Wallstreet Journal - Seashell Dishes: Set a Summery Table Without Paper Plates

WARMER MONTHS have a way of lending an air of informality to life, from what we wear to how we work to the way we entertain. While I love nothing more than balancing a paper plate loaded with clams, corn and tomatoes on my lap for dinner on the beach, the latest book from model-turned-designer India Hicks, “Island Style” (Rizzoli), has moved me to take a more formal approach to outdoor summer dining.

Many of the monograph’s pages focus on the entertaining tricks that Ms. Hicks—whose father was famous English interior decorator David Hicks—employs at Hibiscus Hill, the home in Harbour Island, Bahamas, that she shares with her longtime partner, David Flint Wood, and their children. Whether it’s an informal family breakfast on the porch or a dinner party on the lawn, Ms. Hicks will sometimes set the table with traditional stoneware plates from 85-year-old manufacturer Mottahedeh—a touch of civility in the midst of her tropical paradise.

But it’s their intricate shell pattern, known as Torquay, that really adds a summery vibe. The design was named after an English coastal resort town in Devon and is a reproduction of a style created around 1820. “The pattern was originally produced in navy blue and then sea green,” said Mottahedeh’s president, Wendy Kvalheim. Other shades, such as the coral of Ms. Hicks’s set (a 40th-birthday present from Mr. Wood), came later but the design has remained the same: What looks like an ordinary flower-and-flourish pattern from afar is actually a lighthearted rendering of a nautilus and cowrie shell.

“My mother always used to wear her good jewelry instead of keeping it in a safe, and I guess I’m like that with my china,” said Ms. Hicks. “I like to use it.” She sometimes complements her plates with real shells and a freshly-picked palm frond placemat, accompanied by linen napkins in a dove gray or pale pink.

Other similarly old-fashioned companies—such as 200-year-old French brand Gien, and German purveyor Meissen, founded in 1710—offer sets with charming sea-inspired themes. “It feels fresher and younger to use traditional porcelain in a more informal way,” said Kate Rheinstein Brodsky, owner of Manhattan décor shop KRB. She suggests setting an outside lunch table with pink antique Wedgwood pearlware dishes in the shape of scallop shells, a more literally oceanic approach. To complete the look? “I would play up the peachy pastels of the plate with pretty pale green linen napkins,” she said, “and simple, blown-glass tumblers filled with rosé.”