History

1982
Wayne and Gerardine empty their wardrobes onto a small market stall in Camden. By the end of the year, they’ve got 16 stalls across London.

1983
Gerardine opens an outlet in Kensington Market selling her self-designed and self-made clothes. The debut Red or Dead collection is an immediate success and a large order comes in from US department store, Macy’s. A small production unit and Red or Dead shop is opened in Blackburn, Lancashire by Wayne’s mum with assistance from Gerardine’s sisters. Red or Dead becomes the first ever retailer to sell Dr Martens as a fashion item.

1987
By now Red or Dead has stores open in Camden, Soho, Covent Garden and Manchester’s Affleck’s Palace and The Royal Exchange. There are regular queues outside shops due to the success of the ‘Watch Shoe’, as sported by teen band Bros.

1989
Red or Dead’s first catwalk collection, ‘Space Baby’ for spring/summer 1990, is shown to worldwide acclaim.

1991
Stores open in Copenhagen, Birmingham and London Kensington (a 3000 sq ft store made totally from recycled materials). SS91 ‘Shopping’ and AW91 ‘Liberace’ collections are shown.

1993
Further UK stores open and the Hemingways sign a contract to become the first designer shoe company to advise Marks and Spencer. SS93 ‘Russian Doll’ and AW93 ‘Skeleton’ collections show.

1994
Store opens in Tokyo. Wayne and Gerardine went on to work with Dr Martens in a very profound way – setting up an office, a team and establishing a Dr Martens clothing, accessories and retail arm. Wayne was the MD and Gerardine Design Director. In late November 1994, a five-storey Dr. Martens department store was opened in Covent Garden in London which also sold food, belts, and watches.

1995
Red or Dead win the British Fashion Council’s inaugural Street Style of the Year award.

1996
Wayne and Gerardine sell Red or Dead to the Pentland Group. They win Street Style of the Year Award for the second time. SS96 ‘New York Dolls’ and AW96 ‘Ism’ launch.

1997
Red or Dead wins Street Style of the Year for a third time running.

1999
The Hemingways sell the majority of their remaining shares and step away totally from Red or Dead.

2000
HemingwayDesign is founded with a mantra of “Design is about improving things that matter in life”. Wayne criticises the mass house building industry with the infamous Wimpeyfication and Barrattification piece in the Independent. Wimpey Homes contact the Hemingways and the Staiths South Bank 760 home development starts to be designed. First project: a collaboration with Milliken on a range of flooring known as Comfortable Concrete.

2001
Wayne and Gerardine dip their toes into office design with the major commercial building project for The Institute of Directors which wins Design Week’s Office Project of the Year. The wallpaper range ‘4Walls’ is designed for Graham & Brown.

2003
Phase 1 of The Staiths, HemingwayDesign’s mass-market housing development with Wimpey Homes, opens and wins Best Large Scale Housing Development of the Year. Check out the project page for all the other awards it won!

2006
Both Wayne and Gerardine are awarded MBEs for their services to design. The brand Shack Up launches.

2007
The range of wall murals with SurfaceView hits the shelves. HemingwayDesign develop a vision for The Bridge, a development of 1,500 homes in Dartford, Kent.

2009
The Boscombe Overstrand regeneration project launches and goes on to win Best Regeneration Led Scheme. Work begins on the social housing regeneration scheme Hillington Square in Kings Lynn. Gerardine wins silver medal at The RHS Chelsea Flower Show for her garden for Gateshead Council. With Wayne as a ‘London Leader’, Kiosk Kiosk is launched.

2010
The first Vintage Festival takes place on the Sussex Downs, a colossal 50,000 people attend and the event is voted Best New Festival at the 2010 Festival awards. The Dreamland Trust engage HemingwayDesign to work with them on a vision for Dreamland in Margate. For the full history of the Vintage Festival, click here.

2011
HemingwayDesign curate the Museum of 51 at Southbank Centre as part of the Festival of Britain 60th Anniversary Celebrations. Wayne joins the board of trustees for Design Council and DC CABE. Projects with Tanqueray, and Butlins are completed.

