Director of Design Concept, Color & Trend
Gap Inc. · SF 2 Folsom
About the Role
The Director of Design Concept, Color & Trend is responsible for defining and articulating the seasonal creative vision across the brand. This person should have exceptional taste, an instinctive understanding of fashion and culture, and an obsessive curiosity about what is happening and what is coming next.They will translate global fashion, runway, cultural and consumer signals into a clear, distinctive, and commercially relevant seasonal point of view, providing the creative north star for Design and Product teams.
What You'll Do
- Set the overarching seasonal concept and creative direction, including mood, colour, silhouette, proportion, key items, materials, print, pattern, and styling.
- Maintain an exceptional and highly developed taste level, ensuring the brand consistently feels modern, relevant, desirable, and differentiated.
- Have a finger on the pulse of fashion and culture, continuously identifying emerging ideas, shifts in taste and new sources of influence.
- Possess an encyclopaedic knowledge of the competitive landscape, from global luxury and runway to contemporary brands, specialty retail, and emerging designers.
- Follow and analyse runway collections, distilling the most important shifts in silhouette, proportion, colour, fabrication, styling, and attitude.
- Identify and interpret both macro and micro trends, distinguishing meaningful movements from short-lived noise and identifying signals before they reach mass adoption.
- Look beyond fashion to art, design, interiors, architecture, music, film, travel, hospitality, street style, social media, and broader culture to anticipate where taste is moving.
- Translate inspiration and trend intelligence into a clear and ownable brand point of view.
- Partner closely with Design, Merchandising and Product Development to ensure the seasonal concept translates cohesively across categories and customer touchpoints.
- Influence fabric, material, trim, print, and colour direction and ensure they ladder back to the overarching seasonal vision.
- Lead compelling seasonal concept presentations that inspire and align the broader organisation around the creative vision.
- Build, lead, and develop a high-performing team while fostering curiosity, creativity, and a relentless pursuit of excellence.
Who You Are
- You have exceptional taste and an innate fashion instinct. This is fundamental to the role.
- You are genuinely obsessed with fashion and consume runway, retail, culture, and emerging trends continuously.
- You know the competitive landscape intimately who is winning, what is new, what is selling, what is becoming culturally relevant and why.
- You can walk out of the runway season and articulate not simply what you saw, but what matters and what will matter 12–24 months from now and what is relevant and matters to Banana Republic.
- You have an exceptional eye for colour, silhouette, proportion, styling, fabrication, and product.
- You are equally comfortable identifying a major macro shift and spotting a tiny cultural signal that could become the next big idea.
- You combine creative intuition with commercial intelligence and understand how to translate directional ideas into product customers want.
- You have a strong and distinctive point of view but can edit ruthlessly through the lens of the brand.
- You are an inspiring storyteller and communicator who can bring a creative vision to life and influence senior leaders and cross-functional teams.
- You have significant experience setting seasonal direction within a leading fashion, specialty, or lifestyle brand.
- You have demonstrated experience leading and developing creative talent.