Product Code Database
Table-setting, or tablescaping, is an activity involving the setting of sometimes elaborate dining tables in artful, decorative or themed ways for social events, and in a variety of categories for competitions and exhibitions.
Tablescaping can also refer to any decorative treatment for any flat surface in any room; these are often more permanent installations that will only change with the seasons or with a change of decor in the room.
In the United States and Australia there are formal tablesetting competitions and exhibitions that date back to the 1930s and 1940s.
According to Slate, it was the shift from 1750 to 1900, and from service à la française—when courses were served en masse and diners served themselves buffet-style—to service à la russe, where courses followed one after the next and were portioned out by servants. The changeover meant that instead of a visual feast of the former method, there was a void as serving dishes were now on a side table leaving the dinner table more bare which led to "elaborate, sometimes absurd, table settings". Expensive soon followed as a way to display one's wealth. In the mid 1700s "ornate silver baskets called , long mirrored trays called plateaus, flowers, and " were employed.
In the late 1800s middle class families in Europe and America emulated the wealthy but relied on fresh flowers as centerpieces. In the mid-1900s women's held display exhibitions to promote table decorating. By the late 1800s Isabella Beeton was advising the American middle class in her Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management that there was no excuse not to have flowers on the table every day.
The concept became better known with the rise in social media posts centered on images of meals people share including the setting; on photo-sharing Instagram, as of November 2019, #tabledecor had 1.9 million posts, and #tablesetting had 2.3 million posts. A countertrend is for a Rustic furniture or minimal theme, with a sustainability aesthetic emphasizing materials and components that are recycled and .
Tablescaping also refers to a category of general room decor which includes intentional design for horizontal surfaces such as consoles, coffee tables, mantles, bookshelves, dressers, or other surfaces and which is more or less a permanent installment, typically changing only seasonally or when the room decor changes.
|
|
