The 1970s are back, again. But this time it's less 'Groovy, Baby!' and more Abigail's Party, all fine frocks and finer china, sparkling earrings, wine and glassware. Yes, the dinner party is being amped up to focus as much on the party element as the dinner, reflecting the cultural zeitgeist whereby we all just want to have fun, get a little loose, and gather our favorite friends together.
"There's a real desire to play up our hosting, to show off a little, to be extravagant with foods and the performance around them," says the designer Sophie Lou Jacobsen, whose tableware exemplifies this trend. "Hosting is about the performance, and having fun."
She says that this dinnerware trend is clearly rooted in the 1970s. "While the 1950s and 1960s were still quite formal and dinners were about rules and what a proper home should look like, the 1970s were about having fun. Towers of food, fondues, ridiculous cakes. Silly over the top gestures, which made the evening memorable."
"There's a real desire to play up our hosting, to show off a little, to be extravagant."
Sophie Lou Jacobsen
This approach has seen the return of ultra-specific items of tableware: the oyster plates, the butter dishes, the digestif glasses. "They're my favorite ones," Sophie says. "They celebrate a moment in ritual, creating a sense of real occasion."
The mood may be retro but the look is very now. Colorful glassware, shining silver and waved edges that take their cue from the Playfulism movement. "When something is irregular, it surprises you every time you hold it," Sophie says. "Perhaps it's the way it pours, or the way it feels, but it forces you to really notice the ritual you're performing."
As in wider interior design trends, the dinner party vibe of the moment is not about minimalism, but about the spectacle and theater. If you delight your guests, they will feel more relaxed, and they're way more likely to have fun, even dance on the table. "Bringing exciting people together in a relaxed, downtown kind of way is the mood we want right now,' Sophie says. And here are the pieces to get you started.
Price: $100 for two
Volume: 5 fl oz
These were made for an aperitif, just large enough to get a Negroni into and get the part off with a roar. The colored bases offer just enough joie de vivre to get the party going, while not detracting from the overall elegance of the shape.
Price: $125
Made from: crystal glass
Against Sophie Lou's desire for specific use items, this glass is actually multi use. Made for martinis, or champagne, or to hold olives or dessert with sparklers and candles. Or just to bounce the light off it's cut surface pattern. Truly multi functional, truly fabulous.
Price: $44 for two
Material: mouth-blown glass
"For informal dinners, I'll serve wine in stemless glasses," says Sophie Lou Jacobsen. And these amber-tinted tumblers by Muuto do feel easy to grab and down from, setting the party dial to debauched. It helps that the color of the glass is just the right tone for candelight to twinkle off of.
Price: $230
Made from: Nickel
Designer Laila Gohar's take on the classic serving cloche is updated with a brushed nickel finish, and topped by a playful bean. It's a fun idea for serving your piece-de-resistance at a dinner party, whether that's a main, or dessert.
Price: $730
Made in: Italy
The perfect blend of two trends here as this pitcher is fashioned in oxblood, the color of 2025. Designer Anne McDonald says this shade is a more grown up on take on burgundy, more sophisticated than red, and so it's ideal for a dinner party where no kids are allowed.
Price: $170
Made in: France
Yes, this really is $170 for one fork, but what a fork, and what an opulence! The horn-effect resin handle is slender and unexpected, its beige tones a subtle counterfoil to the bolder colors and showier shapes elsewhere in this trend. Lavish.
Price: $156
Made from: Mirror Polish Stainless Steel
Sophie Lou says she is drawn to wavy edges and irregular shapes because of how intriguing they are to hold, and how they remind you to be present in the ritual. Of course, this tray doesn't have to be solely for oysters, but it's the perfect shape to present anything that is equally as show-stopping.
Price: $140
Made from: Mother-of-pearl
These picks are a total 70s throwback, reimagined in a playful modern style by Gohar World. They're super specific in use, but they're a moment of dedication to something you, and your guests, love.
Price: $18
Made from: Stainless steel
These fun playful cocktail picks elevated the presentation of any kind of cocktail or digestif. They bring a level of camp, without being theme-y, so they're perfectly on brief for the 1970s feel.
Price: $135
Material: Silver plated brass
Its jewel-like gleam as you stir the pitcher of cocktails, or the way its slender handle can reach all the way to the bottom of a sundae glass. The 1970s were never this elegant, but the decadence of this statement spoon encapsulates the modernization of that era's vibe.
Price: $8.99
Material: Glass
It's more than possible to achieve the vibe of the zeitgeist with more dash than cash, and this on-sale candlestick is a case in point. To truly embrace the look it should be paired with a taper candle in a contrastingly bright shade....and hang on, as we have just the thing...
Price: $18 for two
Size: 12"
While the taupes and brown shades work to create moody tableaux on fireplaces and shelves, stick to the yellows, pinks and peaches for your dinner table. Upbeat colors, their palette plays into the party spirit.
Price: $135
Height: 2.8"
Made for salt or spices this plays into Sophie Lou Jacobsen's hope that people help themselves, add their own flourishes, dig in family style. It helps that it's in Memphis colors, a movement popularized in the 1980s but with roots in the 1970s, where bold shades like green and pink were cut through with flashes of black.
Price: $72
Quantity: set of four
Taking Sophie Lou's squiggle and pairing it with the bow motif popularized by British designers like Matilda Goad and Beata Heuman, this set of dinner plates works like a frame for whatever food you're serving on them. Thus insuring your hosting skills take center stage.
Price: $465
Made by: NasonMoretti
Having a pre-mixed cocktail ready to go as guests arrived sets the tone for the evening you've pulled together this dinner party for. Or perhaps you want to pour wine directly from a stoppered pitcher instead of from a bottle, a tiny moment of theater guaranteed to impress. Either way, this carafe is a glintingly brilliant embodiment of this decor trend.
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