Long afternoons canoeing on the lake, making friendship bracelets at the canteen, and roasting marshmallows for s’mores around the campfire… Is there any better care package than reflecting back on the long summer days spent at sleep-away camp (or living them vicariously through your favorite summer flick)? 

 

The summer camp chic style is that bric-a-brac combination of woodsy raw-edge furnishings, felt pendant flags, and rackets and canoes that all become part of the backdrop to summer fun. And who says summer has to end? 

 

It doesn’t, especially when you can bring the summer camp chic style to your vacation home.

 

My First Summer Away at Camp 

I never went to sleep-away camp as a child. But I would dream about the idea of making friendship bracelets and finding summer romance while watching the original Parent Trap and Dirty Dancing on the floor of my mom’s family room, trying to escape the Austin summer heat. 

 

My summer camp daydreams didn’t come to fruition until the end of my freshman year of college. I was already sweating through the end of the spring semester and didn’t have it in me for another Texas summer. So, I found myself looking for a reprieve. 

 

I didn’t want just another summer job, and I couldn’t afford a vacation. But I wanted something cinematic. A summer to remember! (Preferably one filled with cool mountain mornings, pine trees, and afternoons on the lake.) 

 

So, when I stumbled upon “Camp Day” at the student center, I followed the scent of adventure into a conference hall filled with card tables, glossy pamphlets, and very enthusiastic camp recruiters. Sports camps, art camps, family camps, and special needs camps — their shiny pamphlets lined the folding tables like suitors waiting to be chosen.

 

As I perused the options, I realized these weren’t just any camps. These were summer utopias promising charming bunkhouses, talent shows, and pressed flower crafts, all packaged in the irresistible summer camp chic. I could just picture it: the weathered wood signs, beaded friendship bracelets, and a sense of communal chaos that bordered on cult-like rituals (in the best way). 

 

I didn’t care so much about the camp theme, but where it was located. I zeroed in on the Northeast in search of cooler temps, dreamy landscapes, and to be as far away from my Texas upbringing as possible for a few weeks.

I didn’t have any experience leading craft tie-dye projects, coaching sports, or really anything outside the occasional babysitting gig. But I was the youngest of nine kids, which meant I had extensive experience in crowd control and conflict mediation. These were two highly transferable skills in the camp counselor world, and in much more demand than I anticipated. 

 

I ended up at Camp Sequoia, a family camp tucked into the Catskills, serving predominantly Jewish families from Manhattan’s Upper East Side. It wasn’t a religious camp per se, but we did have to learn Hebrew prayers for mealtimes and attend Friday night services. As a non-Jewish Texan, I was both an outsider and a curiosity. Apparently, I was just exotic enough to land the gig.

 

For two summers, I lived the summer camp aesthetic in its purest form, working six days a week, 24 hours a day, for a grand total of $1,800. I sang the prayers, wore the T-shirts, swatted the mosquitoes, and soaked up the glorious, exhausting magic of keeping 8-year-olds alive while learning to navigate an entirely new cultural terrain. I didn’t quite fit in, but looking back, maybe that was the point.

 

Camp counselor life gave me a glimpse into another world, complete with its own rituals, rhythms, and definitions of friendship. I made lifelong memories that I keep tucked away in a care package to revisit when I need a healthy dose of nostalgia.

 

Reimagining the Summer Camp Aesthetic as an Adult

I loved the feeling of spending my summer in an open bunk at the edge of a fern-filled, mossy wood, welcoming the cool mountain mornings without any pressure to connect to the world outside of camp. It was not only the feeling of camp that resonated with me, but the look of camp! And I’m not the only one seeking to recreate the nostalgia. 

The summer camp chic style has its own bunkhouse in the world of fashion and interiors. You can see it referenced in summer collections, movies, and especially in vacation homes.

It is a look that’s hard to put into words. But we know it when we see it, because we remember it. If you’re stumped, think back to Dirty Dancing and The Parent Trap. These Northeastern camps are dotted with charming cabins and mess halls characterized by Adirondack architecture. The style leverages the local vernacular to create structures of exposed wood and stone, with chalet-like detailing and open porches to capture the breeze. 

 

Moonrise Kingdom also does a good job of capturing the decor of camp. Wes Anderson’s world is styled with “supplies,” like binoculars, games, radios, and patches. He curates a quirky combination of well-loved furniture, mixed with primitive folk art, nods to the outdoors, and recreation gear as decor, all of which bridge the gap between reality and childhood imagination. 

I’ve borrowed inspiration from the summer camp look in my own projects, from built-in bunk beds and a mounted canoe in my Cape Cod project to foix bois wall and textile treatments in Holiday Haus. I’ve even recreated the summer night sky in my Old West Austin renovation. These camp elements come together to remind us of simpler times and evoke a feeling of freedom, while reigniting our creativity and sense of play. 

 

The “In-Between” Style of Summer Camp Chic

One part of the camp experience that I’ve only come to fully appreciate in hindsight is the rare gift it gives kids: the chance to taste independence within a safety net. Camp is a liminal space, a temporary universe tucked between childhood and adulthood, where the structure of family life (often loving, sometimes chaotic) is replaced by something entirely new. A place where kids can play, create, swim, perform, fall in love, or quietly stitch together the first threads of who they are becoming. And they get to do this all while some vaguely qualified 19-year-old counselor makes sure they don’t wander into the woods.

 

It’s hard to capture that in-between-ness, that sense of innocent rebellion wrapped in safety, because we only live it for a moment. However, we can still feel it and return to that place of possibility when we see it again. Summer camp chic mirrors the emotional landscape of camp itself. 

 

It’s caught between childhood and independence and honored with a badge of nostalgia.