I found this talk incredibly inspiring and I will be contacting Wayne about some of his work.
One of the statements which Wayne made at the start of his talk was that creative subjects have the lowest truancy rate at key stage 4. This proves that people want to learn about creative subjects because they enjoy them.
- Started Red or Dead with his wife Geradine
- A trustee on the Design Council board
- Met his wife at a disco in Burnley
- Gerdine used to make her own clothes
- He used to wear second hand clothes
- He formed a band with some friends in London
- Sold his wifes creations of Camden market to pay rent
- They earn £100 the first day but wanted to be on the front stalls
- They got up one morning very early and got a bus to Camden to get the front stall, they did and doubled their takings
- They got their clothes from Dewsbury in a shoddy yard which is where all of the unwanted clothes were sorted and recycled
- He paid the workers 50p per garment for anything which he could sell at Camden
- Doc Martens were the most popular and brought the most money
- His wife started to make clothes on Kensington market and got an order one day from Macy's in New York
- Wayne and Gerdine's family helped out with second hand machinery and completed the order for Macy's
- This was when they came up with the red or dead label
- They developed a pair of shoes with a watch on the front and asked lots of different shoe manufacturers to make them, all of them said yes bar one man Frank Wright who had some questions about their brand name
- He wanted to know what it stood for and put Wayne under some grilling questions which prompted him to go away with his wife and think about their name and what it stood for
- At the time there was a cold war between America and Russia and people used to chant better to be red than dead. This meant that they would rather be Russian than go to war with America
- They decided that they stood for affordable design which was fashionable
- They wanted 60 pairs of shoes making - Frank made 432 pairs for them
- Design to Wayne means - Making life better
- 'Design is improving things that matter in life'
- They opened 23 shops within the UK and turned over £2.5 million before they sold it
- Wayne had very strong opinions about the housing in the UK and believed that children were growing up and becoming criminals because they were not allowed to play or mingle with other people when they were growing up
- He made his opinions known and was banned from many different places in the UK
- Wimpy approached him to develop 780 homes in Gateshead, he and his wife did this and it has changed the way of living for families who live there
- 'Design thinking is more important than physical manifestation'
- Wayne is all about recycling and being sustainable
- He is currently designing the most sustainable uniforms for McDonalds and the London Underground
- He is also working with Coca Cola to produce a bottle made from sugar cane
At the end of the talk he opened up the floor to questions and one man called him out on his work with McDonalds stating that they are a bad company who sell fatty foods. Wayne was very strong about how he replied and informed us about the different ways in which McDonalds are sustainable and eco friendly:
- They have won awards for working the best with farmers
- They sell more apples and grapes than Tesco
- Their trucks run on fat from both them and their competitors
I found his answer to the question both enlightening and inspiring and I would now consider McDonalds to be a ethical company who do care about the environment.
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