Director - Specialty Materials

THE ROLE

Director of Specialty Materials

This role ensures that every product made from leather, denim, silk, synthetics, and novelty wovens meets Quince's uncompromising standards for quality, sustainability, and affordability.

The Director blends deep technical expertise in material science with strategic supply chain leadership and cross-functional collaboration, serving as the central hub connecting sourcing, production, quality, and design teams across global markets.

Strategic Leadership & Innovation

Define the Material Vision: Set the global raw materials strategy for leather, denim, silk, synthetics, and novelty wovens, ensuring it aligns with Quince's design, quality, sustainability, and margin objectives. You will be a true creative partner to the design team, proactively bringing new material innovations, sustainable technologies, and emerging trends to the table.

Drive Innovation Across Material Categories: Lead the research and development of new materials, finishes, and technologies across a diverse portfolio including leather, denim, silk, synthetics, and novelty wovens. This includes pushing boundaries in sustainable sourcing, unique washes, dyes, finishes, and performance-enhancing treatments.

Manage a Comprehensive Material Portfolio: Build and maintain a holistic material library, overseeing everything from seasonal innovations to core, "platformed" materials that can be reused to improve efficiency, consistency, and speed-to-market.

Champion Cost Leadership: Continuously identify cost-optimization opportunities across the supply chain—from raw material to finished goods—without compromising ethical standards or product integrity, bringing Quince's "unreal prices" mission to life.

Lead Cross-Category Material Strategy: Provide strategic direction for all specialty materials, ensuring that innovations and best practices from leather, denim, silk, synthetics, and novelty wovens are shared and leveraged across the organization.

End-to-End Sourcing & Production

Sourcing & Supplier Development: Build and curate a best-in-class global supplier network spanning tanneries, mills, dye houses, and vertical partners across all material categories. This involves negotiating lead times, capacity, and pricing, while ensuring suppliers meet Quince's quality, sustainability, and labor standards.

Production Oversight: Own the material pipeline from raw materials through to finished goods, including leather, denim, silk, synthetics, and novelty wovens. Collaborate closely with production teams to proactively troubleshoot issues during sampling and mass-production, ensuring all materials are "market-ready" at scale.

Quality Assurance: Establish and oversee rigorous testing protocols for performance, regulatory, and chemical compliance across all specialty materials—including tensile strength, color fastness, pilling resistance, leather durability, abrasion resistance, and wash performance. You are accountable for ensuring all materials meet end-use requirements and luxury brand parity.

Production Cost Management: Ensure all material sourcing decisions align with established pricing architectures and margin targets, working with merchandising on cost engineering to optimize quality and profitability across every category.

Drive Traceability & Transparency: Partner with certification bodies (LWG, GOTS, OEKO-TEX, REACH) to ensure chain-of-custody integrity and full transparency from raw material origin to finished product.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Business Alignment

Cross-Functional Alignment: Act as a key connector between Design, Merchandising, Product Development, Production, and Supply Planning. Translate business needs into sourcing solutions and ensure the material strategy supports overall commercial goals across all product categories.

Translate Vision into Technical Briefs: Convert design and merchandising visions into clear, manufacturable technical specifications for suppliers—leather grades, denim weights, weave structures, silk types, synthetic formulations, and finishing treatments—that are achievable at scale and cost.

Lead and Mentor Material Experts: Manage, coach, and inspire a specialized global team of material experts across leather, denim, silk, synthetics, and novelty wovens. Set clear goals, manage performance, and develop talent within the team.

Business & Financial Accountability: Own the business alignment for all specialty material sourcing, making strategic decisions on material direction, quality escalations, and overrides to balance creative ambition with profitability.

Lead Cross-Category Evaluations: Facilitate blind panels with design, merchandising, and customer focus groups to validate luxury material perception, handfeel, and color accuracy across all categories before commercialization.

Foster Knowledge Sharing: Drive collaboration among material experts, ensuring innovations and learnings from each category (e.g., sustainable dyeing techniques from denim, finishing innovations from leather, synthetic advancements) are shared to elevate the entire material portfolio.

People Leadership & Business Alignment

Lead and Mentor the Team: Guide a diverse, specialized team of sourcing managers, quality engineers, and production experts, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and technical excellence.

Set Clear Goals & Develop Talent: Establish performance objectives, manage team development, and build a pipeline of future leaders within the organization.

Own Business & Financial Accountability: Make strategic decisions on material direction, quality escalations, and material overrides to balance creative ambition with profitability and margin targets.

Qualifications

Required

Degree in Textile Science, Material Science, Supply Chain Management, Color Chemistry, or related field.

15+ years of experience in material sourcing, production, quality management, or coloration for apparel, accessories, or home textiles, with expertise across leather, denim, silk, synthetics, and wovens.

Deep technical knowledge of leather tanning, denim weaving and washing, silk production, synthetic manufacturing, and woven construction techniques.

Proven leadership experience managing cross-functional teams and material experts in a fast-paced retail or manufacturing environment, with a track record of mentoring and developing talent.

Strong cost analysis skills: cost modeling, yield optimization, landed cost analysis, and budget management across multiple material categories.

Experience building and maintaining quality standards and supplier compliance programs, including SKU rationalization and shade consolidation.

Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred

Experience with sustainable materials, circularity initiatives, and eco-friendly processing across multiple material types.

Knowledge of supply chain traceability, including blockchain or digital tracking systems.

Familiarity with PLM systems and quality database management.

Background in luxury goods (apparel, home, and accessories) with an eye for premium aesthetics, handfeel, and trend forecasting across diverse material categories.

Experience managing a multi-category material portfolio and cross-functional teams of specialized experts.