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Livingetc
Livingetc
Pip Rich

The Coolest Hosts I Know Are Throwing Soirees With Immaculate '1970s Dinner Party' Vibes That Are so Easy to Copy

A small table with digestif glasses on, playing cards, with a retro 70s style.

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."

(Image credit: Sophie Lou Jacobsen)
(Image credit: Natalia Criado c/o Porta)
(Image credit: Sophie Lou Jacobsen)

"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."

(Image credit: William Jess Laird for Quarters )
(Image credit: William Jess Laird for Quarters )

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.

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