What Your Dishware Aesthetic REALLY Says About Your Personality
House Beautiful May 31, 2025
Lifestyle
House Beautiful May 31, 2025
Lifestyle
Everything you purchase for your home says something about you and your personal style, and we've found that to be especially true when it comes to your dishes. Which ones do you use to set the table on a Tuesday night when you and your family are gathered around the table to discuss what the kids learned today in school? And which set are you choosing for your annual dinner party with your longtime friends? Whether you like it or not, your choice in dishware—and ultimately, your tablescape as a whole—says a lot about you.
As dishware aficionados, we can attest that there are simply too many patterns to analyze and assign to a type of person, so we picked five beautiful options that are both timelessly popular and unique. What's more, we asked Rebecca Gardner, founder of the interior design firm, event planning service, and online shopping platform Houses & Parties, for her hot take.
"Things that you touch several times each day, like dinner plates, are due thoughtful consideration," she explains. "Imagine starting your day with a pretty coffee cup and saucer in lieu of a clunky handled mug. Suddenly, you're a new person." She's not wrong. Enjoying meals on beautiful pieces is transformative in a way that we may not realize.
Below, the charismatic design expert assigns each of these pinnacle plates to a specific fictional "character," if you will. We dare you not to laugh.
"You registered for the Oriente set in the sophisticated Vermiglio colorway. Your sister has the Malachite. Thank goodness you two live in the same city with 24 dinner plates combined. The big oval platters are on her Christmas list—eight of them are for a bountiful breakfast or family-style feast. 'It's surprising how these two colors go with everything,' you surmise. The dishes are especially fresh with your tufted dining banquette that's upholstered in Le Lac chintz fabric. Your friends constantly say you're such a 'fearless' decorator."
"This pattern belongs to you, a dapper bachelor in your late 50s. You live in a contemporary apartment at the very end of the very coveted and exclusive South Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach, and your home's marble floors are covered in myriad Turkish rugs. Your Cheval D'Orient coffee cups get the most use, and you never take a sip without pointing your pinkie finger, donning a signet ring, straight up."
"These Portuguese blue flower dinner plates stack on the open kitchen shelving in her revival-style home in Buckhead, Atlanta. The kitchen was just renovated with a hidden coffee bar and a big island for casual cocktail buffets."
"Half of these cabbage plates came from your grandmother's collection, but you bought 10 more to anchor the table with repetition. After all, they mix so well with your pantry that's full of mismatched treasures (sterling silver julep cups to Murano tumblers), which, somehow, are always on top of the frayed Decor Barbares fabric left over from a project you worked on years ago. You use the Cabbage tureen for cosmos and zinnias from the garden. Dinner is takeout, but you always take the cake."
"You are a regular host to your friends and family and known for serving fresh paella at summer soirées in Montauk. You have 50 of these white plates that your guests always want to know where to buy. The scalloped edge adds a little low-maintenance je ne sais quoi that lets your culinary creations shine."
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