That old fussy china can fit your casual lifestyle
WASHINGTON — The stacks of old family china sitting forlornly in sideboards, cabinets and boxes in many homes reflect the state of entertaining today.
Many millennials aren’t wild about their grandmothers’ flowered formal plates, preferring their own plain white wedding dishes. Gen Xers and boomers, who often gravitate to dining at a kitchen island, rarely bother to pull out the “good stuff” and are already trying to unload it.
The curators at Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, the grand home of the late hostess Marjorie Merriweather Post, thought about this lifestyle shift when they conceived their latest special exhibit. “The Artistic Table: Contemporary Tastemakers Present Inspired Table Settings” highlights Post’s collections of Russian imperial and 18th-century French porcelain and other luxurious tableware from her years of entertaining. Curators asked a group of interior designers to combine Post’s formal porcelains, glassware and silver with contemporary pieces, to showcase new ideas for table settings.
Post entertained lavishly at Hillwood and her other estates, which include Mara-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., now owned by President Donald Trump, and Camp Topridge, an Adirondack lodge. If there was one lesson to be learned from Post, it was not to be afraid of your nice things, according to Estella Chung, director of collections at Hillwood, the estate that Post bought in 1955 and owned until her death in 1973.
Every few weeks Post would host a formal dinner, garden party or tea, pulling out her silver lobster forks, 18th-century Russian goblets and gold jelly spoons. She was eager to preserve her collections and lifestyle for future generations. “She knew an era was ending,” Chung says.
“Her house was the American version of a European country house, and she knew that style of entertaining and staffing was coming to an end.”
In this exhibit, Post’s historic tableware is displayed throughout the mansion, from a formal dinner featuring seven Russian services in the dining room to a breakfast tray with violet-sprigged dishes in her bedroom.
Don’t set your table like your grandmother did
When New York designer Alex Papachristidis decorated the silver-and-gold dining room at the Kips Bay show house a couple of years ago, people would tell him, “My kids don’t want my china.” He has tried to give them advice on ways to make table setting more approachable yet still elegant.
“Play with what you have. If you have antique dishes, find a bold coloured solid dish that looks nice with it and some funky modern flatware. Throw in an unusual hand-painted glass from a vintage store.”
Use something unexpected, such as a leopard-print tablecloth.
Never set the table the same way twice
If you have old-fashioned floral china, add glass plates in jewel tones to update the table. Instead of white napkins, collect linen squares in different colours and keep them ironed and ready to go, Dixon says. If you have an extra yard of fabric from curtains or pillows, use it to make napkins that tie your table to the interiors.
Don’t be afraid to put your china in the dishwasher
Designer Timothy Corrigan, who has offices in Los Angeles and Paris, uses his family and vintage porcelain collection daily and loads it all into the dishwasher. (Many dishwashers have a special, gentler “china” setting.)
But don’t stick your fragile crystal in the dishwasher — that’s better off being washed by hand.
Don’t worry about making fancy food
Some people fear entertaining because they don’t enjoy or feel confident about cooking. That is no excuse for not using your good china, says Hutton Wilkinson, president of Los Angeles-based Tony Duquette. “It’s really more about the presentation. But of course, it helps if the food tastes good, too.”