NEW LIFE FOR OLD CHINA

Designers’ tips for incorporating grandma’s dinner service into your contemporary lifestyle

THE stacks of old family china sitting forlornly in sideboards, cabinets and boxes in many homes reflect the state of entertaining today. Many millennials are not wild about their grandmothers’ flowered formal plates, preferring their own plain white wedding dishes. Meanwhile 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 conceiving 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 from her years of entertaining. Curators asked a group of interior designers to combine Post’s formal porcel- ains, glassware and silver with contemporary pieces, to showcase new ideas for table settings.

Post entertained lavishly at