Holidays in a different light
THERE are branches on the sideboard, antlers on the buffet, snakes by a plate -- and the bird on the table isn’t necessarily a tom turkey. In the rapidly shifting world of home fashions, the holiday table is beginning to look a lot less traditional.
“The days of five-piece place settings with reindeer and snowflakes are pretty much over,” says Amy Stavis, founder of the industry publication Tableware Today. “Most people don’t want patterns that they can only use for the holidays, and they don’t have the room to collect and store specialized sets. That kind of formality is gone.”
The trend, designers and retailers say, is a more casual mix of ethnic and earthy elements that works after New Year’s too. Japanese Imari porcelain, Scandinavian modern decor and Moroccan pieces offer festive pattern and color. Plain white china gets dressed up with gold details and accompanied by black crystal stemware. Nature takes its place at the table in pieces that conjure up storybook forests.
“These days, there are no rules,” Stavis says. “It’s a far cry from your grandmother’s holiday table, and yet with one or two touches you know what holiday you’re sitting down for. It just has today’s twist on it.”
In our multicultural city, “not everyone wants to turn their home into Candy Cane Lane,” says Dan Zelen. The retailer and designer lives in a 1930s bungalow-style apartment in Los Angeles, and when the holidays arrive, he decorates with stones, animal figurines made from clay or carved from wood, and cobra candlesticks with beeswax candles. It is, he says, “a way of celebrating the season and living with nature.” He entertains simply, setting up buffet-style hors d’oeuvres, cocktail and dessert stations that might incorporate free-form slabs of wood, sculptural twigs and illuminated chunks of selenite.
“Bringing the simple elegance of the outdoors inside lets you dress up your home without screaming ‘happy holidays,’ ” Zelen says. “It is reminiscent of warm, safe places like mountain cabins.”
No one knows that better than Dutch designer Tord Boontje, who has a much-hyped line at Target. Using digital technology to produce plates and glasses with intricate, doily-like woodland scenes in red and gold, Boontje has made the forest and its creatures a hip design motif.
“My goal is to bring the wonder of this special season into the homes of many with products that can be mixed and matched and used well past the strict holiday season,” Boontje says. Noting that consumers are adopting new approaches to holiday decorating, he has mixed butterflies and hummingbirds with reindeer and other seasonal icons “that tap into memories and feelings.”
These unexpected juxtapositions have modernized the holiday table, says Su Sazama of Fitzsu Society, a Los Angeles tableware store. She says Boontje’s approach is “a way to inject the feel of the holidays without having to be directly representational.”
Last year, Fitzsu sold dozens of Boontje’s $50 bone china Stories One plates emblazoned with deer and trees. This year, the designer has added three patterns, and Sazama expects the 24-piece service for eight, priced at $740, will be a big seller. “I’ve already had a few brides register for it,” she says.
The designs of Boontje, Jonathan Adler and old European firms such as Rosenthal and Nymphenburg are becoming collectibles for a younger generation that buys individual pieces instead of sets.
“It’s really about being a tabletop curator,” Sazama says. Hosts are motivated by personal taste and the desire to express themselves, so “when somebody comes to your house, they know the experience is going to be unique to you.”
The sheer volume of decorative tabletop pieces being produced these days allows consumers to integrate holiday designs into diverse architectural and decor schemes.
“A lot of people’s homes just don’t blend very well with Santas and snowmen,” says Eddie Nunns, vice president of creative services at Neiman Marcus Direct, which offers a dizzying array of ethnic-patterned plates in its catalogs. If your home leans toward an Asian motif, he says, “you can create a beautiful holiday table with a mix of Imari pattern and solid-colored dinnerware, accessorized with bright colored linens and a bonsai tree as a centerpiece.”
Jen Dolan, co-owner of New York accessories firm Vellum, sees a growing desire among younger shoppers to break the rules.
“People don’t discriminate between special occasions and casual gatherings as much as they once did,” she says. “They aren’t buying things and shutting them in the cupboard. They are buying them to use as often as they can. They’re pulling out luxury heirlooms for small parties and purchasing contemporary design items for a formal dinner.”
Vellum’s Noir, an edgy, “almost Baroque” line of black crystal table and bar wares, is a case in point. “Black is almost becoming a neutral staple in the home,” Dolan says. A lot of people like to wear it so much they figure, why not put it on the table?”
Hermosa Beach designer Kathleen Walsh of Walteria Living takes black and white one step further in her Hecho en Los Angeles plates.
Based on papel picado (Mexican cut-paper banners), Walsh’s designs depict L.A. vistas: magnolia blooms on Doheny Drive, the Olvera Street market, La Brea Tar Pits and the amalgalm of Christmas and Hanukkah on Fairfax Avenue. The plates land this week at retailers such as Yolk in Silver Lake and Diva on Beverly Boulevard.
It is our own backyard served up on a platter -- and a reminder of how the world around us continues to inspire design. The organic trend “has been growing over past seasons and is being integrated in all areas of the home including the tabletop,” Nunns of Neiman Marcus Direct says. “In this time of amazing technological development, people feel even more drawn to the planet and what only nature can produce.”
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Ideas for the table: Build, gild, group
Some suggestions from Dan Zelen on setting an interesting holiday table:
Mix: Old and new, shiny objects and matte surfaces, vintage antlers and contemporary ceramic partridges all complement one another, Zelen says. “I love the play of texture, the gleam of ceramic or polished stone bowls against wood, the rustic roughness of tree branch or carved against the smooth shiny surface of polished metals.”
Match: Display items based on shape, material or color. “Put white objects, glass pieces or floral-patterned things together,” he says. “A group of Danish teak objects works well with pottery by Jonathan Adler, which has a Scandinavian feel.” In his design for a coffee and dessert table, Zelen achieved harmony among Nordic dishes, French floral linens and an Egyptian revival candlestick.
Group: “I don’t believe in spreading things out evenly across a surface,” he says. “Clusters of three or four things together are much more interesting to the eye.”
Gild: “Gold denotes luxury and really warms up a room,” Zelen says. Brass and bronze? Bring them on. “Never be afraid to mix metals.”
Build: Mesquite branches can create an architectural backdrop for a bar and give a tabletop “instant structure,” he says. The look can be replicated on a smaller scale with branches from your tree.
Elevate: On a buffet, Zelen uses wooden cutting boards, glass cake stands and antique books to raise items and create a sense of topography. “A stack of leather-bound books gives you old-world opulence without being too fussy,” he says. “It’s a simple way to dress up a table and let people see what you are serving.”
Illuminate: “Red and black candles add more sophistication to the table than holiday white,” Zelen says.
Saturate: If earthy materials prove too beige for your style of celebration, add potent splashes of color. “You can bring those in with napkins and chargers. Or you can get the same effect by filling things up with pomegranates, crab apples and pears.”
-- David A. Keeps