2012
The Hemingway team co-curate the official Diamond Jubilee Thames Pageant Festival in Battersea Park and 60,000 tickets are sold. A whole raft of design collaborations come to market, including collaborations with G Plan, Antler Luggage, Hush Puppies and John Lewis begin stocking Hemingway and Vintage products across six departments. Wayne writes the prescient article in the Guardian “The High Street is dead…Let’s Celebrate” which predicts future High Street turmoil.

2015
A Vintage New Year’s Eve returns to Southbank for a fourth year and Dreamland re-opens its hallowed gates to the public following its incredible restoration. The Festival of Thrift wins National Ethical Award at the Observer Ethical Awards. We launch Urban Village Fete – a new placemaking event for Greenwich Peninsula in the form of a contemporary twist on the traditional village fete. The Hemingway-designed Transport for London uniform rolls out across the network. Hillington Square wins Regional Planning Achievement Award 2015. The Hemingway-curated event Transatlantic 175 in Liverpool smashes the Guinness World Record for ‘Most People On a Catwalk’.

2016
Dreamland wins in the brand identity category at the Design Week Awards and the project receives a nomination for a Designs of the Year award in the Architecture category, with an installation in the newly opened Design Museum in Kensington. Our design team turn their hand to commercial interiors with a new shop fit out for Shelter using recycled materials, we launch a Forbo flooring range, a second collection with Royal Doulton and a product collaboration with the Imperial War Museum. Our uniform for Transport for London wins at the 2016 Professional Clothing Awards.

2017
We set up SAMPLE as a seasonal market at Greenwich Peninsula to celebrate shopping local, small and sustainable. Our uniform for Virgin Trains rolls out and we start a long running relationship with Lowestoft by producing a visionary masterplan for Lowestoft South Beach.
We create visions for large scale cultural buildings the Harris in Preston and the Guildhall in Portsmouth that aid future funding. We create a visual identity for the forthcoming Camden High Line.

2018
The HemingwayDesign-instigated National Festival of Making in Blackburn launches along with a supporting arts commissioning programme called Art in Manufacturing. The festival goes on to win Best Non Music Festival at the UK Festival Awards and Visit Lancashire’s Large Tourism event of the Year. Work commences with St. Modwen to refresh their brand as well as redesigning their offices to create a more productive and flexible workspace. Our team transform Newcastle’s Stephenson Building for The Great Exhibition of the North. Green Hills Blackburn wins Large Housing Development of the Year, Residential Property Awards 2018.

2019
Our new uniform design for Greater Anglia hits the tracks. We work on place brands for Bognor Regis and Berwick-upon-Tweed and win our biggest place brand project to date for the City of York. We work on new identities for Social Work England and The National Archives as well as the historic Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings for Historic England. We have a lot of fun with recycled materials developing the interiors for a flagship Shelter Boutique store at Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross. The inaugural First Light Festival brings 45,000 people to Lowestoft beach.

2020
Act 1 of The Good Business Festival morphs into a hybrid live-digital event in reaction to Covid, breaks the mould for digital events and reaches 43 countries. We start a relationship with MediaCity with a place brand and an idea to support the hospitality industry and local creatives with Box on the Docks – which also becomes one of the quickest projects ever, going from inception to opening in a matter of weeks. It’s the year of town centre visions and masterplans with projects in Kidderminster, Newbury, Andover, Scarborough and Boscombe. Crewe’s place brand is completed but our relationships there continue with other projects. Our love affair with the the coast continues with seafront visions completed for Bangor NI, Exmouth, and a masterplan for Scarborough harbour.

2021
Box on the Docks wins Placemaking Project of the Year at the Insider North West Property Awards. The place brand for Southend is completed. Our vision, brand and interior design of a co-working space in the disused baggage hall of Bognor Regis station The Track, is completed,
We publish the report ‘The Town Centre is dead, long live the Town Centre’
Interior design for the 200 year old Plymouth Market Hall is finished and picked up the Heritage Project of The Year award at the Michelmores Property Awards 2021. HemingwayDesign rebrand and relaunch with a shiny new website. We start our masterplan for the lively coastal town of Cleethorpes and a relationship with Redruth emerges.  We create, curate and produce The Drops for Argent in Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross. After a Covid-induced hiatus, Classic Car Boot Sale, Festival of Thrift and SAMPLE roar back to life.