Wardrobe Manager
The Wardrobe Manager runs the owner's clothes. On the biggest private yachts, the principal family can keep hundreds of garments aboard, plus shoes, bags, jewellery and formalwear for every event in the season. You keep it all clean, pressed, mended, catalogued and ready to wear. It is a specialist interior post, and you mostly find it on yachts over 80m.
The jobWhat fills the day
The work covers every garment the principals bring aboard. You hand wash silk and cashmere, steam and press tailoring, clean leather and suede, and treat stains before they set. You keep a photographed inventory of each item, organised by person, season and colour. You do minor alterations and repairs, replace buttons, and know which pieces must go to a specialist ashore in Monaco, Antibes or Palma. You also look after shoes, handbags, hats and watch winders, and keep the dressing rooms in order.
When the owner is aboard, the job is about timing. You unpack before the family reaches their cabins, lay out outfits for dinners ashore, and repack for a jet leaving Nice at short notice. Between trips you clean and store everything, rotate seasonal wardrobes, ship items to and from the family's homes, and get ready for the next arrival. On a charter yacht the role is rare. Where it does exist, it serves guests on a 140m-plus yacht who arrive with trunks of couture.
Captains and interior managers hire people with proven garment care skills. Good backgrounds include laundry stews on large yachts, valets and wardrobe staff from private residences, theatre and film wardrobe departments, luxury fashion retail and couture ateliers. Discretion comes first. You will handle very valuable items and see a lot of the family's private life, so references from earlier households or yachts carry real weight. You need to be organised, calm under pressure and good at quiet, accurate record keeping.
Most people get here through a yacht laundry or housekeeping role. Others come from private service ashore. From Wardrobe Manager, the usual next step is Head of Housekeeping, then Interior Manager on a large yacht. Some move to a family's land-based estates as a house manager or personal wardrobe manager and follow the principals between homes. A few go freelance and look after collections for several owners during refit periods.
Skills captains look for
- Couture and fine fabric care
- Stain removal and pressing
- Alterations and repairs
- Wardrobe inventory systems
- Packing and unpacking
- Discretion with principals
- Shoe and leather care
A day aboardOwner on board, 110m motor yacht, Porto Cervo
Check the laundry from overnight, finish pressing the owner's linen shirts and hang them in the master dressing room.
Briefing with the Interior Manager on the day's plans: lunch at a beach club, then a formal dinner ashore.
Lay out beachwear, cover-ups and sandals for each family member. Log the pieces in the inventory app.
Hand wash a silk evening dress and spot-clean a suede jacket while the family is off the yacht.
Lunch in the crew mess and a short rest in your cabin.
Steam and lay out evening wear, shoes and accessories, and take in a hem that was flagged last night.
Help the principal's partner with final dressing touches, then reset the dressing rooms as the family goes ashore.
Crew dinner, then an hour off on the aft crew deck.
Collect the evening clothes when the family gets back, treat any marks overnight, and plan tomorrow's packing for a flight out of Olbia.
Pay by yacht sizeMonthly, before tips. Estimates. Bars share one scale.
See the Stewardess & Interior Crew salary guide for figures from live adverts.
Tickets and visas
Must have
- STCW Basic Safety Training
- ENG1 medical
Gets you hired
- PDSD
- GUEST Housekeeping and Laundry course
- Tailoring or alterations training
- Textile or fashion qualification
- Private household or butler training
Visas
- Schengen
- US B1/B2
Where it leadsA typical career path
Stewardess & Interior Crew jobsOpen now on SuperyachtRoles.com
Questions crew ask
Do I need yachting experience to become a Wardrobe Manager?
Not always. Owners regularly hire people from private residences, couture houses or film and theatre wardrobe departments. You still need STCW and an ENG1, and you will be expected to muck in with the interior team during busy periods.
How is this different from a laundry stew?
A laundry stew handles linen, crew uniforms and general guest laundry. The Wardrobe Manager looks after the principals' own clothes. That means alterations, styling support, packing and a full inventory of very valuable items.
Are there many of these jobs?
Very few. The post mainly exists on large private yachts over 80m that have families aboard for long periods. Openings often go through personal recommendation, so references and discretion matter a great deal.
Is it a rotational role?
On 100m-plus private yachts it is often rotational, for example 10 weeks on and 10 off, with a back-to-back colleague who uses the same inventory system. On smaller yachts it is usually a permanent post with standard annual leave.