Editorial Director

Madewell • New York, NY

5d • $136,000 - $175,500 • Hybrid

About The Position

Madewell’s Brand Creative team is looking for a strategic, highly creative, and customer-focused Copy Director to lead and evolve the Madewell brand voice across every customer touchpoint. Reporting to the SVP, Marketing, this role will lead the Copy team and own the development and execution of Madewell’s voice across brand campaigns, product storytelling, digital, social, paid media, e-commerce, retail, and emerging channels.
The Copy Director will be a key creative and strategic partner across Marketing and Creative, translating brand and business strategy into compelling ideas, messaging, and storytelling that build brand relevance and drive customer engagement. This person should believe deeply in the partnership between words and visuals and be equally comfortable developing a campaign concept, shaping a headline, establishing a messaging hierarchy, or editing the details of a customer-facing execution.
The ideal candidate is a solution-oriented creative leader with a strong understanding of fashion, retail, culture, and the customer. They are a strong conceptual thinker and a tireless iterator who can take a strategic brief and find multiple compelling ways to solve it. They bring a keen grasp of language, campaign concepting, storytelling, editing, and verbal and written communication.
This role also requires a highly collaborative and organized leader who can establish clear standards and processes, manage a high volume of work, and ensure a consistent and distinctive Madewell voice across channels and customer experiences.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in copywriting, editorial, or brand creative roles, with significant experience developing consumer-facing brand and marketing work; fashion, retail, lifestyle, or editorial experience strongly preferred.
• 3+ years of experience leading and developing writers, including full-time and freelance talent.
• Demonstrated experience defining, evolving, and stewarding a distinctive brand voice across multiple channels and customer touchpoints.
• A portfolio demonstrating exceptional writing, conceptual thinking, campaign development, product storytelling, and brand-building work.
• Strong experience developing integrated campaign concepts and messaging systems, from high-level creative ideas through channel-specific execution.
• Exceptional writing and editing skills with an ability to move fluidly between brand storytelling, campaign messaging, product copy, and highly concise performance-driven communications.
• Strong understanding of fashion, retail, culture, and consumer behavior, with an instinct for how brands can participate in culture in a relevant and authentic way.
• Ability to balance brand building and commercial objectives, understanding how creative work can simultaneously strengthen brand perception and drive customer action.
• Comfortable using customer, channel, and performance insights to inform creative decisions and continuously improve the work.
• Highly collaborative with demonstrated ability to influence and build strong partnerships across Creative, Marketing, Product, Merchandising, E-commerce, Retail, and senior leadership.
• Exceptional organizational skills and the ability to prioritize, make decisions, and maintain creative quality within a fast-moving, high-volume environment.
• A generous and effective creative leader who can provide clear direction, inspire strong work, and create an environment where writers can develop and do their best work.

Nice To Haves

• We welcome you to apply, even if you don't check all the boxes. Our passion is scouting life-long learners who are driven by curiosity, and who feel connected to our brands and share our desire to make an impact. We’re always seeking bright new talent who leverage their unique experiences to discover, grow and evolve with our teams.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the Madewell brand voice, establishing a distinctive, recognizable point of view that reflects the brand strategy, customer, and cultural context.
• Lead copy strategy and creative concepting for major brand campaigns, seasonal initiatives, product launches, collaborations, and key marketing moments, partnering closely with Creative and Marketing leadership from brief through execution.
• Translate marketing and business strategy into compelling customer-facing messaging, developing clear messaging hierarchies and storytelling frameworks that connect brand positioning with product and customer needs.
• Lead the Copy team, providing creative direction, mentorship, feedback, and development while establishing a high bar for conceptual thinking, writing, editing, and execution.
• Oversee copy across the full customer journey, including campaigns, paid advertising, social, email, site, product storytelling, retail, partnerships, experiential, and other brand touchpoints.
• Partner closely with Art and Design to develop integrated creative ideas in which copy and visual expression work together to create a cohesive and compelling brand experience.
• Shape product storytelling and naming, partnering with Product Marketing, Merchandising, and Creative to develop compelling narratives around key products, franchises, innovation, quality, fit, and design.
• Develop and maintain brand voice guidelines, messaging frameworks, naming principles, and other tools that create a shared understanding of the Madewell voice across internal teams and external partners.
• Bring a strong customer and cultural perspective to the work, staying connected to fashion, culture, language, media, and evolving customer behaviors to ensure Madewell remains relevant and distinctive.
• Use customer and performance insights to strengthen creative, partnering with Marketing, Social, CRM, Paid Media, and E-commerce teams to understand what resonates and apply learnings without compromising the integrity of the brand voice.
• Serve as the senior editorial authority for the brand, ensuring consistency, clarity, quality, and tone across high-visibility customer-facing communications.
• Partner cross-functionally with Brand Marketing, Product Marketing, Social, Influencer, E-commerce, Retail, Merchandising, Legal, and other teams to ensure copy supports both brand and business objectives.
• Partner with Creative Operations to establish and continuously improve briefing, review, approval, and go-to-market processes that allow the Copy team to operate effectively at scale.
• Manage internal and freelance copy resources, identifying additional talent and support as needed while maintaining consistency and quality across the work.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, prescription and vision insurance
• Family planning (fertility, adoption & surrogacy support)
• Fitness discounts
• Medical travel
• Associate discount across all of our brands (J.Crew, J.Crew Factory, and Madewell)
• Summer Fridays (office closes at 1:00 PM every Friday during Summer months)
• Community Impact support through philanthropic efforts and the J.Crew Cares Program
• Winter Break (end of December for eligible full-time associates at the Home Office)
• PTO package

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: No Education Listed