I read this article with a great sense of sadness:
Founded in 1759 by the pioneering Josiah Wedgwood, the housewares brand quickly rose to prominence, earning fans in high places. Its elegant, often hand-painted china was used in Buckingham Palace, the White House, the Vatican, and even the Kremlin.
But fast forward to today, and once-prized porcelain pieces that were lovingly gifted at weddings, and saved for anniversaries and Christmas dinners are gathering dust, or worse, going for pennies on online marketplaces.
The sparkle has well and truly faded for the formal dining crockery, pieces that once fetched hundreds of pounds are now struggling to sell at car boot sales, with some saying they can’t even ‘give the sets away’.
Why?
Expert and prolific author on ceramics and glass, John Sandon, who makes regular appearances on the BBC Antiques Roadshow, revealed the decline in demand for traditional porcelain is less about quality and more about shifting cultural attitudes. He told the Daily Mail: “Most people consider their best china and family inherited crockery is ‘old fashioned’, whatever that means. Most old sets are regarded as impractical for everyday use, and very, very few people want to use them.”
Reflecting on changing attitudes toward inherited tableware, John noted the growing disconnect between sustainability messages and modern family preferences. He added: “The much quoted ‘Antiques are Green’ message has tried to emphasise that old china sets are the ultimate recyclables. And Granny’s china sets should be used. But most modern families don’t want to.”
Highlighting the gap between appreciation and practicality, John pointed out that admiration for antique ceramics doesn’t always translate into everyday use.
“Not using your old china tea services and fruit sets is nothing to do with the reason people choose plain white from Ikea and The Range instead of very expensive Wedgwood.”
One of my abiding regrets about emigrating was that I couldn’t bring over my (inherited) dinnerware with me. What was it?
It was Wedgwood Signet Platinum, and it was the classiest, most elegant dinnerware ever.
At dinner parties, even my rowdy, uncouth friends would comment on how lovely it looked, and how it set off the meal perfectly.
It’s profoundly sad, but not altogether surprising, that people nowadays would rather use cheap shit from Ikea or Walmart than bother to put out a decent table setting for their guests. I guess that utility wins over style and grace.
I think I’ll go and eat some worms. Off a paper plate.
When I was dating my fiancé, she bought me a very nice set of glasses since all I had as a single guy was jelly jar glasses and plastic cups from the service station. I thought that was nice and started using them. Right up until we got married, and then I was told those were too nice for everyday use, so they got put in the special cabinet while my new wife went out and bought another set of glasses, cheaper this time but bought with my (non-existent) money. She then insisted we needed fancy china, so again went out and bought a really nice set with more money that I didn’t have (think Mastercard, 15% interest). And of course we needed holiday themed china too, so more Mastercard money. That was 30 years ago and I think I finally paid it all off last month. I have at least 3 to 4 cabinets in my kitchen full of fancy stuff that we haven’t used in decades. DECADES. It’s too nice for everyday use, and after a big holiday meal who wants to wash? So we get holiday themed paper plates instead. And of course we spent $30k remodeling the kitchen for a bigger pantry and more cabinet space, since of course we need more cabinet space.
Honest to God, if she passes first I’m throwing all that shit away. Half the kitchen will be empty. I’ll have plenty of space for storing ammo, that’s for damn sure. Waste of money, waste of space. Never fucking use it.
I can see if you’re the type to throw fancy dinner parties, but who does that anymore? Relics from the past.
Every Grandparent, Great Aunt, Aunt, etc. in my scope had a set of “good” dishes, that mostly sat in a cabinet. Being stateside they weren’t often Wedgewood, and they weren’t often used, and never when we kids were within dish-drop distance.
To my forbears though, they represented an aspirational goal of having something “nice” which meant something to people who grew up with dirt-floor houses. I have my In-laws set, and will inherit a couple of others when my Mother passes. And I don’t know what in the hell to do with them either.
But I hate the above situation because, like wearing a coat & tie, it seems that we are progressively (and I intend the innuendo) losing a sense of respect, genteelness & manners, that were important in maintaining a livable society.
Disagree all you want, I don’t care, and I don’t miss wearing a suit & tie, at all, myself. But we seem to have descended into a coarse, vulgar, prole-scape where the only way to prove your bona-fides is to yell “FUCK” louder than anyone else.
I think there are two key explanations to the phenomena.
First, fine China is both expensive and fragile, and simply just doesn’t stand up to casual ordinary daily use. We rightly set aside the fine things as requiring extra care, and abhor the consequences of ordinary use, which would quickly result in chipped, broken and incomplete sets .
