La Dolce Vita: How to Bring Italian Resort Style into Your Home

There is a particular kind of evening in Italy that I keep thinking about. After dinner, instead of getting in the car and heading home, my husband and I would walk. Slowly. We would stop for a gelato or a small espresso — just for an excuse to keep moving through the night air. We would find a bench in a park and sit and watch the children play. And, observe other couples do exactly the same thing. No one was rushing. No one was checking the time. That is La Dolce Vita. “The sweet life”. And it’s not a vacation mood in Italy, it’s just a normal day.

The filmmaker Federico Fellini gave the phrase its cultural weight in 1960 with the film of its same name, but the concept predates his film by generations. It describes the distinctive Italian relationship with time, beauty, and daily ritual that I find genuinely moving as a designer. The objects around you are beautiful and used. The table is set. The coffee is made with care. Above all, life’s pleasures are not reserved for special occasions. 

Furthermore, it is not about excess. La Dolce Vita is thoughtful restraint — handmade things, natural materials, a color story drawn from the vibrant coast. I find myself returning to this sensibility every summer which reminds me of my experiences traveling to beautiful and relaxed resort locations along the Italian coast that embody this sensibility. So, this year, I built a design edit inspired by it. 

The Color Story of La Dolce Vita

The Italian resort palette is instantly recognizable. Think of Positano’s stacked facades — terracotta, lemon yellow, cobalt, aqua water, warm white. Then move to Forte del Marmi, where the beach club cabanas line the sand in bold stripes of green, crisp white, yellow, and orange against the sand. These colors are not subtle. They are solar, vibrant and confident.

Stripes, in particular, are the signature of Italian resort style. They appear on beach umbrellas, awnings, table linens, and patio chair cushions that have been in the same café for forty years. The stripe is not a trend in Italy — it is a tradition. For this reason, I carried it throughout the edit.

I want to be clear that this palette is seasonal and specific. I do not typically incorporate these colors into a full interior project. Additionally, when I do specify pieces from this color story, they are usually layered in with artwork or seasonal accessories — things brought out in May and put away in September. A colorful striped pool umbrella, a lemon-yellow pitcher, a blue glass tumbler on the table — small gestures that shift the feeling of a space without changing its bones.

The Italian Standard: Beauty That Earns Its Place

One of the things I notice every time I travel in Italy is that functionality never sacrifices beauty. This is not a stylistic preference — it is a design standard. For example, an Italian pitcher is not just a vessel. It has a handle that feels considered, a proportion that is intentional, a glaze that took someone’s hands to apply. It’s functional and beautiful.

Gio Ponti understood this better than almost anyone. His architecture, his furniture, his ceramics — all of it operated on the principle that beauty and function are not competing values. They are the same value, expressed at different scales. That principle runs through the best of Italian design still, and it is the lens I used to build the design edit I reference in this blog.

Take the Ichendorf Milano Fish Pitcher, available through Porta. Designed by Alessandra Baldereschi, it’s hand-blown in Italy. A tiny glass fish swims at the base. A wavy green seaweed handle wraps the side. It’s borosilicate glass — lightweight and durable. It’s also a small work of art. That is exactly the Italian standard I am talking about.

Coffee is a Daily Ritual

Coffee has a similar standard. Of course, in Italy espresso is not a caffeine delivery system- it is a ritual. The machine matters. The cup matters. The two minutes you stand at the bar and drink it matter. I noticed a Nespresso machine in every luxury resort I stayed at in Italy. That is not a coincidence. Nespresso has become the in-room standard at five-star properties worldwide precisely because it delivers a consistent, genuine espresso without compromise.

The Italian Resort Edit

This is the edit I built around La Dolce Vita. These are not pieces from a single project — they are “inspired-by” selections chosen for quality, color, and the specific feeling they carry. So, most of them are seasonal and some are pieces I would specify year-round for the right client. All of them carry a little piece of Italy.

The edit lives as a full design board below.

One-piece worth calling out separately is the Business & Pleasure Co. Hemingway Cooler in Powder Blue. The yellow stripe cushion lid and the powder blue shell are the color story of the Italian Riviera made entirely functional. For a functional cooler, it’s the most Italian-looking thing I have seen come out of an Australian brand.

A Little Piece of Italy, Stateside

I realize not everyone can get to Italy this summer. Frankly, I wish we all could. There is something about the pace of it — the long walks, the park bench at nine o’clock, the espresso to not only slowly begin the day but also end it — that I find genuinely hard to replicate anywhere else.

Nevertheless, a few well-chosen objects go a long way. A striped towel by the pool. Hand-painted ceramic plates on the table. A beautiful backgammon set on the screened porch. These are small things. But that is the point of La Dolce Vita. In conclusion, sweetness is in the small things, made with care, enjoyed without rushing. The full edit is shoppable below. Buona estate.