The Vintage Hostess: Build a Party Closet

(Even If You Don't Actually Have a Spare Closet)

I don't have a party closet.

I would very much like to tell you that somewhere in my house there is a beautifully organized cupboard filled with neatly stacked linen napkins, sparkling glassware, silver serving pieces and perfectly labeled baskets containing everything one could possibly need to throw an effortless little dinner party.

There isn't.

Instead, I have entertaining supplies stashed in some piece of furniture in darn near every room of my house. And somehow, it works. There are cloth napkins. Lots of them. Platters for days. Cake stands. Serving bowls. Cocktail glasses. Wine glasses. Little dishes whose original purpose I may or may not know. Things for olives. Things for nuts. Things for sauces. Things that apparently exist solely because someone, somewhere, once believed a pickle deserved its own dish.

And, naturally, a deviled egg plate.

Because apparently the deviled egg plate is having a moment. As it should.

You Don't Need a Party to Use the Good Stuff

Somewhere along the way, we started saving everything. The good china is for Thanksgiving. The linen napkins are for company. The crystal glasses are for Christmas. The silver platter is for...something important enough to justify getting it out.

I would like to propose something radical: Use it on Tuesday.

One of the easiest ways I know to make an ordinary meal feel special is to put cloth napkins on the table. That's it. We're not talking about a seven-course dinner. You can be serving takeout. But put the takeout on actual plates. Pour the wine, or sparkling water or Diet Coke, into a pretty glass. Put a cloth napkin beside it. Suddenly dinner feels different.

Hospitality doesn't have to mean throwing a party. Sometimes hospitality is simply making the people who already live in your house feel like they're worth setting the table for.

The Case for Mismatched Glassware

This may be where vintage shops have ruined me forever. I don't want twelve identical glasses. I want twelve glasses that look like they might all have attended the same party sometime around 1963. There's a difference.

Mismatched glassware is one of the easiest things to collect because you don't need to find a complete set. In fact, you're officially liberated from the complete set. Find four beautiful etched wine glasses. Six jewel-toned goblets. Two ridiculous champagne coupes. A handful of little cordial glasses you have absolutely no practical need for but couldn't possibly leave behind. As long as there's something connecting them - color, shape, era, pattern or simply your own taste… they work together.

And when someone breaks one? You don't spend the rest of your life searching eBay for Waterford pattern #8472. You go antiquing.

Tragic. lol

Platters. You Need More Than You Think.

I will admit my bias here. I love a platter. Big platters. Little platters. Transferware platters. Ironstone platters. Silver platters. Floral platters. Turkey platters that haven't seen a turkey since the Reagan administration. They're useful. But more importantly, food looks better on a platter.

A grocery-store rotisserie chicken placed on a pretty old platter with a handful of herbs scattered around it suddenly looks suspiciously like you made an effort. Cookies look better on china. Cheese looks better on a wooden board. Dinner rolls look better in a basket lined with a cloth napkin. This isn't about impressing anyone. It's about presentation being part of the pleasure.

And Then There's the Deviled Egg Plate

For years, deviled egg plates seemed destined to spend eternity on antique-store shelves. Too specific. Too old-fashioned. Too Grandma. And now? We want them again.

Maybe because deviled eggs themselves are having something of a renaissance. Maybe because we're rediscovering the joy of entertaining pieces that have one wonderfully specific job. I love that. Modern life has given us plenty of things designed to do seventeen different tasks. Vintage entertaining ware gives us a dish specifically designed to hold eighteen eggs. No apologies. No secondary function.

I hold deviled eggs. That is my contribution.

Respect.

And once you start looking, you'll discover an entire world of gloriously specific vintage serving pieces: relish trays, celery dishes, butter dishes, oyster plates, nut bowls, gravy boats, asparagus servers, punch bowls, condiment sets and tiny individual salt cellars. I’ve even started to collect these moon shaped dishes that are apparently for discarding bones.

Did civilization technically need all of these things? Probably not. Are we glad they exist? Absolutely.

Build Your Own Party Closet

You don't actually need a closet. You need a collection. Start with things you'll genuinely use. If I were building a vintage entertaining collection from scratch, I'd look for cloth napkins first. They're inexpensive, easy to store and instantly make a table feel intentional.

Then I'd add mismatched glassware, a couple of great platters, serving bowls, candlesticks, a pretty pitcher, baskets, cocktail napkins and a cake stand. And then I'd leave room for the weird stuff.

Because that's where it gets fun.

The oyster forks. The silver cocktail picks. The tiny dishes. The giant punch bowl. The champagne bucket. The deviled egg plate. That fabulous serving piece you cannot identify but are completely confident you will someday need.

Don't buy everything at once. That's the beauty of it. Pick things up slowly. Find them at estate sales. In your mother's cupboard. At flea markets. While traveling. Wandering through Magnolia on a Saturday afternoon. Eventually you'll have a collection that doesn't look like anyone else's.

Your Table Doesn't Have to Match

Actually, it's more interesting when it doesn't. Your grandmother's china can sit beside a thrifted linen napkin. Vintage goblets can live happily next to everyday white plates. Silver candlesticks don't care that your flatware is stainless steel.

Use the fancy platter with hamburgers. Put grocery-store flowers in the antique pitcher. Serve chips in the crystal bowl. There is no committee coming to inspect your table. The goal isn't perfection. The goal is welcome.

Hospitality Is a Feeling

That's really the whole point. The best hosts aren't necessarily the people with the biggest houses, the most expensive dishes or the most elaborate menus. They're the people who make you feel like they're genuinely glad you're there.

A drink appears in your hand. There's somewhere comfortable to sit. The food comes out. Someone lights the candles. Nobody seems terribly concerned that all the glasses don't match. And somehow, without quite knowing why, you settle in.

That's hospitality.

The beautiful old things just help us set the stage. So use them. Pull out the cloth napkins. Fill the weird little nut dishes. Light the candlesticks. Put tonight's dinner on the good platter. And if you're wandering through Magnolia and find a deviled egg plate? You know what to do.

Buy it.

Your party closet is waiting.

Even if it's actually a dresser in the guest room, half a china cabinet, two kitchen cupboards and something suspiciously resembling a linen closet.