Shopping for Plates With Personality

Plus, some news

We’ll get to the shopping momentarily, but first, here’s my news:

Up until now, everything I’ve published on Substack has been free to read. I launched this newsletter when I was pregnant and decided to hold off on implementing paid subscriptions until after my maternity leave. Starting this month, I’ll be putting some of my content behind a paywall. You can see a breakdown of the paid subscription perks and pricing HERE, but the most important thing to know is that paying subs will receive two extra newsletters every month, including a special Gumshoe franchise launching at the end of February that catalogs what’s “sticking” — in my head, in my wardrobe, in my Google search history… more on that in a few weeks!

Introducing paid content was always part of my long-term plan, and will allow me to devote the necessary hours it takes to put Gumshoe together without relying on sponsors or affiliate links (content monetization tools that don’t always but can often make shopping recommendations less interesting, idiosyncratic, and objective IMO). I’m extremely picky and borderline obsessive about the shopping links I include here — especially vintage or secondhand ones — and it takes A LOT of time to find them. If you enjoyed reading Gumshoe in 2023, I hope you will consider supporting this work by becoming a paid subscriber in 2024 — but if you still need a little bit of convincing that doing so will be worth your while, no sweat. That’s coming your way shortly.

Regardless of whether you choose to upgrade your subscription, I’m really and truly honored to have you as a reader. Thank you so much for trusting me — with space in your inbox, and most preciously, with your taste.

Now, onto the plates! (NB: This email is long and will probably get clipped, so make sure to click “view entire message” at the bottom).

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First, some inspiration from my personal collection…

I never intentionally set out to become a collector of plates, but it happened — to use the now-cliché Hemingway quote — gradually and then suddenly. I think the inciting incident might have been when my friend Madeleine gave me a full set of these vintage Franci Villa Vanilla plates for my birthday one year. They are so weird. I loved them instantly. Here’s a partial set (of 4) listed on eBay for $60. I also love these vegetable face plates (which look pretty much exactly like the Fornasetti ones that retail for insane prices) and this lobster plate by the same designer.

I’ve really come to appreciate how a plate with personality can liven up a dinner table or dish rack…

Like these vintage face plates I found a handful of years ago, which I display on a rack in my kitchen. They remind me of Picasso’s famous painted face plates that routinely sell for upwards of $30k a pop. Needless to say, these were much more reasonably priced, as are the two “sun face” plates I’ve been eyeing recently on eBay: here ($15) and here ($12.50).

I first saw these plates on someone’s dinner table on Instagram and could not rest until I’d hunted them down. Turns out they’re from a France-based retailer known as CSAO, which stands for “Compagnie du Sénégal et de l'Afrique de l'Ouest.” It was founded with the mission of celebrating and supporting the work of artisans in West Africa. Each of these plates is hand-painted in Senegal, using a special technique where the design is drawn on the reverse side of a transparent glass plate, then filled in with successive layers of paint and dried in the sun. I have a mixed set of different colors.

These clay plates were handmade in Romania using a traditional drip glazing technique that is the signature of artisans in various parts of Eastern Europe. Mine (pictured above) are from Break the Mould. I also love this dinner plate set ($159 for 6) and this dessert plate set ($125 for 6) on Etsy.

Specific plate keywords I’ve been exploring…

“Bordallo Pinheiro,” an iconic Portuguese ceramics designer most famous for fruit- and vegetable-inspired dishware.

From left to right:

1. Bordallo Pinheiro deep red plates with mixed fruit motif, $45 (set of 3)

2. Bordallo Pinheiro yellow carrot and celery plates, $89.99 (set of 6)

3. Bordallo Pinheiro tomato dessert plates, $78 (set of 4)

4. Bordallo Pinheiro pierced lily of the valley plates, $75 (set of 3)

5. Bordallo Pinheiro blue fish serving plate, $80

“Splatterware” and “spongeware.” I really like some of the designs and colors from this Etsy shop.

“Suisse Langenthal,” a keyword phrase I discovered by chance while browsing. Apparently it refers to pieces that hail from a 20th-Century Swiss porcelain factory. I love the colorful, almost psychedelic designs of these plates. This Zurich-based Etsy shop carries a ton of them.

Miscellaneous plates I’ve bookmarked recently…

From left to right:

1. Portuguese pottery pink flower plates, $144.00 (set of 4)

2. Mid-century Italian fish serving plate, $77.18

3. Mushroom dessert plates, $125.00 (set of 6 — and each mushroom is different!)

4. One-of-a-kind hand-painted snake plate, $44.88

5. The Mane Lion plate set, $35.00 (set of 6)

6. Vallauris dessert plates and serving dish, $272.54 (set of 7)

7. Este Ce veggie plates, $100 (set of 8 — each one features a different vegetable)

8. Home American Simplicity villa stoneware dinner plates, $70.00 (set of 4)

9. Hand-painted blue dot dessert plates, $70.00 (set of 4)

10. Coralla Maiuri speckled porcelain plate with gold leaf border, $65.00

11. Hand-painted striped plate, $30

12. Pastel Vietri salad plates, $125 (set of 11 — each pattern is slightly different)

xo Harling

P.S. I realized I accidentally turned off email replies to last week’s newsletter, so if you sent a reply via email I didn’t receive it. Very sorry about that! It’s fixed now.