The High Summer Lookbook

We’re in Portugal for a long weekend, somewhere near the westernmost point in Europe, looking out at the ocean. The waves roll in on their steady, metronymic pulse, all white foaming power crashing one after another onto the sand. It’s just sea from here, all the way to America, for thousands of miles.

Vincent waxes his surfboard, Imogen finishes her ice cream, and it could be a few degrees warmer, or a bit sunnier, and the sunset we’d been looking forward to has been subsumed in a mist of salty cloud rolling off the ocean. But it's the perfect weather really, especially if your tastes in the seaside are on the more rugged end of things, and you can appreciate the rowdy swell of ocean and a dramatic rocky outcrop.

It’s a beautiful beach for a stroll in a pair of linen trousers, or a chore jacket, a few layers to keep warm before changing into a wetsuit and diving out among the waves for a late afternoon of surfing.

Half an hour ago when we were having a coffee in a small cafe nearby, the sky had been perfect summer blue and we thought we had a beautiful evening ahead of us. The weather around this part of Sintra changes quickly and frequently, Vincent tells us. There’s a little microclimate here. Pressed up between the hills and the Atlantic, it's cooler and more humid than Lisbon, somehow almost tropical, swept through with lush vegetation. It’s the kind of climate that rewards layering and adaptability in its garments, you’re never quite sure what’s coming so should prepare for everything.

Shorts and a loose pullover that work well in the shade of one of the eucalyptus trees, or something hard working that will look better for a thin sprinkle of salt air deep into an unhurried afternoon, or a jacket that can move between coffee and a swim and dinner on a terrace without asking too much. It’s a beautiful part of the world, and Imogen, Vincent, and Lark, their playful and noble Borzoi, are our tour guides for a few days rest by the coast.

I’ve known Vincent and Imogen for a few years now. We’d become friends when they were still living in England. First in London, and then spending idyllic weekends together in Devon, where Imogen grew up, eating fresh scallops Vincent had dived for that morning, and hiking around Dartmoor.

They run a fashion label together, called Wright Le Chapelain, for both of their surnames, mainly now focussing on repurposing and upcycling old fabrics into new clothes. They met at Central Saint Martins, fell in love, started their label, got married, and moved to Portugal where they’ve been based for almost five years. Imogen is currently in the process of launching a luxury home textiles project, while Vincent also works as a photographer and retoucher.

They recently moved from the city out here, deep into the hills of Sintra. They’ve got a postcard of a whitewashed house in a little village. In the studio Imogen shows us the newest collection of bags she’s been working on.

All of us — dogs and surfboards included — spend the weekend squeezed into Vincent’s 90s Mercedes estate. We’ll switch our camp collar shirts for heavier smocks and sweatshirts and linen jackets as evening draws in and the temperature drops a degree or two. The roads through the little villages here wind and twist precariously, often there’s room for just a single car in the tight lanes, necessitating a subtle ballet of horn honking and reversing for navigation.

You can’t go more than a few minutes here without someone stopping by to say hello, some venerable Senhora comes by who wants to talk about the weather or the construction work nearby up the hill, or another expat driving past, waving out a car window. Conversations move back and forth between French, English and Portuguese.

The next morning sunlight dapples through trees and we have a coffee in their garden under a canopy of monsteras and cacti, before we walk out through the village towards the paddock where they keep their horses, Keira and Benji, who are lazily eating hay and grass.

There are many perfect ways to navigate the unhurried hours. The days are languid and easy, a coffee and a pastel del nata in a little cafe, a cold beer or a glass of vinho verde, some work in the studio, swinging by to see friends nearby, or a long lunch by the coast at an idyllic little cafe nestled on some cliffs above a beach.

Shaded under parasols we extravagantly order far too much food, plates of prawns coated in garlic and wine, huge pork skewers oozing delicious fat, golden chips, crisp grilled cod fillets, freezing cold glasses of Super Bock. Lunch goes on slowly, elegantly, deep into the afternoon. It could go straight through to dinner if you wanted.

After lunch, back in the village, there's not much to do but drift for the afternoon. Vincent, in a light grey suit, sits in the courtyard with a coffee, watching Lark sleep.

We make a plan to leave and then stay for another few hours, it could easily turn into days. The roads back to Lisbon are straight and fast, an hour at most, but there’s no need to hurry. There's another coffee, another afternoon, another day where the weather might clear or might not. Maybe tomorrow there’ll be that sunset.