Lead Fashion Stylist

Bradfield Consulting Limited - Our client, a fashion and retail company, is recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Lead Fashion Stylist

Location: Lagos
Employment Type: Full-time
Department: Visual Merchandising

Job Description

• The Lead Fashion Stylist is responsible for planning, executing, and maintaining exceptional fashion styling and visual merchandising standards that bring the brand's collections to life across all retail locations.
• The role ensures every store delivers a premium and inspiring shopping experience through compelling product presentation, creative visual storytelling, professional fashion styling, and consistent brand execution that drives customer engagement, impulse buying, upselling, and cross-selling.

Key Responsibilities
Strategic & Team Leadership:

• Provide leadership, creative direction, and styling direction to the Fashion Styling and Visual Merchandising team.
• Collaborate with Retail Operations, Commercial, E-commerce, Brand & Marketing, Category, Buying, and Product Development teams to deliver seasonal retail and brand objectives.
• Develop and implement store-specific visual merchandising and styling strategies aligned with the brand identity, seasonal collections, customer profile, and commercial objectives.
• Provide creative guidance on overall product presentation, styling standards, and brand aesthetics across all retail locations.

Seasonal Styling & Creative Planning:

• Develop and execute seasonal styling, campaign, and photoshoot calendars.
• Develop complete seasonal looks, outfit combinations, and styling concepts across different product categories, age groups, and customer segments.
• Lead the styling direction for new collections, campaigns, product launches, lookbooks, and brand content.
• Assign tasks to the VM and Styling team and ensure timely execution of all visual merchandising and styling initiatives.
• Coordinate cross-functional support for seasonal campaigns, collection launches, and in-store activations.
• Create and approve mood boards, colour stories, styling direction, and creative concepts for campaigns and photoshoots.

In-Store Product Knowledge & Training:

• Train store teams on professional fashion styling, product knowledge, outfit building, colour combinations, layering, accessorising, and visual merchandising techniques to support upselling and cross-selling.
• Develop and update fashion product knowledge materials, styling guides, and line sheets.
• Communicate seasonal fashion trends, collection stories, key looks, and product pairings to store teams.
• Guide store teams on how to create complete and commercially relevant looks for customers.

Window Display & Store Visual Execution:

• Oversee the design and execution of window displays across all stores, ensuring consistency with approved seasonal themes and brand campaigns.
• Ensure timely window refreshes in line with merchandising and collection launch calendars.
• Monitor the presentation and cleanliness of window displays, signage, display fixtures, tills, and acrylic displays to maintain premium brand standards.
• Ensure styling and visual presentation across stores consistently reflect the brand's identity and current collections.

In-Store Merchandising Compliance:

• Ensure products are merchandised according to colour stories, size, age range, collection themes, and brand guidelines.
• Create complete fashion looks by coordinating apparel, footwear, and accessories across all product categories.
• Develop and execute commercially relevant looks that reflect current fashion trends, seasonal collections, and the brand's target customer.
• Ensure mannequins, display tables, feature walls, and fixtures showcase commercially relevant collections and seasonal highlights.
• Source props, display materials, and styling accessories while maintaining consistency across all retail locations.
• Conduct regular store visits to monitor styling and visual merchandising standards and recommend improvements where required.

Mannequin Styling Management:

• Ensure mannequins are styled with complete fashion looks that reflect seasonal trends and brand aesthetics.
• Coordinate apparel, footwear, and accessories to inspire customers and promote outfit building.
• Maintain mannequin cleanliness, symmetry, styling quality, and strong visual focal points.
• Ensure displayed merchandise is available on the shop floor to maximise customer conversion.
• Regularly refresh mannequin styling in line with new collections, campaigns, seasons, and commercial priorities.

Photoshoot Management:

• Manage the planning, styling, execution, and delivery of seasonal fashion campaigns, lookbooks, and product photoshoots.
• Provide hands-on styling direction during photoshoots, including outfit selection, accessories, colour coordination, layering, and overall look development.
• Coordinate merchandise movement for photoshoots and ensure proper documentation and timely returns.
• Ensure timely delivery of high-quality images and videos for digital marketing, e-commerce, social media, and in-store communication.
• Source photoshoot locations and coordinate photographers, models, stylists, and creative partners.

Research & Trend Analysis:

• Research global fashion, lifestyle, retail, and visual merchandising trends to inform styling and merchandising strategies.
• Benchmark leading international fashion brands and best-in-class visual merchandising practices.
• Recommend innovative styling concepts and merchandising ideas that enhance the customer experience and strengthen the brand's premium positioning.
• Stay updated on emerging fashion trends, styling techniques, colour trends, and consumer preferences relevant to the brand's target market.

Requirements
Technical Competencies:

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent in Fashion Merchandising, Fashion Design, Retail Management, Business Administration, or a related discipline with 6 – 7 years' experience in fashion styling, visual merchandising, fashion retail, or a related creative fashion environment.
• Retail Fashion, Visual Merchandising, or Fashion Styling certification is an added advantage.
• Strong knowledge of fashion retail environments, store layouts, display fixtures, mannequins, and premium visual merchandising standards.
• Proven experience in fashion styling, campaign execution, photoshoots, look creation, and visual storytelling.
• Strong ability to create complete and commercially relevant fashion looks across different product categories.
• Experience working with fashion collections, product launches, lookbooks, campaigns, or retail styling is highly desirable.

Behavioural Competencies:

• Highly creative with exceptional fashion sense, artistic ability, and colour intelligence.
• Strong understanding of fashion trends, customer buying behaviour, and premium retail presentation.
• Excellent planning, prioritisation, and time management skills.
• Detail-oriented with strong visual judgement and commercial awareness.
• Confident communicator with excellent training, coaching, and team leadership capability.
• Energetic, collaborative, innovative, and results-driven.