Home topics small-business-resources general General General Wayne’s World Guest Author January 18, 2007 Behind the glamour and beyond the catwalk, Wayne Cooper’s fashion empire is built on savvy business skills, passionate ideas, and an instinct for knowing what customers want a year or more before they know they want it. By Camille Howard His mates had him pegged as a trendsetter from an early age. And apart from a brief diversion to law school, Wayne Cooper’s passion for a career in fashion has never wavered. Drawing inspiration from his parents’ sense of dress, Cooper believes his working class upbringing in London’s East End fostered the creative compulsion that has made him a leader in Australia’s fashion industry. "You don’t seem to get the upper or middle classes driving fashion, it seems to be the working class people," he explains in his native cockney accent. "If you grow up in council flats, you’re not born into wealth and so feeling good is looking good … you can get away from the life you’re living by the way you dress and where you go out." After leaving school with top marks, he considered his father’s advice to become a doctor or a lawyer. Medicine was the most unappealing and so he went off to law school. "I didn’t really want to be a lawyer, I just did it." But supported himself by working in fashion while he trained to be a barrister. It was the excessive 80s, and during this time he