Forbidden Island: A Love Letter to Exotica

Forbidden Island began with a lifetime of influences.

Hawaii. California surf culture. Los Angeles punk rock. Vintage tiki bars. Martin Denny playing somewhere in the background. Les Baxter conjuring imaginary jungles through a hi-fi stereo.

And, inevitably, a few skulls.

The Forbidden Island Collection is Sin in Linen’s love letter to Exotica. Our founder, Sandy Glaze, tells the story.

From Hawaii to California

I was born and raised in Hawaii, surrounded by lush vegetation, warm nights, ocean air and the visual language of island life.

Later, growing up in California, that world collided with another distinctly West Coast phenomenon: tiki and surf culture.

Tiki bars, bamboo, tropical cocktails, surf shops, record covers and Polynesian-inspired interiors were part of the cultural landscape. There was something wonderfully theatrical about it all. Tiki wasn't simply decoration—it was an invitation to escape into another world.

That idea has always appealed to me.

Thus Sin in Linen is always about creating another world at home.

Then Punk Rock Happened

Hawaii brought the tropics. Los Angeles brought the darkness.

Punk rock introduced an entirely different visual vocabulary: black leather, skulls, underground clubs, tattoo art, vintage graphics and the pleasure of taking something beautiful and making it a little dangerous.

Those influences never really left me.

At Sin in Linen, we've spent years exploring the darker side of interiors through gothic bedding, black bedding, skull motifs, lush botanicals and home decor that doesn't behave.

Forbidden Island gave us the opportunity to bring two seemingly different worlds together.

Tiki culture meets gothic style. 

Welcome to the World of Exotica

At the center of Forbidden Island is my longtime love of Exotica.

In the 1950s and '60s, musicians like Martin Denny and Les Baxter created lush, cinematic soundscapes inspired by imagined tropical worlds. Their records were filled with percussion, bird calls, hypnotic rhythms and orchestral arrangements that could transport you somewhere humid, mysterious and very far from everyday life.

The album covers were just as evocative. Dark jungles. Tropical flowers. Volcanoes. Torchlight. Mysterious figures. Cocktails at midnight.

It was escapism with a soundtrack.

I have always loved the mood of Exotica—the sense that somewhere, just beyond the palms, something strange is happening.

Forbidden Island is our attempt to turn that sound into a room.

Enter Lezio Lopes

To create that world, we collaborated with illustrator Lezio Lopes, whose richly detailed work felt perfectly suited to the collection.

You may already know Lezio's work without knowing his name. He was the illustrator behind the acclaimed title artwork for HBO's The White Lotus.

His intricate tropical imagery has that rare quality I love: at first glance, everything is lush and beautiful. Look closer, and things get stranger.

Together, we set out to create something that referenced the visual history of tropical design without simply reproducing it.

We wanted Sin in Linen's version. Darker. Stranger. Sexier. A little dangerous.

Jungle Noir

The result is Jungle Noir.

Dense tropical foliage emerges from a nearly black ground, creating a dark tropical landscape that feels lush rather than sunny.

This isn't the cheerful tropical print of a beach resort. It's the jungle after midnight.

Jungle Noir takes everything we love about tropical interiors—the foliage, abundance and sense of escape—and filters it through Sin in Linen's gothic point of view.

The result feels both vintage and contemporary: dark tropical bedding and decor for people whose idea of paradise has always been a little more mysterious.

Bone Grove

And then, naturally, we added skulls. Bone Grove takes the tropical fantasy somewhere darker. Skulls emerge among dense botanical forms, turning the traditional tropical pattern into something unmistakably Sin in Linen.

It's tiki culture after the sun goes down. Exotica by way of punk rock. A tropical paradise where perhaps not everyone made it out alive. Exactly our kind of place.

This Is Tropigoth

Forbidden Island brings together pieces of my own history that I've carried for decades. My upbringing in Hawaii. California tiki and surf culture. Punk rock in Los Angeles. Vintage tropical interiors.

The strange cinematic worlds created by Martin Denny and Les Baxter.

And Sin in Linen's enduring obsession with making the beautiful just a little bit dangerous.

Jungle Noir and Bone Grove are the Tropigoth culmination of it all.

A dark tropical collection filled with lush foliage, skulls, black bedding and the spirit of vintage Exotica.

Put on a Martin Denny record. Pour yourself something strong. Turn down the lights.

Welcome to Forbidden Island.

Shop the Forbidden Island Collection

Discover Jungle Noir, Bone Grove and the complete Forbidden Island collection of Tropigoth bedding and dark tropical home decor at Sin in Linen.