Column: Trends Decorative designs

Tableware Trend Analyst

Donna Ferrari

Donna Ferrari has worked in magazine publishing for over thirty years. As a consumer magazine editor she specialised in the tableware, homeware and bridal markets, and styled and produced stories related to bridal gift registry, wedding reception design and at-home entertaining. Personally, she has eleven different sets of dinnerware and closets dedicated just to tabletop accessories; she says she loves not ever having to set her table the same way twice.

Meissen

A new chapter

Our trend expert, Donna Ferrari, sees a new chapter unfolding in decorative designs for dinnerware.

Tableware with looks simple and neutral, rustic and handcrafted, have offered a hygge sort of comfort during the stay-at-home pandemic days. As the world is getting set to step out again a new chapter in tableware design is also emerging. Designs that are high spirited, sprung from fantasy landscapes and dreamscapes, and, even some a bit bizarre are courting consumers. Especially trending — traditional tableware designs re-envisioned with a modern point of view.

Royal Crown Derby

Artistic revisions

Bringing the past to the present — long-standing designs from the past are getting recast with a modern slant.

Meissen’s, the Meissen Collage Collection takes iconic designs from the brand’s trove of old décors and recasts them into playful interpretations of the original designs. The new décors are then merged into collagestyle compositions giving the extensive collection a fashion-forward attitude that invites consumers to collect and combine pieces from the four patterns in the range: Love Birds, Bloomy Feathers, Noble Chinese and Mystic Garden (shown). Royal Crown Derby’s Victoria’s Garden collection, with its medley of florals, patchwork of geometric details, opulent colours and grand excess of ornament is right out of a Victorian era playbook for devising a design. Boho, vintage chic and maximalism are all au courant trends to which this dinnerware range certainly relates — available in assorted colourways. The three separate, but mixable, patterns in Burleigh’s Collection One range collectively represent the story of a floral life cycle — from pollination, the development of cell structure to full bloom. The Pollen pattern’s honeycomb design signifies the role of bees. The Palisade pattern, (shown) is a contemporary adaptation of an engraving made by the Victorian era designer, and Professor of Artistic Botany, Christopher Dresser; the design elaborates on the symmetries found in nature and plant cells. Thirdly, the Hibiscus pattern showcases the brand’s tradition for intricate floral designs.

Compelling curios

The centuries old craze for collecting unusual and bizarre specimens from the natural world, and uncommon artifacts from distant lands, were displayed in what were known as a Cabinet of Curiosity or a Wunderkammer, meaning wonder chamber. The curios in these cabinets served for both education and entertainment. We see a throwback to the interest in such curiosities in the latest outré décors adorning tableware.

No need to be a naturalist for Jonathan Adler’s Botanist Specimen vase to pique one’s interest. At Spode an eclectic mix of floral, leopard print, snake and butterfly designs from the brand’s Victorian era holdings were used to bedeck the new Creatures of Curiosity collection. A collection that emulates the Victorian penchant for things strange and weirdly wonderful — an aesthetic equally at home with today’s taste for the quirky and unexpected. Artěl’s Cabinet of Curiosities’ collection of eight images artistically captured in glass — instead of specimens kept under glass, recalls the age-old pastime of collecting uncommon natural objects including things entomological, zoological and the occasional memento mori.

Royal Delft’s Wunderkammer collection takes inspiration from the 17th century wonder chambers filled with collections of exotic oddities displayed alongside highly valued Delftware pottery. Members of fashionable society would exhibit their collections as a means to humblebrag about their inquisitive minds, and their wealth.

Jonathan Adler

Spode

Royal Delft

Ginori 1735

Richard Brendon V&A

Inspiring creativity

Is it any wonder that tableware designs infused with symbolism, dreamlike visions, storybook imagery, mythical beasts and art from ancient civilizations are getting attention and sparking table setting creativity?

