It may sound stupid but I somehow forgot, when I agreed to attend, that the Port Eliot Festival was a festival. I know, right? The clue is in the name. But because it takes place at a stunning Cornish stately, and because half the fashion fraternity have been going for years and never experienced anything less than sun-soaked bliss, I failed to factor in the reality that a) I would be staying in a yurt, not the east wing; and b) weather does not come guaranteed.
Cue such torrential rain last weekend that my yurt flooded (not words I ever imagined I might write) and my appalling 20-year-old waterproof trousers were a permanent adjunct to my person. When the downpour reached peak biblical on Saturday night that Withnail and I quote sprang to mind: “We’ve gone on holiday by mistake.”
Thank goodness for my Kin by John Lewis parka, the acceptable — and properly water-resistant — face of rain gear (£99, also available in khaki; johnlewis.com). It was the parka that got me through it. More than this, it enabled me to have a great time despite it all.
Port Eliot is fashion’s favourite festival. It’s about beauty as well as brains, so alongside literary talks — not to mention every sort of music imaginable — there’s the so-called Wardrobe Department. This year there were on-stage appearances by big names such as Zandra Rhodes and a tent full of small people decorating white John Lewis T-shirts with such imagination that ufrillitarian doesn’t even begin to cover it.
It’s at Port Eliot that much of what has come to be thought of as festival fashion originated. As Sarah Mower, the mistress of ceremonies at the Wardrobe Department, told me: “The designers Meadham Kirchhoff first made floral headdresses here in 2011, and within three years you could get watered-down floral wreaths at Accessorize. The next year Louise Gray did bright finger-dabbed make-up, which led to a collaboration with Topshop, then suddenly Chanel haute couture was all bright eyes.” Chanel’s Eliot-appropriate green mascara is a bestseller, even worn by me (Inimitable waterproof in vert profond, £26, chanel.com).
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Despite the rain, all of the above were out in force, and more. There were floral headdresses, DayGlo make-up and a new arrival in the form of glitter partings. There were leggings, hotpants and long, floaty hippy skirts. There was an approach to damp-clothes avoidance that often involved wearing fewer in the first place rather than layering up the waterproofs. And finally, most bafflingly, an embrace rather than an eschewal of the mire, almost as if it were a covetable accessory to your look. (Check out how muddy my hems are!)
For me there was an otherworldly quality to it, part charming, part confounding. Think “get thee to a nymphery” with added sex appeal. This was a tribe of which I was definitively not a member. Festival dressing — for me, for the first and last time — was all about that parka.
Spills and thrills
I have a globetrotting glamourpuss of an American friend called Gerri, who is the kind of person who would absolutely never stay in a yurt, but can tell you what you need to order on room service at Le Bristol in Paris (pain perdu, in case you are wondering). The other night at dinner out of town — not in Cornwall, not under canvas, nor, alas, at Le Bristol — I discovered a whole new area of her expertise. On-the-hoof stain removal.
I was wearing my best cream silk shirt, which is why it was a really good idea of mine to order a dish with tomato sauce. Or indeed, given my pig-pen tendencies, to order anything at all. I had thought Gerri far too soignée ever to spill her food. Turns out she isn’t. (Not that, on this occasion, she did.) But she is soignée enough to deal with such matters efficaciously, wherever in the world she may be.
I was about to rush to the bathroom. “Do. Not. Put. Water. On. It,” she ordered. Instead I was to attack it with Tide to Go, a felt-tip pen of stain-buster that’s big Stateside, apparently. Gerri never travels without hers and, as I said, Gerri is not a woman I have ever seen looking anything less than perfect.
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What can I say? This is a magic wand of a product when it comes to anything food-related. Since then it has also nuked coffee and wine. I am nothing if not rigorous — and cack-handed — in my stain-related research. As the packaging makes clear, it doesn’t deal with grease, blood or ink. (One — one! — good thing about mud: it doesn’t stain.) The stick costs £3.75, plus £4.50 shipping, from usafoodstore.co.uk. Go forth and stain-remove!
The right stripes
How to improve on the unimprovable? Namely the classic Breton top, so popular with the fashion pack that when half a dozen of us boarded a flight recently four were wearing them.
How about with some bespoke embellishment? Yes, that’s right. Ufrillitarian has even inveigled its way into the minimalist world of the Breton. The small British brand called — wait for it — Mon Breton offers flourishes that range from the restrained to the elaborate (the Bugs and Blooms style from the Atelier collection, which has a smattering of flowers and the prettier variety of creepy-crawly at the neck; £350, monbreton.com).
All of its tops are sourced from Brittany, bien sûr, and of great quality. The lightweight Seberg marinière, pictured, is £55, and can be pimped with a monogram, from £12, or an emoji or image, from £15. Although, please, no emojis.
Instagram: @annagmurphy