Lakki does not look like a Greek harbour town. Laid out by the Italian administration of the Dodecanese in the 1930s around a deep, sheltered natural harbour, it is a town of broad avenues, rounded corners and pale facades in the rationalist style of the period, with a cinema, a covered market and long quays on a scale the town never quite filled. Leros has more than Lakki: a castle, a ridge of windmills, fishing villages and quiet bays. But Lakki is the detail no neighbouring island shares, a town meant to be walked through at an unhurried pace and in a clean shirt.

The island is small and indented, its coast cut into a series of bays so deep that Leros looks, on a map, almost like several islands held together. Platanos, the capital, sits on a saddle in the middle, its houses climbing towards the Castle of Panteli, a Byzantine fortress with the church of the Panagia inside its walls. A line of restored windmills runs along the ridge below the walls. The way up from Platanos is a long flight of steps; the views over Agia Marina on one side and Panteli on the other are the reward.

The climb to the castle is a morning walk, and the first test of what to wear in Leros. The Laos Linen Shirt in Grey, worn open at the collar with PP Casual Linen Trousers in Roosewood Pink, keeps air moving across the back on the way up and is already dressed for the church at the top. The church inside the walls is a place of worship as well as a sight, and covered shoulders and knees are the courtesy there. Women will find the PP linen blouse in Lemon, worn with a long skirt, suits the castle and the cafes of Platanos below it.

Panteli lies just beneath the castle on the south side: a fishing village with boats pulled up on the shingle, tavernas set directly on the beach and a small harbour where the catch is landed. It is the island’s natural place for a long lunch. Here the PP natural swim shorts in Roosewood Pink go from the water to the table under a linen shirt, and the ladies linen set in Mint Green suits the walk along the sand to lunch. Further north, the long bay of Alinda has a quiet beach and, near it, the Commonwealth war cemetery for those who fell in the Battle of Leros in 1943, a place where a covered shirt and a lowered voice belong.

Lakki is the evening. The avenues along the waterfront fill gently after sunset, the cafes put out their chairs, and the curved facades take on the colour of the light. This is where a more finished outfit makes sense. For men, the Monte-Carlo Male in Vanille, with its walnut buttons, worn over PP Trousers 100% Linen in Sapphire Blue; for women, the Amelia linen dress shirt in Oyster, the one colourway of the Amelia linen dress shirt closed with walnut rather than seashell. Both read well against the pale stone of the waterfront.

The south of the island is the quietest part. Xirokampos has a beach, a few tavernas and, in season, small boats that cross to Kalymnos, its high cliffs visible across the strait. Blefoutis, in the north, is a sheltered bay with shallow water and a single taverna. For days that move between such bays, the men’s linen collection offers enough colour to vary a short wardrobe: Light Blue for the beach, Grey for the town, White for the evening.

Leros has a small airport with flights from Athens, and ferries from Piraeus put in at Lakki itself, sailing into the long harbour past the rationalist waterfront. Island neighbours make good companions on a Dodecanese route: Patmos lies a short sailing to the north, and Kos beyond Kalymnos to the south. Out of season, the evenings in Lakki are mild and the island is left largely to its residents.

Some of Lakki’s 1930s buildings have been restored and some still wait, shutters closed, and walking past them at dusk the waterfront has the air of a stage set before its first night.

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