The right linen for Hvar is cloth whose origin you can verify, cut loose enough for a Dalmatian August and composed enough for a cathedral square at dusk. Pieter Petros makes exactly that: much of the collection in certified Belgian linen, handmade in the Dubai atelier and in Belgium, finished with buttons of seashell and walnut.

Hvar asks more of a wardrobe than its reputation suggests. The harbour is famous for its evenings, but the island is also one of the oldest settled places on the Adriatic, with a working landscape of vineyards, olive terraces and lavender behind its coast, and the day moves between all of them.

How should linen be judged before it travels here? Look first at the fibre itself: long, even flax gives a shirt its fall and lets it soften slowly, summer after summer, rather than thinning out. Then ask for proof. Belgian Linen® is a private certification mark, and its certificate follows the flax from the field to the cloth; the journal explains what the Belgian linen certificate covers. Then look at the finish: natural buttons rather than plastic, seams that lie flat, a weave open enough to let a sea breeze through. On an island where every harbour stall sells white linen, these are the details that separate one garment from another.

The season shapes everything. June is warm and green, with long evenings and a sea still waking up. July and August are the heart of it, with afternoon highs around 30°C, the sea at its warmest and the harbour full of boats. September keeps the warm water and loses the crowds, and by October the light softens, the days ease back into the low twenties and many beach bars close for the winter. Most visitors arrive by catamaran from Split, a crossing of about an hour, and step straight onto the Riva.

Hvar Town is built around the Pjaca, the long stone square that runs from the harbour to the Cathedral of St Stephen. On one side stands the Arsenal, where the Venetian-era galleys were repaired, and above it the theatre opened in 1612, one of the oldest public theatres in Europe. The fortress known as the Fortica watches over all of it from the hill. For a morning walk up to the fortress and back down through the lanes, a man wears the Laos Short Sleeve Linen Shirt in White, in certified Belgian linen, with PP linen shorts in Beige from the men’s linen collection. The cathedral is a working church and covered shoulders and knees are the courteous choice there; for a woman that means the PP linen blouse in Orchid, in Belgian linen, with a long skirt or long loose trousers of her own.

Across the harbour lie the Pakleni Islands, a chain of pine-covered islets reached by taxi boat in a few minutes. Palmižana, on Sveti Klement, has a marina and long lunches under the trees; elsewhere there are small coves with nothing but rock and clear water. This is a day for PP swim shorts in Sapphire Blue or Oyster, cut from Belgian linen to be swum in from the first cove to the last. When lunch is served under the pines, the white shirt goes back on; the linen shorts wait in the villa for dry land. For her, the Linen Ladies Set in Sky Blue moves easily between the boat and the table.

Inland, the island changes. The road climbs to Brusje and Velo Grablje, the highland villages where lavender has been grown and distilled for generations. The harvest falls at the end of June or the start of July, and Velo Grablje marks it each summer with a lavender festival in its small square. Colour belongs here: the Laos Short Sleeve Linen Shirt in Violet, in certified Belgian linen, or the Amelia linen dress shirt in Violet for her, a dress in itself and at ease among the fields and the stone houses.

On the north side of the island sits Stari Grad, founded as Pharos by Greek settlers from Paros in 384 BC. The plain behind it, divided by those settlers into long rectangular plots that are still farmed today, is inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site. It is a place for a slow afternoon among vines and dry-stone walls, and later a quiet supper on the waterfront. The Monte-Carlo Male in Oatmeal, with its walnut buttons, and PP Casual Linen Trousers in Vanille suit both. The wines of the plain and the neighbouring slopes are worth the journey alone.

Evening in Hvar Town brings everyone back to the Riva. Dinner on a terrace above the harbour asks for something deeper: the Laos Short Sleeve Linen Shirt in Dubarry with PP Trousers 100% Linen in White, or for her the Amelia linen dress shirt in Oyster, with its walnut buttons, or in Hibiscus when the night calls for colour. The full Hvar wardrobe follows the island from morning to night, and for the coast beyond it, the linen guide to Split begins where the catamaran docks.

Hvar rewards those who travel light. A handful of well-made pieces, sent ahead to the villa, is all the island asks: little needed, and all of it good.

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