Magic in the Moonlight: Hamish Bowles Toasts Laura Sartori Rimini’s Birthday Over a Picture-Perfect Capri Weekend
When Laura Sartori Rimini, one half of the alchemical decorating and architectural establishment Studio Peregalli, decided to throw a full-moon birthday party for herself on Capri, one knew that the beauty would be unbounded. She and Roberto Peregalli, her partner in design, had worked for months on every detail, and the results of their efforts—as the discriminating taste-meisters who descended on the island all concurred—were unpretentiously sublime.
I arrived on the eve of the party and stayed at the delightfully unglitzed Gatto Bianco hotel, still perfumed with the spirit of Capri in the glory years of la dolce vita when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis used to stay there. (Architect Massimo Esposito, son of one of the founders, also designs the playful L’ora di Capri wristwatch.) The hand-blocked Indian cotton welcome bag included books by the very chic island publisher Edizione La Conchiglia, and the party details (the invitation and the menu cards) were delightfully illustrated by the brilliant (and now deeply lamented) artist Pierre Le-Tan.
I discovered that the same dolce vita spirit of the Gatto Bianco abounds at Eco Capri, founded in 2012, where owner Federico Alvarez de Toledo has looked to the enchanting works on paper of his grandmother artist Letizia Cerio (who created prints for Emilio Pucci’s modish jet-set resortwear), whom Italian Vogue once described as “eclectic, cosmopolitan, mystically devoted to painting, and fatally attracted to fashion . . . driven her whole life by an urgent desire to express herself.” Many of Cerio’s whimsical designs are now used for Eco Capri’s own stylish fashion wares and accessories. Also worth investigating: Laboratorio Capri, another dynastic enterprise founded in 2010 by Michele and Augusto Gigino, sons of Luigi and Maria Luisa, whose Gigino Tailor’s shop was a mainstay of Caprese sartoria in the ’50s and ’60s. I enjoyed the jewels of Faraone Mennella by R.F.M.A.S., the cameos of Amadeo Scognamiglio, and the new island store of Zimmermann, which was frothing with pretty dresses.
I went for lunch with Roberto at La Piazzetta in the Piccola Marina, and spent the late afternoon at the beach club La Canzone del Mare, where café society once disported itself and the sea water was bathtub warm.
That evening, the guests who were already on the island were bidden to dinner at the restaurant Le Grottelle, high above the fabled Villa Malaparte and the Arco Naturale. Laura and Roberto had decorated this wonderful place very prettily with ochre-colored Indian paisley tablecloths and centerpieces of lemons and bay leaves. Dessert and dancing followed at the magical house nearby, which they created together as a holiday retreat—both for them and for Laura’s family. (I wrote about it in Vogue’s November 2018 issue.)
On the morrow, I joined director Rob Ashford and friends for a boat adventure across choppy waters to lunch on the mainland at the picturesque Conca del Sogno. Back in Capri, I headed to Anacapri and the Villa San Michele to calm my sea-shocked nerves. This is one of my favorite houses in the world, created at the turn of the 20th century by the Swedish doctor, best-selling writer, and spiritual guru Axel Munthe as a retreat where he could—among other things—enjoy his romantic friendship with Queen Victoria of Sweden far from the prying eyes of the court. The flamboyant Marchesa Casati once lived in this exquisite house, with its shaded terraced gardens affording plunging views of the sea and the Bay of Naples far, far below.
On this visit, the courtyard of the house showcased the work of ceramic artist Liselotte Watkins—joyfully patterned urns and vases wittily disposed in the arches of a loggia among ancient Roman stone and marble busts and column capitals. My last visit here was with Swedish designer Lars Nilsson, then ensconced in a guest apartment on a cultural residency, where he worked on a series of watercolors that would result in a collaboration with the carpet weavers Vandra Rugs, as well as home furnishing textiles for the storied Swedish lifestyle brand Svenskt Tenn.
After the visit, I raced back to the hotel to freshen up for the big night, but not before investing in a pair of Caprese sandals from Schettino—another favorite haunt of Mrs. Onassis’s, as the sun-faded 1960s snapshots collaged on the wall bear witness—and some of the wickedly delicious pistachio, pine nut, and walnut cookies from Buonocore that Laura had served the night before.