Born and raised in Morecambe, Wayne Hemingway is one of Britain’s most acclaimed designers. In the early 1980s, Wayne and his wife Gerardine opened a stall on Camden Market selling vintage and handmade clothes from their own wardrobes. 12 months later, they had sixteen second-hand clothing stalls, their own clothing designs and a new brand: Red or Dead. From there, Wayne and Gerardine built Red or Dead into a globally-celebrated label and, after 21 consecutive seasons on the catwalk, sold it in a multi-million-pound deal. In 1999, fresh from the sale of Red or Dead, Wayne and Gerardine embarked on a new adventure: HemingwayDesign. And the rest, they say, is history.

Wayne spent 6 years as a Design Council Trustee Board and having been with CABE for a decade since its inception (as Chair of Building For Life), has been a Mayors London Leader and currently supports the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan as a Design Advocate. He is an advisor to House of Commons Select Committees on coastal regeneration, got an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list of 2006, is a Professor in The Built Environment Department of Northumbria University, a Doctor of Design at Wolverhampton, Lancaster and Stafford, and an Honorary Fellow of Blackburn College, the University of Cumbria  and Regents University. (Just call him Prof, Doc, Doc, Doc Wayne Hemingway MBE, BSc, MA, Esquire.)