California’s Amalfi Coast Collection

My mom is from California. She raised her family in Italy, and eventually bought a house back home in California where she retired. We visited her every summer and sometimes for Christmas. I have known this stretch of the Southern California coast since I was a kid.

I have residency in California now, but Italy is still part of my year. I travel for work and spend three or four months back in Italy annually. Both places are home. Both places are work. North County is the place I always come back to on this side of the Atlantic.

What I did not realize until I started painting it is how much this coast reminds me of the Amalfi.

The stretch from La Jolla through Solana Beach, Cardiff, Encinitas, and into Leucadia is the closest thing America has to it. I do not say that as a marketing line. I say it because I know both coasts well, and the bones of this one are unmistakably Mediterranean.

That recognition is where the Del Mar by the Sea collection started.

Why North County feels like the Amalfi

The two coasts are not identical. The Amalfi is mostly small, quaint towns and small, quaint beaches. The cliffs are dramatic and vertical and the villages are stacked above each other. North County is bigger and more open. The bluffs are majestic, the beaches are wide, and the towns are strung along the coast instead of stacked above it.

Both coasts have that pale Mediterranean light. Both have water that goes deep turquoise at the right hour. Both lean toward the muted and refined instead of the bright and loud. Both are dotted with quaint towns that each have their own personality. Positano, Praiano, Atrani, Ravello on one coast. Del Mar, Solana Beach, Cardiff, Encinitas, Leucadia on the other.

When I started this collection, I was not painting generic California beach.I was painting this very specific stretch of coast. The North County Riviera, if I am being honest about what it is.

What is in the collection

Del Mar by the Sea is a Southern California coastal collection. The motifs are seashells, sand dollars, starfish, and shoreline botanicals, all hand-painted. The hero prints come with coordinating wave and stripe patterns so they work together as a full set.

The palette is four main colors:

• Muted turquoise
• Warm sand
• Driftwood beige
• Sun-washed white

Those colors came directly from the coast. The driftwood beige is the bluffs. The turquoise is the water. The warm sand is the sand. The sun-washed white is what the morning light does to everything before it warms up.

Why the collection is restrained but cheerful

Most California coastal collections go bright. Coral pink, electric blue, neon palm green. There is a place for that look, but it is not what this coast actually looks like at least for me.

The kind of home that wants Del Mar by the Sea on its walls is not looking for beach themed. It is looking for coastal chic. That is a real difference. Beach themed is loud and busy. Coastal chic is calm, but it is not somber. There is a cheerful, playful feel to this collection. The colors are muted, but the motifs have personality. A sand dollar in the right scale is genuinely fun. A starfish in turquoise on a wallpaper repeat makes a powder room feel like a small vacation.

I trained as a fine artist in Florence. The Italian training pulls you toward muted color, careful proportion, and respect for the empty space between things. That training shows up in everything I make, and it shows up most clearly here, because the coast that inspired this collection already shared the same instinct.

Where this collection belongs

I designed Del Mar by the Sea for wallpaper, fabric, and home products. The motifs work at a range of scales, from small blender prints that read almost as texture, up to larger statement prints for a feature wall.

Here is who I had in mind:

• A Southern California beach home that wants the coast on the walls without the cliché
• A wallpapered powder room with the sand dollar print
• Fabric on a window seat in a guest room that opens to the Pacific
• A linen tablecloth at a small dinner on a deck in Cardiff
• Throw pillows in muted turquoise on a slipcovered linen sofa
• A boutique coastal hotel that wants Mediterranean feel without literal Italian icons
• A wedding venue along the North County coast
• Home goods brands that understand coastal chic is its own category

The collection works best in the homes and spaces of people want something with a Southern California coastal chic and beach themed. If you know, you know.

The coast was already there

I did not invent any of this. The bluffs, the light, the muted water, the shells in the morning sand, all of it was here before me. My job was to look carefully, paint what I saw, and arrange the motifs into repeats that other people could put on their walls and tables.

California has its own Amalfi. I painted Del Mar by the Sea so it could have its own textile too.