Niccola Phillips’ Cannes Diary #1

Niccola Phillips (left), head of art, M&C Saatchi Sydney is representing Australia on the Cannes Design Lions jury. Phillips, along with most of the other Australia and NZ jurors reports exclusively for CB.

It’s all in the eyes. The doorman manages to effortlessly convey to me that “you smell like the excrement of one thousand bovines” while simultaneously pretending that I don’t exist.

Disorienting, because the perfumier in Le Marais assured me that I would actually smell like Tilda Swinton’s childhood bedroom and also, strangely, of carrot cake. The 80 euros worth of artisanal fragrance that separates last week’s Western Australian dairy farm shoot and this evening’s stroll down La Croisette now seems flimsy. Inadequate, actually.

That’s how I find myself hyperventilating in a corridor in The Carlton, reassuring myself that unlike my last CB Legendary Lunch appearance, this time I’m dressed nothing like a waitress. No one is going to be thrusting their empties at me while I politely try to explain that I’m actually a head of art at M&C Saatchi.

This time I’m going to be the one ordering the rosés.

And I do. By rosé number four I’m flying. I’m the carrot-cake-scented belle of the jury welcome drinks. I’m not quite committing to skinny dipping in exchange for an invitation to the Swedish party next Wednesday. I’m an honorary South African now.

I have arrived. Now, where’s my badge gone?