindset.
• A genuine passion for textiles, craft, and the refined aesthetic of Karen Millen.

At Debenhams Group, we are a diverse portfolio of five core brands (boohoo, boohoo

MAN, Pretty Little Thing , Karen Millen, and Debenhams) alongside a dynamic marketplace model and a growing financial services division. We don’t stand still—we lead, evolve, and redefine online fashion, delivering strong propositions to our customers in the most engaging, innovative, and efficient ways possible. We thrive on change, innovation, and pace, and welcome visionaries, disruptors, and doers who bring fresh thinking and energy to make an impact.

• Highly competitive bonus scheme, company pension, share schemes, private medical cover, and life assurance
• On-site gym access and free weekly yoga and fitness classes
• 40% discount across four brands and 20% off at Debenhams
• Wellbeing package to support health and lifestyle
• Dog-friendly office environments where allowed
• Ongoing learning and development opportunities with strong internal career progression
• On-site canteen serving breakfast, lunch, snacks, and hot drinks daily
• Free season ticket loan

London, United Kingdom