Island Style Guide

From bright, bold colors to punchy tropical motifs, here is our complete guide to creating—and enjoying—an island oasis, as well as a our favorite island homes.

Six Steps to Island Style

In a Bermuda villa overlooking the sea, designer Meg Braff creates an island look that’s classic and family-friendly—in six easy steps.|Writer Steele Thomas Marcoux, Stylist Heather Chadduck

Photographer Tria Giovan

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1. Patterned rugs.

Meg paired polished antiques with geometric and striped flat-weave rugs made of cotton, jute, or sea grass to give each room a casual foundation. “I wanted the floors to feel good—and be forgiving under bare feet after a day on the beach,” says Meg. Antique Persian rugs, which can’t be hosed down or shaken out, would have shifted the style factor too far toward formal.