CANDICE KAYE:A LIFE LED BY DESIGN

The textile designer and entrepreneur on choosing design over dance, the power of bespoke and moving to New York without a Plan B

- Josh Walker

When I founded Candice Kaye Design there was this gap in the market, where no one was doing bespoke, one-of-a-kind pieces at a reasonable price point, especially within hospitality,” begins Candice Kaye, textile designer and founder of her eponymous brand. “It was also during the rise of social media, and people wanting to take photos anywhere they were going. For the first time ever that was led by design, and so as long as you could see the design in the photographs, you knew where it came from.” It’s that same approach that’s seen her work provide a backdrop for DJ Khaled, Jimmy Butler, Lisa Hochstein and Trevor Noah, to name just a few.

Though Kaye is a textile designer today, she grew up dancing and saw it as something she would end up doing for a living. It was during her studies for interior design, however, where she was given the first taste of what would eventually become Candice Kaye Design. “It came to a point of choosing a dance career or going into school for interior design,” she says. Kaye chose interior design, but even though she dropped out of the program after three months, the seed had been sown. “We would do projects, and I was always concerned about the details more than where the window was or how the wall was shaped,” she continues. “I love interiors, but I don’t care where you put your couch or where your wall goes.”