Wayne Hemingway

About

Wayne is one of Britain’s most acclaimed designers, and co-founder of Red or Dead. He is also chairman of the South Coast Design Forum, and chair of Building For Life (the national standard for well-designed homes and neighbourhoods forum).

In 1983, Wayne (Wayne Andrew Hemingway, MBE) and his then girlfriend (now his wife Gerardine) opened a shop in fashionable Kensington, London, selling Geraldine’s self-made clothes, designed by him. That same year, the first Red or Dead collection was also created, inspired from Russian peasant clothing. It was well received and they obtained a huge order from US department store Macy’s.

With Gerardine, Wayne built Red or Dead into a fashion 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 and 1998.

In 1999, having sold Red or Dead they set up HemingwayDesign, which specializes in affordable and social design. The highest profile project was, The Staiths South Bank, a 800 property mass market housing project on Tyneside for Taylor Wimpey Homes where HemingwayDesign are involved from the master planning, the architecture through to the landscaping and marketing of this groundbreaking project.

Over 400 homes are now lived in and The Staiths has won a series of high profile awards including Housing Design Awards (best large project) and Building Magazine’s “Best Housing-Led Regeneration Project” as well as a Building For Life and the highest rating of any large-scale scheme in a recent CABE audit.

Other major projects include ‘The Bridge Dartford’, a development of 1000 designer homes in Kent.

Wayne and Gerardine were both appointed MBE in 2006, for services to the design industry, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Wayne has made various appearances on the TV show Soccer AM.

Wayne has developed an excellent reputation on the after dinner circuit with his fascinating insight into the fashion industry.