The Festival de Cannes is a fashion beast. From the bronzed residents of the French Riviera, with their easy Euro glamour, to the visiting celebrities dressed “down” in St-Tropez-inspired resort wear by day and redefining “dressed up” in black ties and cascading gowns by night, this little Mediterranean coastal town is a towering fashion giant come May.

Just the thought of walking amongst the perfectly polished beauties speckling La Croisette – Cannes’ main drag – is enough to trigger pangs of wardrobe anxiety in the most confident dresser, or at least instill an urge to shop for a few new aces to stock in the closet. Upon my arrival in Cannes, I personally experienced both of those sensations, in addition to a third, more unpleasant one: the dread of being excruciatingly underprepared. The latter sting was the direct result of having finished production for the spring issue of Hardly the day of my departure for a week long pre-Cannes press trip to the Mayan Riviera.

Giddy from the sun and surf framing the area’s famed ruins, I became blissfully mindless of my impending transatlantic journey to Cannes. Distracted by the awe-inspiring wonder of the local cenotes, or subterranean rivers (see Aktun Chen, one of National Geographic’s top 10 underground explorations), I forgot that once back in Toronto I would have only one day before my next flight, that day being Mother’s Day, which would make shopping an impossibility. Old faithfuls would have to suffice. And then, of course, there was the unfortunate delay in getting my luggage back from Mexico (lost till the afternoon of my flight to France), meaning dry cleaning my dresses would also not be an option.

The fates seemed to be against my grand plan to Cannes-ify myself, so the only thing to do was to abandon my red carpet fancies and embrace the casual elegance found in soiled dresses. I would stick out as the red carpet goblin, with a 12-year-old girl’s DIY mani/pedi (polished at an empty airport gate), overgrown bangs and a peeling sunburn that rendered me a rather worrisome shade of pink.

I did have one thing on my side though: Francois, or more specifically, Francois’ apartment. Having to be at least 40 minutes early to line up for morning screenings, and with barely an hour between interviews and gala film premieres (black tie mandatory), this year — having learned from last year’s impeding commute — I have rented a studio apartment five minutes from headquarters, ideally located away from La Croisette on Boulevard d’Alsace, thus eliminating the delay of getting stuck behind pedestrians cruising to catch a peek at celebs dining on the busy street. The added bonus: it’s across the street from a huge Monoprix (a French Target, very handy for the ill-prepared traveler), as well as the box of After Eight mints (unusual) and the bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape (delicious) my gracious host Francois left for me.

The drawback: the fact that it is a tad larger than a Tokyo pod hotel room, and the hall light switch, which turns on as one enters and turns off automatically, giving one approximately 15 seconds to get from the building’s front door and up four flights of stairs to the apartment door before total darkness. I haven’t made it once yet. I shriek every time, and am now very familiar with the expression “du calme!” (or as an agitated neighbour in Toronto might shout, “keep quiet”). Regardless, timely wardrobe changes are the priority, and Francois’ apartment is my answer to Superman’s phone booth.

Now, aside from the hyper-glamour of the premieres, the parties are a whole other pile of red carpets to pack for. And, as far as soirees go, last Thursday’s Calvin Klein event (Calvin Klein Collection and Euphoria Calvin Klein) hosted in conjunction with the Independent Filmmaker Project, was amongst the most buzz-worthy of the festival bunch so far. Held on the beach of the legendary Hotel Martinez – a favourite amongst the Hollywood sect this time of year – the event was thrown in honour of women at this year’s Festival de Cannes. The invite said dress to impress, but the odds of my success in this were slim considering my aforementioned wardrobe limitations, not to mention the other very impressive females in attendance including actresses Uma Thurman, Clémence Poésy and Rosario Dawson, as well as supermodels Lara Stone and Natalia Vodianova (both faces for Calvin Klein, the latter for Euphoria, which I recently rediscovered and is officially my new favourite scent).

So, with no gown to speak of, I enact what I like to call the “passerby dress code.” This particular style direction is something of a just-hanging-out-for-the-moment look, a dressed up yet purposed turn against the “big” party’s homogeneous glitz that in its lack of sheen and fluff suggests the event is one stop of many, and that you have not dressed for it specifically. Attention must be given to not blurring the line between this look and one that says, “I’ve just come back from a day of interviews and press screening and am too tired to brush my hair so I threw it up into a messy bun.”

In Cannes, the after party is at Le Baron, a Paris pop up bar that could intimidate even Brooklyn hipsters with its art house clientle and group sing-a-longs to Serge Gainsbourg. This is not the sort of place where black ties and VIP service carry any kind of cachet.

In need of an outfit with enough cool to negate the high-volume glam usually strutted at a dress-to-impress event, while maintaining an impromptu air about it, Canadian ex-pat Calla Haynes is the first designer to come to mind. Working out of Paris, this textile and clothing designer’s eponymous line (available at The St. Regis Room at The Bay) is cornering the international market for relaxed luxury by way of vibrant prints and the flattering silhouettes of Haynes’ feminine designs. Separates are a smart choice when edging away from the bedazzled side of the red carpet. From CALLA’s spring/summer 2011 collection, a combination of the silk tailored man’s shirt — buttoned low and paired with one of the line’s high-waisted miniskirts made of Uzbek ikat, such as the LaDona print in dusty coral — will subtly “impress” when matched with a few understated jewellery pieces, like a stack of the colourful faceted bead, gemstone and diamond bracelets from Canadian jeweler John de Jong’s spring 2011 collection (at right, available at the Toronto showroom by appointment). Simultaneously a shoulder shrug and a nod at the dress code, this outfit makes for a seamless move between champagne on the beach to a piscine (a heavily diluted pour of Pastis 51) at Le Baron.

As predicted, the honoured women of the evening sparkled and impressed upon the crowd their undeniable beauty and talent. Me, I at least like to think that the adoption of the passerby dress code kept me from frightfully sticking out amongst both these couturier muses and the Breton stripes of the latter portion of the evening. If nothing else, there was at least one positive distinguishing fact about me that night: my purse full of After Eight mints. Thank you Francois.

Toronto-based writer Jennifer Lee is the Editorial Director of FILLER magazine, an online fashion & culture journal. She is also the Co-Editor of Hardly magazine, an arts-centric online teen publication for Canadian girls. Her column, The Dressing Room, appears weekly.