Brief encounters: memories of an enchanted childhood in France

Luxury lingerie designer Damaris Evans’ childhood story reads like that of a romantic novel, travelling the world with her bohemian, academic parents and spending long, hot summers deep in the French countryside.

As she describes how her father would lay out the garden of their French home with table lamps every evening, a Mozart piano concerto softly playing as he did so, while she and her sisters rehearsed a play to perform to the adults in one of the property’s barns, close your eyes and you can almost picture the white muslin curtains wafting in the warm, lavender-scented evening air.

Visualising her 17^th century French home as Damaris describes it, it wouldn’t feel out of place for a Kiera Knightley to enter, stage left, carrying a tray of drinks, walking barefoot across the lawn, heading in the direction of the laughter.

Damaris, aka ‘The Queen of Lingerie’ is no stranger to the world of celebrity, her luxury pieces having been worn by Kate Moss, Angelina Jolie and Kendall Jenner. When Selfridges stocked a collection from Damaris, the store found itself with a waiting list for underwear for the first time in its 112 year history.

Damaris’s first high street collection, with M&S in 2021, was being “M&S’s prettiest collection ever”, a celebrated accolade, considering brand’s then 137-year history. That year, former M&S CEO Steve Row commented in The Times: “Damaris has played a part of Marks and Spencer’s success”.

She comes from a long line of creatives and artists, her lineage including Sir William Rothenstein, once principal of the Royal College of Art, and Sir John Rothenstein, the Tate Gallery’s longest-standing director, so it’s no surprise that she was drawn to an artistic career herself.

Damaris told us about her memories of growing up with her artistic parents and her home, Haute Caussine, nestled in the Tarn et Garonne area of south-west France, an hour from Toulouse:

I was brought up in a family where travelling and seeing the world and different cultures was pretty much standard. Luckily, I had my daughter in my late 30s, which meant I had the whole of my 20s and most of my 30s to travel the world as much as I could.

One winter, a car load of good friends and I went skiing every weekend throughout the winter season, bar two… now I wouldn’t consider that. My childhood was full of travelling; however, it was all by car in Europe.

My father worked as a journalist throughout the Middle East, Africa and Australia for my childhood, so it was normal to think of a life filled with travel as being very normal. We didn’t fly, though, and my childhood is full of memories of my mother reading the map and directing my father through Europe on the slow roads, stopping off for long lunches when they’d found the perfect spot.

Those who had similar parents will understand that the long picnic lunches could easily add an extra four hours to the daily journey which was so painful for me, as a child, at that time… and with no iPads.

After my mother died, when I was 10 years old, my father took my sisters and I around the world. He sold a family portrait that covered the cost of the flights and we visited Hong Kong, LA and Australia together. That love of travel has stayed with me and there’s nothing more that I enjoy than travelling with my daughter Kitty (11).

On that trip, before we were about to board a plane, which was the first jumbo I’d ever been on, my father used his charm with the air hostesses and arranged for the airline to call our names, so we were invited on board before anyone else. That’s such a sweet memory I have of him.

My parents stumbled upon Haute Caussine in 1969, whilst on their honeymoon. After they both passed away, it was left to me and my sisters. I bought my sisters’ shares in the house, then in much need of renovation, in 2012. If I was asked to find three words to describe Haute Caussine, it would be: angelic; simple and tranquil.

Back in the ‘60s, my parents sold their basement flat in Notting Hill (then very bohemian) for the main house at Haute Caussine. Over the years they bought the rest of the hamlet.

The local farmers who owned the valley in which the idyllic hamlet of Haute Caussine sits didn’t want to live in these beautiful old farmhouses, as it was much simpler to simply build new homes. In those days, they wanted to build houses at the bottom of the valleys, so the farming was much easier for tractors, animals and managing the farm. So, these beautiful houses, which were often set up high up on the valley hills, were left to become ruins.

When my parents were driving through the area they fell in love with how rustic and rural it was. They stopped at one of the farms and asked if they knew anywhere that was for sale. The farmers showed them to Haute Caussine. Now, my parents weren’t going to suddenly buy an entire hamlet, but they did like the main house. And that’s where it all began.

The house was surrounded by beautiful trees and, wandering around the property, they dropped to the field below and saw the incredible, eye-watering view. When my parents saw that view they decided that they had to buy it.

