Technical Design Director, Women's Apparel

Why J.McLaughlin?

Founded on the Upper East Side of New York City by brothers Jay and Kevin McLaughlin, J.McLaughlin was built on a simple idea: great style feels personal.

From a single neighborhood shop to nearly 200 stores nationwide, we have always believed in being local and loyal—to our customers, our communities, and one another. Today, nearly 1,000 employees bring the brand to life across the country, from Maine to Maui.

For over 20 years, our corporate home has been in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where creativity, craftsmanship, and collaboration continue to shape our next chapter.

Giving back is part of who we are. We support the communities we serve through local partnerships, charitable initiatives, and a belief that businesses should leave places better than they found them.

We are seeking a Technical Design Director to join our Product Development & Supply Chain team, reporting to our SVP of Product Development & Technical Design. This role is responsible for all women’s apparel categories across wovens and knits and contributing to a collaborative, high‑performing, and values‑driven workplace.

This position is primarily based in our Greenpoint, Brooklyn office.

Essential Functions:

• Provide strategic leadership and direction for the women’s technical design function, ensuring consistent fit, quality, and construction across all woven and knit product categories.
• Own and evolve the brand’s fit standards, grading rules, block patterns, and size specifications, ensuring alignment with customer expectations, brand positioning, and external fit data.
• Partner closely with design, merchandising, product development, fabric, production, and sourcing to translate creative vision into technically sound, production‑ready garments.
• Establish and enforce vendor fit processes, technical standards, and execution expectations, ensuring consistent compliance across internal teams and factory partners.
• Set the technical design strategy and seasonal priorities, aligning fit, construction, and quality execution with calendar milestones, margin goals, and go‑to‑market timelines.
• Lead and guide fit review and fitting processes, ensuring clear decision‑making and timely communication of all fit, construction, grading, and detail requirements to vendors.
• Review and approve key samples, including proto, fit, PP, and TOP, identifying risks early and driving resolution to maintain development timelines.
• Direct the development, documentation, and maintenance of technical specifications, grading, fit comments, and construction details within the PLM system.
• Develop and maintain a block pattern library in partnership with suppliers to support standardized fits, scalability, and consistency across styles and categories.
• Establish and uphold quality control (QC) and quality assurance (QA) standards for fit of finished products, partnering with production and compliance to ensure consistent execution.
• Maintain strong, proactive vendor and factory partnerships, resolving complex fit, construction, and quality challenges efficiently and collaboratively.
• Build, mentor, and develop a high‑performing technical design team, fostering technical excellence, accountability, and strong cross‑functional collaboration.
• Set clear performance expectations, provide ongoing coaching, and support professional growth through training and development.
• Establish and continuously improve best practices, workflows, and processes within the technical design function to drive efficiency and quality.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional partners to support calendar adherence and on‑time delivery.

• Support quality assurance, testing, and compliance standards in partnership with production and compliance teams.
• Contribute to vendor strategy and evaluation from a technical capability and execution standpoint.
• Participate in cross‑functional leadership forums.
• Support continuous improvement initiatives across the product lifecycle.
• Travel occasionally to vendors, factories, or other business locations, as required.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Please note this job description is not designed to…