Senior Art Director

Job Introduction

As our Senior Art Director you will lead a new Art Direction team within the rapidly growing Digital Photostudio to deliver the Selfridges creative vision through high volume, luxury e-commerce fashion imagery across Womenswear and Menswear on Selfridges.com.

Reporting into the Director of Digital fashion you will articulate industry trends, aspirational art direction and evolve a signature Selfridges Style aligned with the Selfridges creative vision through your leadership and interpretation of the luxury fashion world and beyond.

• To understand and role model best practices, not only to achieve high quality imagery according to Selfridges style guides but to also ensure commercial effectiveness in the crew’s efficiencies and decisions on set by meeting shoot .

A bit about the role

• Manage, evolve and motivate a team of on-set Junior Art Directors including development planning, performance management and mentoring in a fast paced creative production environment.
• Ability to take initial direction from the Director of Digital Fashion and make it your own whilst possessing a collaborative approach to continuously evolving and defining the ultimate look and feel of all e-commerce fashion imagery.
• Ability to convert excellent brand and competitor knowledge across Womenswear and Menswear, ranging from High Street to Super Brands, and everything in between into aspirational and easy to interpret art direction for Photostudio teams to work with on-set.
• Develop and cascade the Selfridges Womenswear and Menswear Style Guides seasonally in order to maintain visual quality, aspirational image composition and consistency across all images taken for the website.
• Draw inspiration from a variety of fashion media to elevate the look and feel of posing and image composition, helping the Selfridges website remain fresh and forward thinking.
• Develop concepts for test shoots and work with Head of Photostudio Operations on evaluating and presenting the operational impact of proposed visual changes.
• Prepare and deliver regular presentations to Photostudio teams on how seasonal art direction it will be delivered day to day in the Photostudio.
• Ability to adapt art direction quickly to seasonal changes and micro trends.
• Be a final gate keeper for any art direction queries from all team members on set with the ability to make quick, commercial decisions for image composition and selection.
• Collaborate with the Fashion Direction team to translate key seasonal trend initiatives into product photography treatment.
• Calibrate with the Head of Photostudio Operations for effective production and on set efficiencies.
• Collaborate with Senior Castings Manager for model scouting according to Creative Direction.
• Collaborate with Senior Studio Production Manager for new and existing talent and artist scouting/scheduling.
• Develop cross departmental relationships with senior stakeholders.
• Lead and inspire, living the Selfridges values.

A bit about you

This role requires a highly creative and conceptual person, with strong communication skills, excellent presentation skills and a very strong fashion aspirational visual focus.

• Experience in Art Direction/Creative Fashion Styling with luxury brands.

• Strong ability to articulate creative vision and conceptual ideas in a way that is easily understood and engaging, whilst evolving the fashion direction to be at the forefront of the luxury fashion industry.
• Previous people management experience in a fast paced creative/photographic production environment
• Ability to see the bigger picture beyond creative direction with a good understanding in production and model casting.
• Highly professional to manage senior stakeholder relationships.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Pro-active and flexible ‘can do’ attitude, maintaining a sense of calm in a fast paced studio environment.
• Past E-commerce experience is desirable

A bit about us

We are a shop run on imagination: a place where the world’s most covetable brands combine with the most extraordinary spectacles, events and ideas for an experience like no other.

We have challenged the rules of retail from day one, whilst demonstrating our unwavering commitment to sustainability.  In 2016, we were the first to be awarded with recognition for the ‘World’s Best Sustainability Campaign by a Department Store’ at the IGDS Global Department Store Summit, in-line with its focus on buying better and inspiring change. We are also recognised as the Best Department Store in the World (2010, 2012, 2014 & 2018) underlining our place at the forefront of retail. In 2018 we were recognised as a LinkedIn Top Company to work for.

Our vision is to be the destination for the most extraordinary customer experience, and our people are central to us achieving this.  As an employer we are committed to making Selfridges an exciting, inspiring and fun place to work