Second, we’re swimming in the stuff. Every corner of the ancestral family had their own prized set, and as the big families pass them down through the generations to the smaller families, they accumulate. I myself have EIGHT FULL SETS in the attic, four of which I inherited from my parents, three from hers, including the one my bride and I obtained for ourselves from an antique jaunt.
I also note that the accumulation problem also pertains to cremation urns, which are kicked down the road for the next generation to solve rather than buried or scattered. I’m just grateful my parents provided a gravesite that will accommodate a combination of 6 full coffins or 72 urns.
And a third point: Dinner service is now disposable. Your crappleWoodDeluxe stoneware set from Target will provide reasonable service for 3-5 years, which for ~$50 means you don’t have to give the slightest of craps when you sweep it all into the trash because you’re bored with it or the breakage has reduced the set below some threshold of usability.
HA!
“breakage has reduced the set below some threshold of usability”
Our daily dishware (Pfaltzgraff Yorktown) has 7 items. lol
I think you mean 35+ years. I’m still using the same plates I purchased for £notalot when I rented my first flat.
My parents bought a set of expensive porcelain tableware, Villeroy&Boch (similar level of posh to Wedgewood) and we used it daily for years.
Didn’t take too long for it all to get horribly scratched, that bone porcelain is SOFT, not really suitable for every day use if you want to keep it looking nice. Which is why usually it ends up in a closet and just sitting there gathering dust and to show off at visitors so they can see what expensive stuff you have.
I bought me SOME of Wedgewood’s budget line (NOT bone porcelain) and it’s much more durable. But I bought it because I like the looks of it better than the old IKEA stuff I had before that after 20 years of daily use was a miss matched mess of pieces.
THAT should last me until I can no longer live independently and get shoved into an assisted living facility or nursing home to live out the last days of my stay on this rotten dirt ball.
Here in the UK we tend to live in increasingly smaller houses with ever-diminishing storage space and storing all that china takes up a lot of space for something that gets very little use. People no longer hold dinner parties and even Sunday lunch seems to have gone, with people eating out more.
And then, as has been mentioned, is the washing-up. If it can’t go in the dishwasher then it’s not going to get used.
I’ve just had a gander on eBay and there’s some quite nice stuff there. But why should I buy it if I’m not going to use it?
I am the current holder of several pieces of formal sterling silver tableware passed down in the family and verified as manufactured in London in the mid-1700s. Beautiful pieces. Near on 300 years old. Had them appraised for insurance purposes. They are worth only the melt value of the silver; no historic or antique value. I don’t have children; no one to leave these pieces of silversmith’s art with. I suspect they will be melted down after I’ve passed – not too long off now. Such a shame.
We have three sets of dinnerware. My wife’s Great Grandmother’s Noritake, which is never used but holds such nostalgia for her that we will keep it until… Then a set of Corelle white for daily use (for which it is fantastic), and a set of Corelle Christmas pattern. Its just the two of us here in shitcagoland; family dinners are a thing of the beloved past when we’d have 30 people at the Thanksgiving table and two or three family’s worth of china, and my Mom’s china came out for a week over Christmas. My brother and sister took the two Grandmother’s china when my parents passed away. I know my brother uses his for holidays but they have extended family there so its an event.
My wife and I sold our own mid-range china when we inherited the Noritake. We hadn’t used it in 20+ years and don’t miss it.
Last year my wife was the executor for the estate of a friend and coworker. That person had a pristine set of Noritake Rose china; 10 full sets plus accessories, without a scratch or flaw, and excellent flatware to go with it. It had been her Grandmother’s and Mother’s and had been used for ‘special occasions’ all those years until this person became ill a few years ago.
We contacted every sibling, son, daughter, nephew, niece, and extended out as far as their referrals took us. Not one person was interested, even if the estate paid shipping. We asked the service we used to estate sale the house to try and keep it as a set. No takers at any price. We eventually found a flea market/ebay seller who bought it for cheap!!!!! because they advertise and sell individual pieces to folks who maybe broke a piece, or needed to add another setting. They said the same; nobody wants sets.
It is another passing.
We got a set of fancy china for our wedding 23 years ago. It has gone through about 3 moves and has been used about the same number of times. Same with the crystal.
I married my wife and she had 4 Churchill Blue Willow plates and bowls that she used. We did get a set of fine china that we have used about 5 times in 40 years. That set of Blue Willow grew to serving pieces, a full 12 place settings that takes up 3 cabinets in the kitchen.