Arabesque - Jacqueline Cambata Designs

Trends Column
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. Doron Merdinger
Michael Aram
Decorative motifs
Designs with roots reflecting an array of
global styles is a leading trend in today’s
tableware bazaar. Here, tableware
specialist Donna Ferrari takes a world
view on tabletop design
Decorative motifs
The ornamental arabesque motif
with its intertwined lines is trending
on a number of tableware products.
Artěl transforms the motif into a bold
repeat on its Arabesque collection of
non-lead crystal offered in assorted
semi-precious colours. Alain
Saint-Joanis’s Arabesque silver
plate flatware takes a cursive
approach to the design on
a dual mirrored and matte
finish. Doron Merdinger
focused on the profound
mathematical codes upon
which arabesque designs are
based to design his Arabesque
fine bone china dinnerware
with12k gold decals. The
decorative decals are scaled to each
plate’s size so when layered in a place
setting the design flows from one
plate to the next. To shape the Palace
collection Michael Aram took insight
from the ornamental balusters, finials
and intricate carving on India’s Moghul
and grand palace architecture. The
collection includes non-lead crystal
glassware, stainless steel flatware
and Limoges porcelain dinnerware;
the china is matte glazed to create
an interplay of light and shadows on
the pattern’s surface. Fürstenberg’s
Rajasthan porcelain dinnerware, with
a décor by Peter Kempe, takes an
exuberant approach to fashioning
a pattern inspired by India’s gold
decorated temples, ubiquitous
latticework, and colorful textiles and
spices. The result is a design that
references a culture yet is so stylised it
would fit in on any table in the world.
Textile and tile
Fürstenberg
Artěl
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Globally
inspired
Alain
Saint-Joanis
Designers traversing the globe for
inspirational ideas are adapting old
art forms to new products, among
them ideas based on textiles and
tile work. Rendered in hues of ruby,
emerald and sapphire, with 24k
matte gold accents, the pattern of
Hermès’s Voyage en Ikat porcelain
dinnerware is designed to emulate ikat
fabric’s tie-dyed woven threads. For
all its luxe quality the pattern strikes a
prepossessing informal tone consistent
with ikat’s handworked heritage and
today’s taste for easygoing elegance.
Named for the Hindu principle of
divine energy, Kim Seybert’s Shakti
collection has five (including the Ikat
pattern) different, but interchangeable,
porcelain dinnerware patterns. Across
the range the crackled glazes and the
sensuous overtones of the designs
are again examples of patterns
that address consumer’s interest in
tableware with a sophisticated yet
relaxed feel. An ikat style design is also
seen on Hampton Forge Signature’s
stainless steel Regal flatware.
The dinnerware patterns in dbO
Home’s Mahru Collaboration With
John Robshaw Textiles incorporate
stamping techniques, similar to the
ones India’s artisans use for woodblock
printed fabrics, to emboss designs
into the hand-cut and hand-formed
porcelain. At Vista Alegre the Calçada
Portuguesa set-of-four porcelain
coffee cups and saucers, designed by
Manoela Medeiros, reference the tile
work and ornamental cobblestones
used to pave Portuguese streets. Q
Squared Design’s blue and white
Talavera melamine tableware takes
inspiration from the traditional tile
designs of Mexico’s world famous
Talavera workshops, and from
Images d’Orient the Safra porcelain
dinnerware pattern echoes the
intricate S-shaped ogees, decorative
corbels and zellige tile designs that are
so familiar in Islamic cultures.
Looking East
Chinoiserie was one
of the first design
movements to
have a global
L’Objet
Mikasa
Looking East
Celestial
Diesel Living
With Seletti
Deshoulières
Alberto Pinto
Vista Alegre
impact following its introduction in
17th-century Europe. Recent takes
on this trend are as follows: Alberto
Pinto’s Shanghai Limoges porcelain
dinnerware evokes classic blue and
white Chinese export porcelain but
the dynamic scale of the dinnerware’s
hand-painted lantern-like globes,
replete with lotus, peony and
chrysanthemum flowers, gives it a 21st
century point of view; L’Objet’s Han
dinnerware (available in white, gold
and platinum) in Limoges porcelain is
modelled on a Chinese Han Dynasty
design as iconographic as the Greek
key is in the West; and Scalamandre
by Lenox’s Toile Tale white china
collection (available in five colourways) turns picturesque toile de Jouy
pagodas and Chinese scenery into
a pattern of everyday dinnerware.
More patterns that speak to the
market for crossroads in aesthetics
are Deshoulières’s Vigne Limoges
porcelain dinnerware (available in
white and blue) which has a vine motif
suggestive of Persian style design, and
Mikasa’s Antonia pattern (available
in Gold or Blanc) which appears to
combine the intricacy of Persian
calligraphy and the endless thread of
a Celtic Knot.
Taste for the exotic
Not long ago dinnerware decorated
with leopard or zebra prints was
about as exotic as consumers were
willing to go when buying tableware.
Now customers embrace tableware
with a full-on sense of fantasy and
adventurous style off the beaten
track. Villeroy & Boch’s
Bernardaud
Samarkand premium porcelain series
of dinnerware (Samarkand Mandarin
pictured), named for the city at the
centre of the Silk Road, is decorated
with designs inspired by the tribal
and nomadic cultures trading opulent
goods along the famed caravan route.
Journeying imaginary creatures and
landscapes from a mythical paradise
onto tableware describes Jacqueline
Cambata’s Shangri-La pattern in
Limoges porcelain. On-trend with
the market for coloured tumblers,
Royale de Champagne’s Marco Polo
gold-rimmed crystal glasses have the
shape of traditional tea glasses but
will do just as well for wine or water;
the glasses are sold individually or in a
set of six colours. Hering Berlin calls
its Alif porcelain range a collection of
Oriental dishes; the designs are based
on protective symbols sourced from
the ancient court of the Caliph of
Baghdad and the shapes and sizes in
the collection are designed for those
with a taste for everything from mezze
and pide to pasta.
Tribal and folkloric
The designs on the Aboro Limoges
porcelain dinnerware collection,
designed by Sarah Lavoine for
Bernardaud, reflect the cycle of life,
elements of nature, and the world of
dreams expressed in the art of the
Aborigine people. Tribal designs also
appear on Deviehl’s Arusha espresso
cup with chassis; the porcelain body
has a PVD finish which
is decorated with
multiple colours and
metallic gold and silver
undertones hand-painted
by Gail Klevan. Wedgwood’s
Mythical Creatures by Kit
Kemp is a bone china dinnerware
collection with designs based on an
embroidered fabric Kemp designed
with her own fanciful folkloric and
imaginative imagery.
Celestial
We may be thinking globally
but interstellar style is already at
hand. Diesel Living With Seletti
has a porcelain Moon plate in
its Cosmic Diner collection;
Theresienthal’s Planet
Earth collection has
a crystal tumbler
with an astronaut
floating in
space and
Fürstenberg’s
Clair de Lune
décor, on the
Auréole shape
designed by
Kap-Sun Hwang,
presents the phases
of the moon, which —
transposed onto porcelain in
black, white and 24k gold
– take on a whole
new light.
Images d’Orient
Hermès
Villeroy & Boch
Royale de Champagne
Taste for the exotic
Wedgwood
Tribal and folkloric
Textile and tile
Hering Berlin
Deviehl
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