As we come to the end of what has been a truly exceptional British summer, incorporating elements of the sun-drenched style of your holiday destinations into the home feels so appealing. The places we visit during our precious, and long-awaited trips away can hold cherished memories, and capturing some of that essence back home serves as a nostalgic reminder of happy and carefree days spent in magical locales. However, whilst bright hues and ornate patterns can look fabulous in the sunshine, back in temperate Britain, they can easily end up looking garish.
It’s easy to get swept up in shopping at local markets and boutiques when you’re on holiday, and considering how your purchases will translate back on home soil won’t feel like a priority. We asked the experts for their tips on how to shop for souvenirs with style, and borrow decor ideas from your travels that will still look chic when you get home. Whether it’s that rustic French farmhouse or Mediterranean villa, or perhaps some Grecian Airbnb that stole your heart, there are plenty of ways to weave some of the vibrance and character of your favourite holiday destinations into your home decor.
Don't try to recreate the holiday
‘The first rule is: don’t recreate the holiday,’ says Henriette von Stockhausen, creative director of VSP Interiors. ‘An English country house does not suddenly want to become a riad because you had a wonderful week in Marrakech.’ And this is worth remembering if you don't want your home decor to tip over in pastiche territory.
Often the appeal of a particular decor style is in how it fits in with the architecture, natural materials and even the landscape of that destination – elements of which crop up through repeated patterns, colour palettes and artisanal details. Trying to recreate that as a whole in entirely different surroundings at home could start looking like a theme rather than a carefully considered decorative scheme. ‘When I travel I avoid anything that looks as though it was made specifically to be taken home in a suitcase,’ adds Henriette. Borrowing ideas, from a colour combination to a styling trick, from a favourite destination is a far more subtle approach that will lead to a more intriguing and layered aesthetic.
Interior Designer and Founder of Home & Found, Tamsin Saunders, buys into this idea of taking inspiration, rather than souvenirs, from your travels, too. ‘Wherever I go I am always looking – not in an acquisitive way, but just to try and take things in: In Amsterdam I loved how the Dutch pot their plants outside their front doors; in Copenhagen I loved how the Danes generally eschew shutters and curtains in their windows; the cobbled streets we saw in Lisbon inspired our garden path.’
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Capture an authentic feeling
When stealing decor ideas from your holidays, ‘authenticity is everything,’ says Henriette. ‘I have worked with antiques and old textiles for most of my career and I am drawn to things that have already had a life. A faded textile, a chipped piece of pottery or an old tile has a depth that is almost impossible to manufacture.’
Choosing reclaimed materials, such as stone floor or wall tiles which have been made with artisanal processes local to the area will bring a far more authentic feel than anything purchased to ‘look’ original in a touristy shop. Henriette agrees. ‘I would much rather find the local flea market, an antique dealer, a salvage yard or a tiny workshop where someone is still making something in the traditional way. Ask the person in the café, ask the hotel owner, ask the antique dealer where they go.’ One good thing with a story is infinitely better than a suitcase full of ‘souvenirs’.
And ‘take time to notice things’, advises Henriette. ‘The faded colour of an old wall, a beautiful tiled floor, a piece of embroidery, the way shutters filter the afternoon light. What I bring home is rarely a desire to recreate the room itself. It is more a feeling, a colour combination, a material or a detail that lodges itself somewhere in my head. That is the wonderful thing about travel: it quietly expands your visual vocabulary.’
Dip into colour palettes
Rather than attempting to literally recreate a full colour palette from a destination, pick out an element or two from it for a more subtle approach. The reason vibrant palettes work so well in sunny destinations is often to do with the light which can't be easily replicated in our temperate climate. Henriette explains: ‘A colour that looks glorious under an Aegean sun can look rather alarming on a wet Wednesday in Wiltshire. I would often muddy it, soften it or use much less of it.’
Dipping into a favourite palette means you can borrow elements from a look captured on holiday, without it feeling forced or overdone. ‘If you have fallen in love with blue and white in Greece, you don’t need blue shutters, white walls, striped cushions and an olive tree when you get back to England,’ says Henriette. ‘Take one element. A collection of blue and white china can look wonderful in a very English room precisely because there is a tension between the two.’
Tamsin agrees that this is the most successful approach, and says that spending time in places that use colour boldly can really develop your understanding of how these palettes can translate in different settings. She says ‘I love India for its fearless embrace of colour (both in terms of combination and application) and whilst I brought back a few textiles, mainly I came back with a clearer understanding and awareness of the Indian colour palette and confidence in how to apply it in a home in this country. ’
Collect pieces that tell a story
Often, the beauty of instantly recognisable pieces, like Portuguese ceramics, or Murano glass, in situ, is in their ubiquitousness – plates and bowls in slightly varying patterns and hues in the same colour palette are found lining the shelves of local artisanal stores, on restaurant tables and even in boutique hotels. But bringing a single piece home without giving any thought to where it will go or how it will work with your existing pieces means it's destined to look out of place.
The secret to making it work, according to Henriette is to ‘take the thing that really caught your eye and absorb it into what you already have. I love rooms that feel collected over time, so an exuberant Portuguese plate might sit amongst old English china; a Suzani might be thrown over an antique chair; or a wonderfully coloured piece of pottery might suddenly wake up a very traditional dresser. The trick is to create a conversation between things rather than a theme.'
