While some designers might lean toward autumnal colors for their tablesettings this season, Alexa Hampton had a different idea—go regal. On Wednesday evening, industry friends gathered at the Christofle flagship showroom on Madison Avenue in New York City for an imperial occasion, all centered around a special tabletop display created by Hampton.

“When you’re working in a dining room it can be as wild as you like because it is all portable,” Alexa shared. “As timid as one might feel anywhere else in the house, you can really go for it in the dining room because you can take it off after. It’s not permanent.”

With red and purple hues, which Hampton described as “fun and exciting,” the tablescape incorporated flatware and crystal from Christofle, custom-made Bellino Fine Linens and Hampton’s very own Brutus statue as a centerpiece.

“I think nothing screams luxury more than your own salt and pepper, and the caviar and the candelabra,” Alexa said of her table. “You can mix both modern and traditional silver because the material is so understood and it connotes such established notions of fine dining. You can be a little more playful than if you were playing with a different material.”

“The display of color and silver is elegant, regal and sumptuous because the colors are so rich and vibrant,” said Traditional Home Design Editor Tori Mellott. “It is a really sophisticated and elegant table that I would want to sit right down at and eat a feast.”

Alexa Hampton and Tori Mellott

Notable attendees included Hampton’s husband Pavlos Papageorgiou, Executive Vice President at Christofle Ginny Gerard, Bellino Fine Linens Vice President Gianni Romagnolo de Laurentiis and Bellino Fine Linens Vice President of Sales and Marketing Maurizio Bussolari.

“This was a chance to organize a wonderful event and present to everybody our capabilities while expressing ourselves with handcrafted ideas,” said Bussolari. “The idea was to relaunch a luxurious table with obviously Christofle products and Hampton’s creativity. The tablecloth is custom-made and has a hem-stitch, which is very popular and difficult to do in this shape.”

Robin Wang, Maurizio Bussolari, Gianni Romagnolo de Laurentiis and Victoria Katsarou

Paul Larn and Linda Coghlan

“If you’re going to have a tablecloth, have many because the silver you’re not going to swap out,” added Hampton. “The silver is the permanent part of the equation. The thing you can be fanciful with is the tablecloth so you have to get many and colors and different ideas. It’s what reinvents the space. It recasts it.”

“It was a great opportunity to have Alexa design a table for us,” said Gerard. “Christofle has beautiful heritage patterns that really help you create something that is opulent and luxurious.”

Photography credit: Editor at Large