Hi Candice, to start with, tell us who you are, and your journey so far?
Hi, I am Candice Dupré, I am 36 years old, a titi Parisian soul, mother of two wonderful beauties, eternal Stevie Wonder fan, and Earl Grey addict. I’ve done all sorts of things, professional jazz singer, movie set decorator, artistic director for agencies, entrepreneur… I am a creative spirit, always on the go for something to do.
Can you explain your job? Your missions?
I have always been passionate about design, craftwork, imagining ambiances and atmospheres, decors. I come from a family of artists and antique dealers. As a kid, I used to construct loads of things… playdough made sceneries, mock-ups from paintings. I trained with the Arts Appliques in Paris and I am a freelancer since then, working for myself. That allowed me to multiply my experiences, and diversify my projects, one day delivering for the Opera of Paris, another a communication agency, a movie set, style offices or even magazine shootings. I co-created and managed for 5 years the Albert Gamote collective, a communication agency dedicated to purposeful causes.
Today I am creating La Réponse D., a structure meant to deliver what I call ‘virtuous setups’, that reconcile ephemeral installations with sustainability.
Why join SB Paris? What are the values that you like in this event?
The objective of SB is to gather those involved in change, big and small, so that dialogue and experience are developed, in order to obtain real progress. At a creative level, it is important to be consistent with your core values, which for me are intrinsically ecological and social ones. Whether we talk about a concept, the communication, the design or the style, it has to be aligned with these values. It is entirely possible to create beauty with common sense, allying attractiveness and commitment. SB Paris is to me the opportunity to show that we can generate experiences, encounters while respecting humans and our planet.
The event industry is often pointed at as the bad pupil when it comes to respecting the environment but to the contrary, it can be a pivot for change if conceived with the will to minimize and reduce its impacts.
People say that creativity comes from being challenged … it used to make me look for material at Emmaüs to create things when I was a student without money, now I find it exhilarating that we are being challenged to change the world.
For this event, you work with various actors, partners, can you tell us more about them?
The overall scenery has been designed by Pixelis, and their designers gave me their trust to drive the general set design.
Our associates, partners, share our values, we chose them as much for the quality of their work, as for their commitments. For example we created with La Collecterie original pieces from upcycled and recycled furniture from their fabrics workshop, and we are also lucky to have several items of eco-design produced locally by either Kataba, Camif Edition, CulturIn or Maximum, and as well seats from Pimp Your Waste, the first commercially scalable range of zero waste wooden furniture.
The seats of the scenographic structure will be made of big pillows elaborated by the couturiers of Resilientes X Emmaüs Alternatives, with Gabriel fabrics 100% made of recycled plastic bottles. We dressed the Hot & Fresh Bar with an innovative material: the bar with material from Etnisi, a startup from Northern France, which creates elements of construction with used material, such as mussel shell, bricks, or coffee ground; and the beautiful signs Paperfactor are hand made, with recycled paper. JMT, one of the major actors engaged in furniture renting, lent a large part of our fittings here. We will be able as well to discover surprising biodegradable objects from studio Bold, printed in 3D, those of Atelier Figura Sfondo, which exploits laser cutting in various ways, and those of Les Résilientes: a collection of objects upcycled by employees in insertion in Emmaüs Alternative worksite, sourced from obsolete material and objects. In agreement with #werespect charter, that was inspired for SB, everything has been hired, given or lent, and every element will be put back into the market for future uses.
Finish this sentence: I will be satisfied with SB if …
We manage to contaminate many other people with this positive vibe and energy that illuminates us today and show that doing things differently is possible, both within companies and at events production.
Discover her world with her Instagram and her Linkedin