Tamsin also likes to mix and match pieces found on her travels, and says that it takes time to achieve an authentically collected look. It's not something that can be quickly replicated or manufactured. ‘The ceramics in our cupboards which we use every day came from markets on holidays in Marrakech and Spain – everything has a story. A cushion is made from a vintage remnant I found in Sweden. A bench is covered in two vintage textiles I found in markets on two different holidays.’
And she puts the eclectic English decor style down to our curiosity and desire to collect. ‘I think that’s one of the things that make English homes so unique – that we are hungry to learn and embrace other cultures, and bring them back to see how they work together.’
Re-think textiles
From antique suzanis to vintage linens, textiles brought back from your holiday are one of the easiest ways to inject your interior scheme with the colour and character of their country of origin, but only if you make them work within your space. Henriette explains: ‘I have been known to design an entire room around one tiny scrap of old fabric. I love giving old textiles a new life. Frame a beautiful fragment as you would a work of art, hang a textile behind a bed, throw one over a table, make cushions from it, or use it on a small chair, stool, or headboard.’
Mixing textiles in similar colours, but from different destinations, can create a really unique and eclectic look, and each will evoke a different memory of your travels. Benji Lewis, explains that whilst some textiles brought on holiday may not translate back home when used in the same way, re-thinking how you use or display them can give pieces a whole new life. ‘As the owner of a place in South West France, the brocante shopping is too tempting to resist but there are things I’ve found that just don’t work the same magic once re-homed in the UK. I once gleefully seized upon an embroidered panel in distressed rich gold threads against a beautiful pink silk backdrop, but found that back in London the sparkle wasn’t the same, until I had it mounted in a simple Perspex box frame, which gave it a slant better attuned to our urban existence.'
Looking to local markets and antique stores is a good place to start, as vintage pieces are also imbued with the history and character of a places. ‘I particularly love antique tapestries and embroidered textiles because they bring colour, history and texture into a room all at once,’ says Henriette. ‘And I don’t mind if they are faded or imperfect – quite the opposite. The wear is part of the beauty.’
Echo the landscape with natural materials
Some of the most effective interior looks from your favourite destinations are so successful for their use of natural and locally sourced materials. Whether it's a rustic French farmhouse kitchen or an Italian country bathroom, natural wood, stone and textiles are often the grounding features of the decor, and their beauty is not only in how they fit within an interior scheme, but how they echo the surrounding landscape. ‘I think we fall in love with places as much through their interiors as their landscapes,’ says Henriette.
Whilst there's nothing wildly different about using natural materials in your home, they can help to reinforce a sense of place that translates effortlessly from one geographical region to another. ‘Terracotta, marble, linen, wicker and stone are not inherently Mediterranean – they are natural materials that have been used for centuries,’ notes Henriette. ‘They can sit beautifully in an English interior if the architecture and the rest of the room are allowed to remain themselves.’ So simply adding natural elements sourced from different destinations – whether Italian marble, a terracotta tile or some antique French linen – can lend a nod to that country or region without disrupting your existing scheme.
Lean into architectural details
Stealing decor ideas from your holidays isn't purely about colour and material though. It could mean looking to the architecture, or history of a destination, and featuring motifs in everything from wallpaper prints to tile designs are smart ways to lean into that. Henriette advises: 'Look at the buildings. Notice the proportions of a room, the colour of old plaster, the way a doorway is framed, a tiled floor, painted furniture, an iron balustrade or a faded fresco. Then reinterpret them. A tile pattern discovered in Portugal might become the starting point for a bathroom floor; an old textile could inspire a bespoke wallpaper; a beautiful ochre wall in Italy might lead you towards a warmer palette at home.'
This might also mean making a feature of your existing architectural detail, such as painting an archway, hanging a historic artwork, or perhaps bringing back an antique mirror or light fitting from a flea market to hang your scheme on. Trying this look in a smaller space, like the downstairs toilet pictured below, is a good way to experiment with unique patterns and bolder colours, especially is you have a more restrained decor scheme elsewhere. Think of it as a little jewel box that transports you to another destination the moment you open the door.
Display holiday treasures in unexpected ways
Sometimes capturing a holiday memory at home can be as simple as the way you display the pieces you bring home, and the most unexpected spaces can provide the perfect backdrop. Take this bathroom in Lucinda Chambers' house (pictured below), where an eclectic collection of decorative plates creates a beautiful feature above the bath, and rugs in different weaves and palettes are layered on the floor.
‘I often think the thing that doesn’t quite belong is what makes a room interesting,’ offers Henriette. That could be a vibrant Moroccan plate mixed in with some traditional English china, for example. ‘If everything is from the same period, country and provenance, it can become rather dull,’ she adds. The key to creating a successful display, says Henriette, is to find a thread that holds the collection together. ‘It might be colour, material, scale or simply repetition. I love mixing pieces from different countries and periods. Once they are brought together, the colour becomes the connecting language.’ She adds: ‘Know when to stop. Even maximalists need somewhere for the eye to rest.’
So what is the secret to capturing the spirit of your most memorable holidays in your home decor? According to the designers, it's about using authentic materials, telling a story, blending locally bought pieces with your existing decor, and being considerate in your use of colour, rather than trying to replicate a whole palette. ‘For me, the most successful interiors are layers of places you’ve been, things you’ve inherited, things you’ve found and things you’ve fallen in love with along the way,' explains Henriette. 'Bring home the inspiration, not the entire holiday’.
