Interior designer Alfredo Paredes is the founder of a New York- and Miami-based design studio that bears his name. As creative director, he tackles design for residential and retail projects, such as Brooklyn’s buzzy, nautical-inspired restaurant Sailor, and he has also created furniture, textile and rug lines.
Prior to hanging up his own shingle in 2019, Paredes was the creative force behind Ralph Lauren’s most iconic interiors at stores and restaurants around the world. As executive vice-president and chief creative officer, Paredes spent 34 years conceiving visuals for the brand, from the windows at the flagship Madison Avenue store to the Polo Bar in Manhattan and Ralph’s Coffee in Paris.
While Paredes logs fewer air miles today than he did while working at Ralph Lauren, he still considers himself a pro traveller, with a long list of secret resources honed by years in the field shopping for the antiques and props that every Ralph Lauren store needed.
“The Paris flea market has great, great stuff,” he says, as do the Cotswolds in England and Los Angeles. Flying first class on Japan Airlines, too, he recalls, was very posh, the cabin serene and “flight attendants would change kimonos between meals”. (Still on his bucket list: Iceland, Costa Rica and Australia.)
One of the best pieces of travel advice he ever received was to buy a Rimowa suitcase, which he says goes everywhere and is “indestructible” but still “super chic” with its leather saddle features.
Paredes shares his best travel tips below.
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Electrical tape is the secret to a good night’s sleep
I always pack electrical tape when I travel. It’s become an essential item in my luggage because hotel rooms often have surprisingly bright LED lights from things like thermostats, smoke detectors or alarm clocks that can disrupt sleep. A small piece of tape over these lights makes a huge difference in creating a properly dark sleeping environment.
Prioritise two things above all else when choosing a hotel room
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A room has to smell good, and it has to go dark. I hate hotels where the drapes don’t close or light comes in, or you’re sleeping on the third floor and there’s a streetlight that hits you in the room. No matter how fancy the suite is, you’re still sleeping with a streetlight in your room, and they haven’t figured out how to kind of block out the lighting.
I used to love the Hôtel Costes in Paris because it was super dark and serene. The rooms were really polished and quiet. Especially when you’re tired and jet-lagged, that really helps.
This hotel in Utah is worth the hype
The Amangiri in Utah is situated in an amazing place that you would never see otherwise. It’s all about the landscape and where you are, on a mesa in the middle of the desert. The way they’ve designed it all and placed it all — the experience, the way it smells, the desert, the lighting, the way the sun sets in the sky — it’s really special.
When I travel for my own pleasure, I like to go somewhere that’s the antithesis of city life. I want to be somewhere that feels like something I don’t see every day — a return to nature somehow. I like it chic, don’t get me wrong, but the way the Amangiri was built, from what I understand, the architects really didn’t want to interrupt the way that the landscape looked, so it just sort of goes right into the desert.
Buy the same souvenir wherever you go
I buy Christmas ornaments from wherever I go. I like the nostalgia of it all, when you’re putting it together and your kids go, “Oh, here’s a Santa wearing a hula. That’s when we were in Hawaii.”
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They’re easy to pack, and they may not mean anything in the moment, but they do later.
Japan’s crafts-focused towns are unfairly off-radar
Most tourists visit only the big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto. I’d suggest serious travellers explore Japan’s hidden craft towns: Onta, where an entire village still makes pottery using water-powered kick-wheels; Mino, where artisans create washi paper by hand using 1,300-year-old techniques; and Takaoka, a remarkable metalworking town where ancient foundries produce everything from massive temple bells to delicate copper teapots.
Each town offers hands-on experiences. You can try paper-making in Mino, watch master potters in Onta and visit active foundries in Takaoka to see how they blend traditional casting methods with contemporary designs. What makes these places special is that they’re not just preserving crafts for tourists; these are living communities where ancient skills are still a vital part of daily life.
Embracing this one concept will change the way you travel
During my travels to St Barts, where I was fortunate enough to rent Rudolf Nureyev’s former home for 12 years, I had the extraordinary privilege of meeting Jeanne Audy Rowland.
The villa was stunning — perched on a hillside with sweeping ocean views. But it was Jeanne, who owned the property, who left the most indelible impression. She was, in many ways, the unofficial mayor of the island, but what made her truly remarkable was her ability to remain utterly unpretentious in a place known for its “too fabulous” jet-setting crowd.
Jeanne taught me that true joie de vivre has nothing to do with status or pretence — and to keep things super simple. Through her gracious entertaining, captivating storytelling and genuine warmth, Jeanne showed me how to really live: to be fully present in each moment and approach life with both style and authenticity.
In a world that often celebrates superficiality, she was a master class in genuine sophistication. Her way of being — adventurous, kind and completely herself — became a blueprint for how I wanted to live my own life. And I learned how to travel leaner, meaner, with less stuff. I really try to stick by that now and figure out how to dress and pack that way.
