2012 Wardrobe Department line-up announced!

Fun. Spontaneity. Generosity. Not exactly qualities you’d associate with the hoity-toity fashion world – but exactly what you should expect when stepping through the walled garden gate to our Wardrobe Department. This lavish garden of free fashion delights is where serious fashion names pitch up to do unserious creative things for a summer weekend. As the only festival that has its own dedicated fashion area, this year we’re very pleased to announce Sarah Mower, Mary Katrantzou, Stephen Jones, Luella Bartley, Rubbish, David Sims, Barbara Hulanicki, Anita Pallenberg, Erickson Beamon, Piers Atkinson, Fred Butler, Bumble and bumble, Pamflet and Anthropologie will all be taking part in the fun.

Among this year’s highlights:

The Fashion Dolls Tea Party: an illustrious gathering of some of the UK’s top fashion designers’ dolls - including those of of Christopher Kane, Erdem, Giles Deacon and many more. Read full story.

Last year Mary Katrantzou, London’s pioneer of digital photography in fashion, created a series of dresses inspired by Port Eliot. Generated following a visit to the house to photograph the paintings, décor, porcelain, embroideries and Georgian chandeliers in the ancient building, The Port Eliot Dresses Triptych caused a sensation when it was displayed in a fashion ‘at home’ in the Drawing Room. This year, Mary will accompany her dresses back to Port Eliot to talk about how she creates her hit collections and why Port Eliot inspires her.

Luella Bartley, author of Luella’s Guide to English Style will be telling a story in her own tent this year, collaborating with iconic 1960s illustrators, Delisia Howard (one of the original Biba girls) and Chris Price of Hazard Books. ‘Illustrating with Intent’, they will produce a story created by Luella and festival-goers. A graphic camera obscura of the moment, Chris and Delisia will encourage illustrative contributions and the book will be bound into a unique volume to be displayed in the Port Eliot library.

David Sims returns to set up a portrait studio in a corner of the walled garden. Look at the pictures he took last year, which were featured in US Vogue.

Prestige hair stylists Bumble and bumble will be interpreting hair masterpieces for festival-goers, with the help of milliner extraordinaire Stephen Jones and Bb hair maestro Neil Moodie, who’ll draw inspiration from the portraits by Reynolds, van Dyck and Rembrandt in the collection at Port Eliot. The main event will take place on the Saturday afternoon of the festival, when Stephen Jones will sketch festival-goers with the hair styles of the old masters before Neil Moodie and his styling team recreate the look with Bumble and bumble products.

Vicki Sarge-Beamon of the extraordinary catwalk jewellers Erickson Beamon will once again invite people to her Trash to Treasure masterclass in the Biba tent, where she’ll help people re-amalgamate their broken trinkets into bedazzling new pieces. On Sunday morning she will give a lecture to adults on how to give your jewellery box a second life and in the afternoon children will be invited into the tent to learn how to turn trash into new treasure.

Barbara Hulanicki, founder of Biba, interior designer and living legend of fashion will create outfits for visitors to the Biba tent from a range of unlikely materials, with the help of Port Eliot regular Anita Pallenberg and other friends.

Following on from the fun and frolics of last year’s blindfold styling booth, cult fashion publishers and creators from Rubbish are inviting festival-goers of all ages to create ‘couture’ dresses using newspaper and gaffer tape. Each dress will be uniquely created with the help of the chic atelier, comprising fashion makers and doers, headed up by Jenny Dyson with milliner Piers Atkinson and accessories designer Fred Butler providing couture hats and head pieces. Once made (including a chance for each person to design their own fashion label in the back) the frocks will be held ‘backstage’ and all who get involved will be invited to take part in a special Wardrobe Department fashion parade at the end of each day. Front row seats on hay bales, a chance to have your moment debuting your dress on the grassy catwalk and fashion walk offs will abound. Once the fashion parade has taken place, each dress will be archived for festivalgoers to take home at the end of the festival.

Rubbish will also extend an invitation to take part in The Rubbish Olympics. Read full story.

Innovative fashion designers Anthropologie will collaborate with three artists: Lou Rota, Charlotte Taylor and Jacqui Roche, each of whom will host free creative workshops in which festivalgoers can make and take home a one-off piece of art as the perfect festival souvenir. In addition, Lou, Charlotte and Jackie will each host an informal get-together, in which guests can enjoy a glass of wine and a discussion with the trio.

Anna-Marie and Phoebe, the bloggers behind the feminist and fashion online zine, Pamflet.co.uk, will spend their second year at Port Eliot in the Sipsmith Tent celebrating The Great British Party with an afternoon of readings, interviews and salon discussions. It’s a chance to be inspired by stories about hostesses, It girls, balls, banquets, festivals and party memories as they explore the importance of the party in women’s wardrobes, histories and literature with the help of some surprise guests.

Watch a short film from The Wardrobe Department at Port Eliot Festival 2011 (film by Minky Productions):