Ionian Islands

Zac, my son, was tiny – he was like three, so it must be 20 years that I’ve been going. It became a home from home. It was love at first experience…

The simplicity of the way of life there. How uncommercialised it is – it still feels authentically Grecian. It has that real sense of island life. As time’s gone on we’ve travelled there out of season: we’ve been there in spring, in winter, when there’s hardly any tourists. You fall in love with it for longer and longer, deeper and deeper.

My ideal day is basically spending three, four hours having lunch in a café right on the beach. It’s so lo-fi. It’s squid, it’s octopus, it’s seafood. The restaurants are all right on the beach so you leave your stuff there – there’s no sun loungers or anything like that, it’s just your towel on the beach, under an olive tree. You sit in the shade and read – that’s an ideal day.

There’s one called Emblisi – it’s a tiny little cove with beautiful white stones. They are all pebble beaches on the north side of the island which is where I love to go. The water is like bathing in bottled water, you can see your hands, your feet. It’s like bathwater. But my favourite beach – a tiny, tiny beach – is called Alaties. There, I have my favourite sunset. It’s a magical place.

Rent a car and drive. Drive and stop at any random little hole in the wall and eat whatever the mum who is cooking in the kitchen more than likely has made that day – always have the dish of the day. Stop at the least commercial-looking places. My experiences always revolve around food, and I think you get a real authentic feel from these types of places – they’ve woken up that morning, made their bread, made their five dishes.

My favourite places tend to be places run by families – there’s an amazing restaurant in Fiskardo called Vasso’s which has the most delicious food. The owner and her brother have run this restaurant for more than 30 years.

I have a house in the far north of the island – it’s a big glass box nestled in the cypress trees, the smell of pines is everywhere. All you hear are the cicadas. And you have the sea breeze, even up there. It’s my favourite place.

Before the pandemic we spent a few months of the year in Kefalonia, and what we tended to do was spend a month, or a few weeks, on Ithaca. During the summer although Kefalonia isn’t a super tourist-y place, it is a lot busier, and I prefer it when it isn’t. Ithaca is even quieter, and a bit more rugged – you can only get there by boat. It’s much more wild as an environment. It’s beautiful, we love it there.

There’s an amazing island called Tinos which is almost like Lourdes – people go there as a pilgrimage. It’s really rugged, it’s not green like Kefi. Kefi’s really green – Tinos is volcanic, the sand is almost black. It’s amazing, it’s super quiet and really remote. I adore it. I try to steer clear of – although they are really beautiful – places like Santorini, which are too touristy for me. I’m always trying to find the most deserted, remote place.

They take time for each other. Our lives run at such a speed – maybe not so much right now, but in the past – that we neglect to spend time with the people we care about. The Greeks have such an amazing quality of life, where they don’t experience the guilt we have – or I have – about just whiling away the day away reading, or swimming, or spending hours having lunch.

There are so many amazing memories – I’ve basically found a place that reminds me of the holidays I had with my mum and dad when I was a kid. It’s this time with family which I treasure more than anything. Every single holiday I feel like I’m making memories. There’s something so reassuring for me that it is a home from home. It’s a place of solace and peace for me.

The long days, and the warm nights. Honestly, that’s what I love – the endless days. It feels like nothing is ever going to finish, and that everything is going to be amazing.

A special thank you to Mike Vasilakis for modelling our launch collection in Greece.