Port Eliot, the most stylish of literary festivals, has announced the line-up for this year’s Wardrobe Department, a walled garden that becomes a sort of dress-up camp under the watchful eye of fashion journalist and ambassador for emerging talent at the British Fashion Council, Sarah Mower.

Designers Simone Rocha and Luella Bartley, milliners Stephen Jones and Piers Atkinson, hairdresser Alex Brownsell and fashion insiders like Suzy Menkes and Barbara Hulanicki will all be joining in the curated chaos.

Mower says: ‘The Wardrobe Department is base-camp for fashion imagination gone wild. We have four walls, a garden and only one rule: that everything we do could only happen here. Top-of-the-range geniuses in clothes design, hair, hats and jewellery are on site offering free-range experiences with the sole objective of letting loose with creative experiments. 

‘From children to grown-ups, everyone who steps through our garden gate joins in to dress up, make, sew, draw, paint, create, think, talk and hang around being happy.’

It’s fashion at its loveliest, a chance to truly engage with the subject, far from trends or financial restrictions or London, in the gorgeous grounds of the Port Eliot estate in St. Germans in Cornwall.

www.porteliotfestival.com