“The sun will come out again,” says costume designer Catherine Martin in a theatrical voice, as the brief spell of summer rain subsides and the sun begins to emerge through the tall windows of her suite at the Hotel Martinez in Cannes.   

The French-Australian Oscar-winning designer has spent much of her life by the beach and seems to embody the optimistic, carefree spirit of the season. “During summer, you’re costuming yourself for what you hope will happen: to find yourself in a nautical place or inside a Raoul Dufy painting,” says the designer, who is dressed in a striped marinière Miu Miu tank top and a navy blazer thrown over her shoulders. “You want to feel connected to the seaside and the warm air. Prints become much more desirable at this time of year – a dress that slips over a swimsuit, a reclaimed-cashmere jumper that you can throw on when it gets chilly at night and beach clogs that you slide on after walking on the sand. It’s all about the feeling of barefoot luxury: simple and optimistic.”

It’s no surprise that Martin can instantly paint a picture of the idyllic summer wardrobe, imagining the characters and the worlds that they inhabit. She has been designing costumes for films such as Romeo and Juliet, The Great Gatsby, Moulin Rouge and Elvis for nearly three decades. 

This summer, however, she has been spending time outside the costume department, conceiving her very first off-screen capsule collection with Miu Miu (its founder, Miuccia Prada, is a longtime friend and collaborator). She built the new range, which features deadstock fabrics, around an “imaginarium”: a visual diary of a trip to the south of France in the 1920s and 1930s, complete with archival images, collages and written artefacts. The result is a collection of sharp rowing blazers, featherlight slip dresses, cotton beach trousers and striped tops that will have you embracing nautical dress codes – and maybe even planning a trip to the French Riviera. A short film accompanying the collection’s launch, dubbed Le Grand Envie, marks Martin’s directorial debut: her partner, the director Baz Luhrmann, encouraged her to take the leap. It is set in a southern château and captures the hedonism associated with the region.  

“What is it about the south of France?” asks Martin. “I understand why people have been coming here since the 19th century – or even earlier. There’s a softness to the light and the landscape is beautiful. When I first came to Cannes in the 1990s, it was the place to watch and to be seen. It’s different today but there’s still [an appeal], whether you are just sitting at a café sipping an Aperol spritz or at one of the exclusive beach clubs on the Croisette.”

References to the 1920s also encourage the wearer to look back and reflect – something that the slower months of summer call for. “This was a really interesting period: the computer, the telephone and the radio were all rapidly evolving during that time,” says Martin. “It was also a period of social freedom, with women really starting to express themselves. Yet there were also these dark political forces on the horizon and a desire to return to ‘traditional values’. We now find ourselves in a very similar period. But you have to maintain a sense of joy and optimism, no matter how bleak everything seems.”

You can do that by taking cues from Martin and immersing yourself in the romance of summer and its playful dress codes. “Glamour is romance and I’m a secret romantic – I believe in joy, connection and beauty,” she says. “Getting dressed and creating a character for yourself every morning is a primal human urge. We were decorating ourselves before we painted cave walls.”

You can listen to the full conversation, recorded live in Cannes, on Monocle on Fashion below.