OnCourseInnovation Leadership Programme

The interviewees at our third OnCourse event were Sue Copeland, design director of menswear at Paul Smith and Simon Burnett-Boothroyd, sales and brand development manager at Toray Textiles.

 

Sue's career has spanned work in the Italian fashion industry, before she became a designer in the Conran Design Group. Sue has also been the head designer of both Esprit's Sports and Womenswear Divisions in San Francisco.

 

Her role within Paul Smith involves directing a team of people working towards four menswear collections and four accessories collections a year.  This involves a hands-on role with Sue still designing a large portion of each collection. The six-month design calendar consists of: theme, fabrics, prints, styling, merchandising, showroom and show.

 

Sue is a passionate believer in the importance of design innovation within all industries and has regularly lectured at the Design Museum on this subject.

 

Toray Textiles Europe Limited is a vertical manufacturer of synthetic woven fabrics with an annual capacity of around 20 million metres. Established in 1992 it is now the largest polyester woven manufacturer in Europe specialising in medical and technical textiles and fabrics.

 

Simon Burnett-Boothroyd joined Toray in 2005 as sales and brand development manager after six years as an officer in the Parachute Regiment and eight years with the trading business ITOCHU.