HOUSEWARES : Take a Relaxed Attitude to Trappings of Formal Dining

Getting out the “good stuff” for company--the china, the crystal, the sterling flatware, the damask cloth and dinner napkins--is often less realistic today than informal dining. A barbecue, take-out food or a pitch-in buffet allows friends or family to gather without all the fuss.

But when the occasion says “formal,” you can set a smashing table without all the polishing, hand-washing and ironing.

Services today might look like those of yore. But look again.

Put an antique china place-setting next to a modern adaptation, and you’ll find subtle differences. The colors have changed, the shapes are simplified, and the number of items in a service is much smaller.

“We set a simpler table today,” said Katherine DeSousa. “On wine glasses, for example, stems are taller and bowls are larger and the same glass is used interchangeably for red and white wine.

“There’s no great demand for sherry glasses, but it’s very important to have an iced tea glass for the American market.”

DeSousa, 47, of Norwalk, Conn., is a tableware designer who has helped simplify the trappings of formal dining. She has created products for some of the world’s best-known companies: wine glasses for Baccarat, dishes for Lenox and Rosenthal, flatware for Reed & Barton and Towle, candlesticks and cookie molds, teapots and table linens.

Although antique place settings--china, glass and flatware--are popular, much of it is impractical for today’s time-saving devices such as automatic dishwashers and microwave ovens.

Modern adaptations are for those who want to have their cake and eat it too. Some of the new china patterns have the cherished gold bands, but the gold has been fired at higher temperatures so it won’t be so likely to fade from the heat of the dishwasher.

Stainless flatware and cast aluminum serving pieces don’t require polishing yet can have the elegant look of older sterling patterns. Even table linens are apt to be machine washable and permanent press.

Although style changes come slowly to the dinner table, they do evolve. One popular trend is to create each place setting from a different dishware pattern. The other extreme is to set a table all in one pattern--including a coordinated tablecloth.