Gien

La DoubleJ X Ladurée, is a collaborative collection between La DoubleJ, the Milan based fashion and home goods brand known for its far out, eye-popping prints, and the renowned Parisian pâtisserie Ladurée. The Tree of Life group in the collection of porcelain teatime essentials are decorated with images of hearts, trees and roses along with other motifs symbolic of fertility, renewal, feminine energy and sustainability. The décor for Faïencerie de Gien’s Jardin du Palais collection is taken from a textile designed by Pierre Frey. The design’s scheme is inspired by 16th century storybook-style Persian palace gardens where all species of wildlife peacefully coexisted. Ginori 1735’s Arcadia collection, designed in collaboration with textile designer Orazio Stasi, presents a fantastical pattern inhabited by dreamlike, surreal creatures described as being free to roam and exist in a euphoric state where everything is possible. The Richard Brendon V&A collection — a collaboration between Richard and Britain’s Victoria & Albert museum of art and design, is a homage to Georgian and Victorian era British ceramics. Richard selected four cups and saucers from the museum’s vast treasury to re-imagine, along with illustrator Chris Martin, with whimsical and contemporary twists. The four historic designs, now reframed as the patterns: Tree of Life, Georgian Lillies, Dragon Flower and Mythical Beasts (shown) are brimming with storied details referencing fables, designs favored by royal households, antique Asian export ware and omens of good fortune.

La DoubleJ x Ladurée

Rosenthal

Paradisal patterns

Perfect for these times of suppressed wanderlust is the breakout trend for tableware designs ready to virtually transport the beholder to a far-off place with a chillax vibe.

Rosenthal’s Turandot dinnerware, designed by Gianni Cinti, and inspired by Puccini’s opera set in the Orient, features a mélange of chinoiserie style decorative elements like peony blossoms, and bamboo and ginkgo leaves meeting up with golden dragonflies — all together suggesting the atmosphere of points east. Villeroy & Boch’s Avarua collection is named for the capital of the Cook Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. The pattern’s tropical scenery could make a meal served on this china feel like a trip, via virtual reality, to such an exotic place.

The designer Roberto Cavalli, whose fashions are known for their untamed spirit, turned to the wild as well to envisage his new Tropical Flowers dinnerware pattern. Mindful of the trend for bringing the outdoors in the Wedgwood brand branches out its Wonderlust collection with six new nature inspired tableware designs (Wonderlust Waterlily shown). The artistic images on the mugs, teacups & saucers and side plates in the range take inspiration Wedgwood from the flora and fauna native to faraway places like Asia, Africa, Brazil, India and Nepal as well as the butterflies, plants and trees found close to home in the English countryside.

Adam Lippes x OKA

Generational china

The time of nobody wanting their family’s passed down tableware has reached an inflection point. A growing cohort of Millennials are taking a stand against excess consumerism and a shine to the timeless, not trendy, staying power of old-school designs. This so-called grandmillennials trend, a term coined by journalist Emma Bazilian, is giving tabletop heirlooms a good name again and prompting a bevy of new tableware designs that convey a similar, albeit updated, air of old-timey charisma and graceful beauty.

To pick a pattern ready for a refresh Lenox chose its famed Autumn dinnerware — a pattern just celebrating its centennial anniversary. The debut pattern, named Autumn Studio, is an artful pastiche transforming the original pattern’s formal, traditional image into a transitional design that suits any occasion. Family history played a role in the Trisha Yearwood Gwendolyn

Collection, available only at Williams Sonoma.

The collection, inspired by country music celebrity, Trisha Yearwood’s mother, Gwendolyn, takes ideas for the off-white dinnerware’s elaborate embossing and ornamental shapes from the intricate icing designs Gwendolyn sketched for the wedding cakes she created. Porland’s Folksy collection gives traditional folk art and geometric handcraft-style embroidery motifs a modern point of view.

Available open stock, the variety of motifs in the range are designed to work in any combination. Sets are also available, but instead of a conventional fourpiece places setting that includes one bowl and a mug, Folksy’s setting comprises a dinner plate, salad plate and — to meet popular demand — two bowls. The CeCe Barfield Home Collection, is a lifestyle line created by interior designer CeCe Barfield Thompson. While quarantined during the

Porland pandemic CeCe spent the time with her husband’s family at their country home. Seeing how her mother-in law did not hesitate to use antique family heirlooms when setting the table — a testament to the quality of things made to last — is what inspired CeCe’s concept for her Virginia collection. The collection is produced using the best in craftsmanship and with designs on the dinnerware, metal serveware, and embroidered Belgian linen table linens that bring a fresh take to traditional looks. Adam Lippes X OKA: Fashion designer Adam Lippes, in creative collaboration with Sue Jones of OKA, have introduced Roseraie, a collection of complementary tableware and table linens. The Lenox design on the dinnerware — suffused with colourful flowers, fruits, birds and butterflies suggests a modern rendition of the famous famille rose Chinese export patterns of the 18th century. Adam says of the plates, bowls and cups, “they look as though they’re your grandmother’s finest inherited china, but they’ll go in the dishwasher.”