All hail Mia Williamson, an icon of our times, who stepped in when her friend’s white outfit was splashed with red wine at Ripon races on Saturday and performed a feat of make-do-and-mend emergency fashion crafting, creating an entirely new outfit in the loo.

It began with a nightmare: Eleanor Walton had gone to the races with her workmates, dressed in a white jumpsuit. Someone spilled their wine down the pristine white outfit. “So, we’re two hours into the races, and El comes and tells me someone has spilt red wine down her,” Williamson wrote on Twitter. Her response? “No problem.” She and her friends got another four glasses of red wine from the bar, and, while Walton sat naked in a toilet cubicle, used it to soak the jumpsuit in the sink, wine-tie-dying the jumpsuit to dusty-pink-hued perfection. After they had saturated the top and patterned the legs, they dried it under the hand-drier – before going back to drinking in the sunshine.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Eleanor Walton after the emergency tie-dyectomy. Photograph: Mia Williamson/SWNS

The quick thinking, the unfazed fabulousness, the rock-solid refusal to let anything kill your buzz – it was heroic behaviour. The result, as Williamson pointed out, looks a lot like Pretty Little Thing’s rose-hued festival range of jersey flares, boob tubes and mini skirts. This wasn’t just a fudge – this was actual fashion.

So, how easy is it to wine-dye your own clothes? I’m in the south of France with two €3 bottles of Côtes du Rhône, a pile of rubber bands and a couple of white garments. My method: wrap the fabric lengthways around the bottle and secure in place with a few bands. Scrunch the ends tightly until they fit compactly around the fat part of the bottle and secure with more bands. Dip into a sink of wine a la Williamson, or alternatively pour the wine over the garment until the fabric is saturated. The longer you leave it, the darker it will get. Remove the bands and rinse until the water runs clear, squeeze out and dry.

I dye a top and a jumpsuit this way, and they come out far less impressive than Williamson’s effort. To ramp up the effect, I splatter the dried jumpsuit with more wine and don’t rinse it. The result? A pattern that looks exactly as though it’s had a €3 bottle of Côtes du Rhône down it. I smell like a broad on a bender, which, I have to say, is not entirely unpleasant.