R Diduch

Responsible for creative as well as technical design and marketing, I lead a rebranding effort at America's oldest tailored clothing manufacturer. A complete overhaul of product offering requiring all new pattern libraries and a redesign of manufacturing processes, teaching a factory which had only made fused suits how to produce semi-traditional half-canvas clothing. New product launched Fall 2015 and one of our signature items won the style category of the Made in the South Awards from the prestigious Garden and Gun magazine.

Leading the technical design department for Hart Schaffner & Marx, I was responsible for all aspects of pattern making & grading, technical specifications and garment construction in a semi-engineered men's tailored clothing factory.

I created the Peter Millar tailored clothing collection for Empire Clothing Ltd. Also included in my responsibilities were all aspects of design, patterns and garment construction for the Tommy Hilfiger, Kenneth Cole and Biella lines of tailored clothing, and created the capsule collection called Not Your Father's Suit.

With a team of seven Korean technicians, I oversaw the technical set-up of a brand new semi-traditional, half-canvas tailored clothing factory in Acajete Mexico for the Korean company Cambridge Members. Almost five hundred new employees were hired and trained to sew tailored clothing in a factory which now produces for My Suit, Brooks Borthers and Jos. A. Banks.

I oversaw the design and quality departments of a fully-engineered tailored clothing factory which produced, among others, tailored clothing for Nautica and J. Press. Previously a domestic manufacturer only, I helped set up an import department drawing on experience gained at Utex Fashion Group.

I worked in the design department of a pioneering importer of tailored clothing. One of the first Canadian companies to import clothing from many parts of the world, I traveled extensively to factories all over Asia and eastern Europe to oversee patterns, quality control, and garment construction. I also developed an inventory-control and production planning database for Park Row, the tailored clothing division of the company, when it became obvious that the production planning software being used for other divisions was unable to handle the particular needs of that division and resulting in multi-million dollar trim inventory overstock in multiple overseas factories. The new planning system I developed allowed us to control the use of the overstock inventories and put in place production planning procedures which eliminated these overages in subsequent production as well as created purchasing requisitions which eliminated production delays and costly air shipments.