Luncheon with Tiffany's

For the first time this year, I'm wearing a dress with no stockings. It's a cream dress with a large scale sort of paisley design in red, orange and pink, with ruffles along the neckline and finishing off the half-length sleeves. It exudes spring. And when I found myself on the Tiffany's website this morning (for work, I swear!), I realized my dress had a certain similarity to certain lines of Tiffany china, which exude spring with equal fervor. The bright white backgrounds, decorated with sprightly animals and spring green foliage, make me think of luncheons on the terrace. I happen to have a terrace, and if I also had a garden table, potted plants, and a kitchen, I would serve a very light, three-course lunch on these beautiful dishes.










We would eat of off my favorite china pattern, Tiffany's Federal. I like that it's colorfully traditional while still relatively understated. If I couldn't find anything to serve in this covered vegetable bowl, I would still put in the middle of the table. It's graceful lines make a great centerpeice.










I would serve actual food on these pieces from the Jardin pattern. On the left is a regular old dinner plate, if you can so describe anything that costs $470, made in the Paris Studio from Limoges porcelain. On the right is a hand-painted piece mysteriously described as a "Mocha Tray."










I myself would wait to serve dessert on this exuberantly decorated Audobon china. We could eat macaroons on the dessert plates at left, with their central design of a pagoda-shaped birdcage. And we could drink hot chocolate from the chocolatier on the right, which Tiffany's calls a "Moka coffee pot." And then, having completed our luncheon on Limoges, we would set out to buy a new crop of spring frocks and peekaboo shoes.