How to look chic on the beach
A summer holiday needn’t mean a vacation from good taste. Five fashion and beauty experts tell Charlie Gowans-eglinton what’s in their suitcases
Maria Lemos Founder of Rainbowwave showroom and Mouki Mou concept store
For holidays, I really like repetition – the old favourites just come back. Dosa and Raquel Allegra are the two brands that I’ve collected over the years, and I wear them over the years. Because we tend to go back to the same place, to Patmos in the Dodecanese in Greece, it’s quite nice that the clothes return as well. But there are always new additions as far as swimwear, hats, sandals, sunglasses, that kind of spice it up.
It’s a bone of contention with my husband, because I tend to pack everything. My summer wardrobe is extensive, so it goes in the hold, and shamefully there is a bag with towels and swimsuits that comes as well. I think on holiday is when you look your best, so that’s when you’ll really enjoy your clothes. So in the midst of low-key clothes, I’ll pack a Galliano gown from 20 years ago, because that’s when I’m most likely to wear it – on the beach with sandals.
It’s the only time when I can really pamper myself. Uka roll-on nail oils smell amazing, and you can use them when you’re on the beach. I always pack Rodin jasmine oil for hair and skin, and
Susanne Kaufmann’s sun cream because I love the smell – it smells of ripe melon.
I buy a swimsuit a year. I think because swimsuits get worn in the salt water, that feeling of a new swimsuit for this year’s holiday is defining for me. There’s one by Eres that I have my eye on, a black backless one – their fabrics are the best if you swim, and I do. And there’s a new brand called Jean Yu that’s very sophisticated, beautiful, minimal.
Catherine
Johnson Founder of Three Graces London
I pack outfits, and most of the time I do stick to them, unless the weather isn’t quite what I thought. I’ll put swimwear with whatever cover up I’ll wear it with, folded together. So I take it out of the suitcase, put it in the drawer, done. And the same with the evening – I’ll just reach for the hanger, and then have my jewellery and everything already sorted out.
Before I started my label I had very little resortwear, because I didn’t invest in it. It was kind of an afterthought – but actually it’s important, when you spend so much money on a holiday, that you feel really good on the holiday as well. You don’t want to feel like the worst-dressed person on the beach.
I do buy loads of white underwear just from the supermarket, though, because it always gets marked with suntan lotion. And the same with white T-shirts – they look nice when they’re fresh and they’re super white, so what’s the point of spending £100 on a white T-shirt to take on holidays? I travel a lot, so I’m kind of used to the rigour of decanting. If I can, I’ll always travel with hand luggage. I have little Muji plastic boxes in my bag all the time – I carry my earrings in them. I keep all of my cables in together. I have black zippy bags, so all of my evening wear is in together, rolled. And then all of my underwear will be in bags, with spare bags ready for the wash coming back.
Daisy Hoppen, Director of DHPR
Majorca is our go-to place: my sisters and I basically grew up every summer there, we’ve got a house in the foothills of Sóller. If I’m going with my sister, I’ll just pack a few things into a Hervé Chapelier bag, which I’ll carry on my shoulder, or a Bric’s wheeled suitcase. If I’m going away with friends it’s quite fun to get dressed up in the evenings, so I’ll plan a couple of party things. I always pack a pair of heels, but I never end up wearing them.
I definitely take after my mother and grandmother: they pre-pack. I tend to pack a few days before so it’s done. Shoes in dustbags, the rest I just roll together. It’s dangerous to share a suitcase, because I think girls can pack quite minimally. Boys’ stuff is just bigger, the shoes are bigger, and it’s the kit as well, all the kit that they bring. So I don’t share. But do I steal my boyfriend’s shirts on holiday; they’re so much nicer than girls’ shirts for some reason, they look so much nicer with shorts.
I always take sets of playing cards with me, and Uno – I’m fanatical about Uno – and travel Scrabble. I think board games and card games are really underrated on holiday; there’s nothing more fun. If you’ve got a hat, you can use that for the name game.
For the plane, I get the best lavender hand sanitiser from Wholefoods. I take This Works sleepy spray, a toothbrush, and a travel bottle of Bioderma cleanser. I always take a fan [Hoppen launched her own line of them, fernfans.com, earlier this year], and Sakura headbands and silk scrunchies are great when don’t want your hair everywhere. When I fly long haul, Olivia von Halle’s cashmere tracksuit
makes travelling so much nicer. You can’t go first class, but at least you can feel good when you turn right!
If I know I’m going to a country where I’m going to crave home comforts then sometimes I’ll take a bar of Green & Black’s sea salt dark chocolate with me to keep in the fridge. My mother takes Marmite.
Sarah Coonan, Head of Buying for Beauty, Home and Little Liberty at Liberty London
I’m incapable of scaling down – I always take full-sized beauty products. If I’m away for two weeks, I don’t want to run out of something halfway through. I’m also quite a home body, so when I get there I’ll unpack everything, put my clothes away and all my products on the vanity, so it feels a bit more like home. You can’t do that when it’s grubby little plastic bottles.
I’ve got a fail-safe travel kit for the flight. I always travel with a Skin Laundry hydrating sheet mask
– you put it on for 10 minutes, and when you get there you don’t have that dry, flaky skin that you get at the end of a flight. And the Queen of Hungary mist, from Omorovicza – if the kids are screaming it’s like an instant de-stress.
When I’m first sunbathing, I’ll always use Sisley SPF on my face. It’s quite pricey so I can’t afford to do it for the whole holiday, but I’ll use it when I first arrive, and then use a cheaper one from Boots for the rest of the holiday once I’ve got a bit of a tan.
When you’re using sun cream you get really congested, so I’ll use an oil cleanser and then a cream cleanser as a double cleanse. If I’m sunburnt, I’ll sleep with a hydrating mask on instead of moisturiser, and the next morning any little bits of sunburn will feel more under control.
The thing that I prep most for is my hair. I’ve got blonde hair that goes really dry in the sun, and when your hair gets dryer it gets harder to brush when it’s wet, so you end up with lots of breakages on holiday. But if I go away with a good haircut then that happens much less, and it’s much easier and quicker to get a brush through it. I’ll also be doing twice-weekly masks on my hair for about a month before I go away – otherwise by the time I get back it feels like cotton wool.
Kimberley Tecles-byrom, Founder of Goya
My husband is Spanish, and I moved to Madrid three years ago. I have mastered the carry-on because we do a lot of weekend trips to Formentera, so I mostly pack in outfits nowadays. I used to take a ton of shoes, but now I tend to just take one pair of heels, a pair of basic flip-flops for the beach, and three pairs of Goya sandals. I probably have more of a holiday uniform than I do in the city or working: long linen dresses, generally loose fitting – I’ve just bought a couple from Bimba y Lola. I have one piece in particular that always comes if I’m going to a warm climate, a Jacquemus white linen skirt. I love the look of a one-piece, but for tanning I wear a bikini. And then, once the sun starts to set, I’ll change into a one-piece to be a bit more glamorous – I love Lisa Marie Fernandez.
As soon as the sun is hot and strong in Spain, I wear a foundation called Heliocare, which is factor 50 – it’s more of a sun cream than a foundation, really. It’s got pigmentation in it, but it’s quite light, so I use that and a touch of blusher. I wear the same perfume – from Santa Maria Novella – on holiday and at home, but I don’t wear it on the beach; as long as I’m using a sun cream that I like the smell of then I feel nice.