Growing up in Tupelo, Mississippi, Meg Braff assisted her mother and grandmother in hosting dinner parties, often serving as the “dinner roll girl” in her nightgown while quietly taking notes on table settings. Now, at home in West Palm Beach and Locust Valley, New York, the interior designer regularly hosts her own dinners—on a larger scale—and she’s wearing bright, ’60s-inspired kaftans.
As an interior designer, Braff’s exuberant approach to color injects playful glamour into traditional silhouettes, attracting clients from Palm Beach and Antigua to Nantucket and Maine. Her style, both in interiors and sartorially, is reminiscent of Palm Beach’s mid-century golden age, albeit with a more relaxed, contemporary edge. This aesthetic spills over into her events, which serve as a fresh opportunity to showcase her style while introducing old friends to new-in-town visitors.
Notably, she doesn’t rent anything at home—no chairs, tables, or flatware, having collected sufficient pieces to comfortably accommodate up to 24 people in Palm Beach (and 40 up north). And yet, no two parties look alike. “Every party is a little bit different,” she says. “I often do a new tablecloth.” She does have a leg up on keeping things interesting. Braff pulls from her own line of textiles to spin up napkins and tablecloths, including custom colors or patterns to suit the theme. (The patterns are her own adaptations from archives she purchased from those including Philip Graf, a New York wallpaper designer whose archive she acquired after the brand had been dormant for decades.) Occasionally, the china she inherited from her dinner-roll days will appear alongside them. “I do have a very large collection of napkins, chargers, and plates,” she says with a laugh.
Consider, for example, a surprise birthday party for her mother-in-law, inspired by the matriarch’s love of chinoiserie: hosted on the terrace of Newport’s Gilded Age mansion Marble House, it overlooked a Chinese teahouse that sits along the seaside cliffs. Custom-printed tablecloths of Braff’s “Forbidden City” fabric and exotic orchids covered the tables, all punctuated with a cake in the shape of a traditional pagoda.
For her husband Doug’s Cuban-themed birthday—an intimate affair hosted on her terrace during the pandemic—the black-and- white Havana-inspired “Southwind” print tablecloths extended to custom aprons and masks for the waiters. A summer rainstorm added unexpected flair. “We had cocktails indoors, watching the impressive storm,” she says. “It was a little dramatic and really fun.” Luckily, it cleared up enough for dinner to go ahead seamlessly.
For inspiration, she’ll often start with the menu and the size of the guest list, carrying that theme through with the table setting and a signature cocktail. (For a larger group, she favors a paella buffet. “That sets a very different tone than a soufflé,” she adds.) A trip to Florida Avenue’s wholesale flower market might tip the scales toward one color or another, depending on the available blooms.
During a recent Wednesday afternoon at her home—a Mediterranean Revival overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway—Braff and her team were preparing for a springtime celebration dinner with a tablecloth made of a bolt of discontinued “Benedicte” Clarence House fabric that she had been saving. Chargers and glasses highlighted the botanical print’s chartreuse, while plates and flatware added bamboo accents. The Leontine Linens napkins, embroidered with lemon trees, referenced the tablecloth’s yellow and blue spheres. The long, narrow table—optimized for cross-table conversation—barely had room for the fresh bouquets of yellow tulips and lavender sweet peas. But Braff made it work, serving a menu that included cheese soufflé, filet with green peppercorn sauce, and flourless chocolate cake.
The green accents on her table were heavily reflected in her home, which she bought in 2020. She has been gradually remaking it in her vision, moving doorways and adding a range of saturated jade greens, peachy pinks, and robin’s-egg blues, accented with vintage brass fixtures and smoked-glass mirrors. Many of her own fabrics and wall coverings appear alongside the types of antiques and artwork that are available at her Georgia Avenue store, which opened in 2022. (Her Locust Valley store opened in 2011.) Earlier this spring, she curated a collection of vintage pieces for a pop-up space in Bergdorf Goodman in partnership with online furniture marketplace Chairish. Some of her favorites of the one-of-one selections include large white plaster palm tree sconces (brass versions hold court in her own living room), a collection of nautilus shells, and brass accessories.
The house has yet to have its formal “grand reveal,” but aspiring visitors might recognize a certain pink and yellow bedroom, whose walls are covered in Braff’s “Rainforest” wallpaper. It was originally installed for Braff’s takeover of the room during the 2019 Kips Bay Decorator Show House, and the previous homeowner elected to keep it up.
In the living room is an unexpected mixture of greens and yellows. Chartreuse silk curtains, trimmed in playful pom-poms, play off jade-green sofas trimmed in fringe. Deeper iterations of those tones are carried through to an adjacent bar, where emerald Zellige tiles reflect in a bronze-gold ceiling. A lime version of her “Forbidden City” print covers the powder room walls. Even the exterior windows and doors are trimmed in a vibrant pea green. “I look at green almost as a neutral now—it’s almost like my beige,” she says. It also works with everything that’s in the garden, she adds.
Palm Beach, and its emphasis on the outdoors, has provided considerable inspiration. She has spent time in South Florida since she met her husband 35 years ago and has since been influenced by the friends and parties she’s enjoyed over the years. “Even just with your wardrobe, you can be more playful than in New York City with the colors and shapes. I love things that have a ’60s and ’70s influence—those clothes fit very well, and it feels vacation-like,” she says. “The aesthetic of how I like to dress down here has a big influence on my work.” (A recent collaboration with towel company Weezie, for example, adapted her patterns into towels, totes, and bathrobes printed with palm trees, butterflies, and cockle shells in blues, greens, and pinks.)
That influence has recently expanded to fashion partnerships. This spring, she unveiled a limited-edition collection of silk and cotton dresses in partnership with independent designer Sue Sartor. Belted cotton dresses reference the wicker and trellis patterns found in a few of her patterns, while a pink silk kaftan features a gold dragon embroidered on the back, inspired by her “Forbidden City” print. She wears this one to her springtime dinner party—a nod to the tablecloth’s pink accents.
The dresses, she says, are fun, easy, and cheerful, echoing her best advice for a successful dinner party: remember to have fun. And don’t worry if you don’t cook. “I’m very good at finding food and making it look good on the plate,” she says with a wink.
What Would Meg Do?
Secrets of a Superhostess
Do:
• Mix casual flatware, like bamboo, to take the edge off fancier inherited plates. “Use those things you’ve had sitting in your pantry for 15 years,” Braff says.
• Anything that you can in advance (ironing napkins, washing crystal, checking speakers and outdoor light bulbs) to reduce stress.
• Place settings that group the “new” person with someone most likely to be talkative and outgoing.
• Adjust the lighting by dimming the lights as the evening progresses, even if the main event is outside.
• Have fun!
Don’t:
• Feel like you have to use the same plate for each place setting. You can alternate two sets to double capacity—assuming they complement each other.
• Overdo it with mixed patterns. If the china service is complex, balance with a simple tablecloth and flower arrangements. “Not everything has to be zero to 90,” Braff says.
• Use too-short hurricane glasses around candles. They’ll blow out.
• Waste flowers and legwork; consider hosting back-to-back parties over two nights to get the most out of your efforts.
• Run out of food or wine.
Hair and makeup: Deborah Koepper, Deborah Koepper Salon, Palm Beach
Pink kaftan: Sue Sartor x Meg Braff Collection
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