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Wayne Hemingway MBE

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Wayne believes in the supremacy of design, whether in clothes or in buildings. At the height of his fame as a fashion designer, he sold his iconic company, Red or Dead and turned his attention to social housing

Wayne Hemingway was born in 1961 in Morecambe. Wayne’s earliest memories are of his mother and grandmother dressing him up as Elvis, a Beatle or Tarzan and being paraded up and down Morecambe pier or being held aloft in a wrestling ring by his Native American father, Billy Two Rivers. These early child-modeling stints went some way towards influencing the youth who was forever experimenti...

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...ng with styles and cultures and reinventing himself whenever the next big “thing” came along.

The young and multicultural Hemingway left school with 10 O' Levels and 4 A' Levels. In 1979 he gained a Degree in Geography and Town Planning at University College, London.

The move that sealed Wayne's fate was taken to fuel funds for the band that he then played in. One day he decided to empty his wardrobe and that of his childhood sweetheart (now wife Gerardine) and took the contents to sell on Camden Market. The realization that money could be made from fashion suddenly dawned.

With Gerardine, Wayne built Red or Dead into a label that received global acclaim resulting in winning the prestigious British Fashion Council's Streetstyle Designer of the Year Award for an unprecedented 3 consecutive years in 1996, 1997 & 1998. After 21 seasons on the catwalk at London Fashion Week they sold Red or Dead in a multi-million pound cash sale.

In 1999 they set up their own design company specialising in affordable and social design. The highest profile projects are The Staiths South Bank and an 800 property mass-market housing project on Tyneside for Taylor Wimpey, where they are involved from the master planning and architecture through to the landscaping and marketing of this groundbreaking project. The Staiths has won a series of high profile awards including Housing Design Awards and Building Magazine's 'Best Housing-Led Regeneration Project'.

Working with Taylor Wimpey and Broadway Malyan they worked on the master-plan for one of the first Thames Gateway schemes in Dartford and won against stiff opposition.
Wayne is the Chairman of Building for Life, a CABE (Commission for Architecture and The Built Environment) funded organization that promotes excellence in the quality of design of new housing. He received an MBE in the June 2006 Queens Birthday List, is a Professor in The Built Environment Department of Northumbria University, a Doctor of Design at Wolverhampton, Lancaster and Stafford and a Fellow of Blackburn College. Wayne is currently part of the panel for The Eco Towns Challenge.

Hemingway has been a regular columnist for Sublime Magazine - the world's fist international sustainable lifestyle magazine. Sublime is a portrait format, glossy publication aimed at the main stream market

Wayne Hemingway is highly sought-after for presenting talks on housing, urban design, education and the creative sector and is a host of creative industries related awards events.

Feedback on recent presentations includes:

“A huge thank you for coming to Inverness last week and for investing so much of your time and energy into your presentation for the Six Cities Festival - it was fantastic. Your talk was inspirational and went down extremely well - you certainly gave me food for thought and lots of useful information” Julie Fenby, The Lighthouse

“Wayne went down a storm as always! The audience really like him because he is a great speaker, very entertaining and gets the crowd involved. Cheers!” Tara Codling, National Housing Federation