They called the tenant in Notting Hill and asked if he still wanted to buy their basement flat. Luckily, he said yes and my parents told the farmer that they would buy the property and come back in a few months’ time, which they did.

Haute Caussine became a heavenly spot for my parents and their incredibly interesting bohemian, academic, artistic friends and to meet for heavenly summers to come.

My parents remained friends with the French farmer they bought it from, Monsieur Boudettte. We have stories of how, early it the morning, my mother would be reading a book on the terrace and my dad would be woken to shrieks from my mother, who was being chased around the kitchen by Monsieur Boudette, who was trying to steal a kiss from her!

The house has seen three generations of my family. As a child, we spent eight weeks every summer there, the house always being full of my parents’ friends coming to stay. They were artists, writers, poets painters and sculptors. They read a lot laughed a lot, cooked beautiful food and drank beautiful wine.

As children, my sisters and I would sometimes walk 21km to the nearest town where there is a swimming pool. My father would refuse to take us both ways and so we would have to choose whether we hitchhiked there and got collected and brought back, or get a lift there and, at the end of the day, hitchhike back, exhausted. We always chose hitchhiking there. We never had any money to buy water or food throughout the day and I don’t know how we managed, but we did.

When I became a teenager, the parents of my friends would sometimes join us on holidays. They were horrified at the thought of us walking the 21km or hitchhiking. I rather enjoyed having our friends parents there, as they would take us and bring us back!

When I left London and came to live here, with just Kitty, it was the most extraordinary time and experience for both of us, with a change of home, life, friends and culture. It was honour getting up every morning and being with Kitty which, as a mother, gave me incredible strength.

Kitty’s father was in England at the time and I love and treasure the experience I had with Kitty and that she very comfortably embraced the unknown with me in the security of our happiness and comfort together.

We were such a beautiful team and enjoyed every minute of it – filling our Mini full to the brim in London, setting off on the road and it then taking four hours to unload when we arrived at Haute Caussine. That’s how much we packed into it. Not once on any journey has Kitty ever asked me: “Are we nearly there yet?”. I think that’s pretty remarkable for anyone, let alone a child!

When I shut my eyes and think of what I love and what makes me feel happy it is looking out to the 200km view from the terrace or any of the rooms at Haute Caussine. I have seen a lot of views and this one is the most mesmerising of any inland view. Every day is magical and you do not know what you will wake up to.

Prior to the renovations, there were three bedrooms upstairs, a kitchen downstairs and the bathroom was around the back of the house, which my father had built. I was bathed in a bucket on the terrace, but what a view. That memory stays with me to this day. Nowadays, I often don’t really care about where I’m staying. I don’t mind, as long as there are clean sheets and a good view!

Spending these last years in France at Haute Caussine has been magical. Having three baths a day looking out to the extraordinary view is not uncommon, whether it’s to warm up, as that is less expensive and easier than working out how to heat the house with the fire downstairs, or to cool down on a hot day.

For Kitty, to experience going to school in a chateau set upon a hilltop setting was like something from the film ‘Chocolate’ and gave her the opportunity learn to speak the beautiful language fluently, with an accent so rural it gives me credibility at any French restaurant.

When you live there, you know which boulangeries are the right ones to get your baguettes and croissants from in the morning. The one nearest to us is in a beautiful small village called Toufailles. It is an incredibly small and quiet village, but you can still get a cake made to order and personalised within 24 hours of someone’s birthday. It is pretty remarkable. The French take this sort of thing very seriously!

Back in 2012, when the house became mine, I came straight from being a designer in Primrose Hill, London, to get stuck into renovations, which was far from glamourous. I quickly became an expert in sanding shutters, mixing concrete and digging trenches, often amid storms and freezing temperatures.

Décor in my homes in the UK has always been so minimal, bar the art, which I must have around me to inspire me to work. Everything must be clean and white and all clutter tucked away, then I can function. Haute Caussine is the opposite. It is full of colour, on everything – from the plates, which were hand-painted in Mallorca, the colourful upholstery of the furniture and my Missoni bed linen. I can’t get colour enough in France and can’t have any homes I’ve had in the UK!

What’s the average day like at Haute Caussine, you ask? That’s a blog full of questions in itself as no day is ever the same. But I can’t wait to wake up every morning and see what the view has to offer…and then we will decide.