not your grandmother's silver

and don't get me wrong, i love my grandmother's silver. but i have to say, crate and barrel is really nailing it these days with stainless and aluminum pieces that are shiny and festive looking, but newly grounded in a modern aesthetic. they are also much more sensible in terms of weight, maintenance and cost, and can easily be mixed in with older, more traditional pieces you've inherited from your grandmother (and anyone else with good taste).

as you know, i love crate and barrel's partnership with nambe, which i posted about earlier in the week, but my absolute favorite in their "silver" arena are the russo platters pictured above. i just really love how light and airy they look, and how the ripple looks almost free-form. i really think almost anything would look pretty on them, including all kinds of food, candles, small flower arrangments and other botanical elements.

i would love to use them with another crate and barrel standby, my set of riviera dishes which always look great mixed with silver elements.

i also love these three ring napkin rings because they are so simple and tailored, and they remind me of rolling rings which i love. sometimes associations just work that way, and i guess it goes to show that a tasteful and timeless design can work in more than one application.

i think the arden candleholders are an elegant accent to a dining room table for a holiday or for any other evening, and i love that they come in varying heights. they're sold individually, but they're also available in a three piece set, one of each height.

it's definitely a modern take on candleholders - rather than being designed to be a set of 2 identical ones, they're made to be versatile. while the traditional look is certainly something you can achieve by getting two of the same size, you have other options. thinking of it that way, you could create options out of the ones you already have, including the more traditional silver ones you might have had for years - mixing up the height and the sequence in which they sit (even mixing silver and brass!) would totally modernize any candlescape. yeah, i said candlescape.
on a slightly more industrial note, the shorty cake stand feels to me almost like it would be in a bakery rather than a home, and it's appealing in that way. i could see a dessert buffet table looking great with a few of these and then some pretty, understated dessert plates like these or these. i love a mix like that - hard and soft, or like jen rosenthal said in my conversation with her, sweet and salty...

well i'm definitely sweet on crate and barrel's shining silver accents. had to get my pun of the day in. and another thing...none of these items costs more than $60.

riviera photo from www.thisnext.com; all other photos from www.crateandbarrel.com