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BY Bouchra Berkane / AFP, MARSEILLE
After being walked on for two weeks by stars from Tom Cruise to Rihanna, the legendary red carpets of the Cannes Film Festival are set for a second life thanks to an upcycling charity and some environmentally conscious designers.
The red carpets were replaced daily at the festival, which ended on May 24, with organizers handing over 1.5 tonnes of fine red material to a non-profit organization in the port city of Marseille, France.
The carpets now sit on pallets or in black waste bags in a warehouse used by the La Reserve des Arts in the northern suburbs of Marseille where they are being sorted, cleaned and prepared for reuse.
Photo: AFP
Some of them have small holes — possibly a result of hosting all those towering stilettoes — while others have been marked by footsteps or scuffs.
“By reconditioning them, we’re helping to reduce the environmental impact of the event — something the festival is aware of,” La Reserve des Arts coordinator Jeanne Re told reporters during a visit on Wednesday.
The charity specialises in re-using or “upcycling” products used by the fashion, theater or other entertainment industries, finding new lives for items that might otherwise have ended up as waste.
The approach helps to reduce landfill and is seen as a response to growing public concern about the volume of single-use items used to put on public events. However, some environmental groups believe so-called second-life policies can result in “greenwashing,” leading organizers and companies to tout their recycling policies rather than focusing on reducing their overall consumption.
The Cannes carpet is being resold at just 1 euro a kilo, which amounted to 0.33 euro per square meter — an “unbeatable” price, Re said, adding that the goal was to make it “as accessible to as many of our members as possible.”
Elsa Ramouni-Yordikian, an artist and member who has been using the red carpets for the past four years, said she had used the material for handbags, bucket hats, glasses cases and even bags for wine bottles.
Some were “quite unique pieces,” she said of her work with the charity Les Nippones.
Ramouni-Yordikian recently showcased creations she made with last year’s carpet in an exhibition in Marseille titled “Dress Like a Movie Star.”
“The fact that it comes from a famous festival and is recycled locally — that makes sense to us,” she said.
Production of synthetic materials such as the red carpets would “never stop, there will always be more, just like festivals and trade shows, so we need to find ways to give them new value,” Ramouni-Yordikian said.
The top prize for best film at this year’s Cannes Festival went to dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi for his highly political movie It Was Just an Accident.
