Attack of the Breakfast Nook
Staff -- Gifts & Decorative Accessories, 4/1/2001
In the years following World War II, Americans gradually recalled their taste for luxury items such as fine china and glassware-much to the delight of tabletop retailers. However, during the war years formal entertaining had fallen low on most people's list of priorities, and as a result the postwar populace had begun to prefer casual dining and breakfast nooks to fancy meals in grand dining rooms. Documenting this new threat in the pages of our magazine was Elizabeth Lounsbery, author of the book Entertaining Without a Maid.
The revival of interest in the things which go to make up the American home should definitely serve as a stimulus to manufacturers and retailers to create tempting displays which will help to convince the American buying public that the dining room is one of the keys to gracious living.
With the development of a new generation of customers, what could have a greater educational value than to make it possible to visualize in actual table settings what is now obtainable for a well ordered home?
Perhaps the young homemaker has given little thought to the appointments of a lovely dining table, especially during the past war years of casual living, but now that she has reached-or hopes soon to reach-the point of acquiring her own home, attractive store displays will unquestionably be of the greatest possible guidance for her in making the proper selections.
With this in view, retailers of china, glassware, decorative accessories, silver, and linen should not delay in providing such displays if they would preserve and increase their sales.
Furthermore, the retailer will have to counteract the casual catch-as-catch-can manner of dining that developed during the war and cope with the argument advanced by certain architects and decorators that the dining room is superfluous. If this theory were accepted, what would become of the lovely glassware, china, and linen that every woman cherishes and the silver that she selected with so much care? These definitely have no place in a kitchen breakfast nook or in the corner of a living room that may be improvised as a dining room, perhaps only once a day.
Merchandise displayed merely on the shelves will not accomplish what we are after, but when arranged attractively in an actual table setting, it will appeal not only to the eye but to the imagination of the average woman customer. An irresistible resulting desire will then inspire her to try to duplicate what she has seen on her own dining table. A table set with lovely linen, beautiful china, and glowing glassware and silver will unquestionably attract every woman passing through the department.
Retailers should take advantage of the gradual increase of new merchandise and repeat the table displays they carried so successfully in the past, for a new, growing audience of customers. These tables may not be as elaborately equipped as formerly, but there is undoubtedly a steadily increasing supply of merchandise adequate for displays that will serve to satisfy the customer, who has been deprived of this means of visual information for so long.
Gifts & Dec (then called The Gift and Art Buyer ), February 1947
