Sydney native Neada Jane Deters spent a few years in New York before making her way back to the beach, Venice Beach, that is, where her style is all about sophisticated separates and relaxed silhouettes.

“People started mentioning how much white I wear, so I did a tally in my wardrobe the other day and half of it is white,” Deters says. On the day Badlands Journal meets her at her recently renovated Venice Beach home – with a stop at nearby favourite Salt & Straw for ice cream – she’s clad in not one but two white outfits: a dress from New York brand Lorod and a pair of white Levi’s with a vintage silk top.

“I’ve been naturally drawn to it the past few years as an alternative to my years of wearing black in New York,” she says. “White is so clean and energising. It feels effortless – unless I’m eating a bowl of pasta. Fortunately, I have a great dry cleaner down the road.”

Deters’ love of white fits seamlessly into her style mantra of “feel-good minimalism”. The Los Angeles-based founder of consulting group The Fold Creative and Lesse, a line of beauty essentials, says her style has slowly and subtly relaxed since she moved to California. “I tend to reach for fabrics, not colour,” she says. “It’s all vintage denim, silk, linen and cotton”, largely in a palette of soft greys and various shades of white, from clotted cream to marshmallow.

Starting work on her businesses at seven in the morning means that Deters likes the process of getting dressed to be “effortless”. Her uniform would be a pair of vintage Levi’s – white, naturally – with a “perfect vintage white tee” from Re/done and a pair of python boots from Brother Vellies. Her style influences run the gamut from ’90s minimalist icons like Calvin Klein to French New Wave cinema and her mum and aunt. “Some of the pieces in highest rotation in my wardrobe are passed down from them,” she says.

Taking stock of her closet, some of her favourite pieces are those Levi’s – “It takes years to find the fit, so I wear my pairs to death,” Deters says – and two patent leather skirts from Courrèges and Rodarte. “That’s what I wear when I’m going out and want to have fun,” she says. Oh, and her everyday handbag from The Row and a men’s shirt from the late 19th century, which she picked up from Desert Vintage in Tucson, Arizona. “I wear it as a tunic over jeans or as a beach dress,” she says. “It’s just beautiful.” And you know what? Both those pieces are white. Of course.