Ep. 482: Entertaining with a Side of Chaos with India Hicks

0:01India Hicks:Welcome to How to Decorate from Ballard Designs, a weekly podcast all about the trials and triumphs of decorating and redecorating your home. I'm Caroline. I'm on the marketing team. And I'm Taryn, and I'm a product designer. I'm Liz. I head up the creative team. We're your hosts. Join the expert team at Ballard Designs for tips, tricks, and tales from interior designers, stylists, and other talents in the design world. Plus, we'll answer your decorating dilemmas at the end of each episode. We love answering your questions, so don't forget to email us at podcast at ballardesigns.net. Now on with the show.

0:33India Hicks:Our guest today is a writer, designer, entrepreneur, and the daughter of legendary British interior designer David Hicks. She's been a model and on-air personality for everyone from Bravo to the BBC and has had her hand in the design world for over two decades, from hotels to home collections. Her fourth book, Entertaining with a Side of Chaos, is part memoir, part tablescaping guide, documenting the tables as well as her approach to hosting guests. India Hicks, welcome to the show. Thank you. Welcome back, actually. So we were just talking about last time and it's been many years, but we're thrilled to get to chat with you about your new book and hear about how it came about.

1:12This one is called Entertaining with a Side of Chaos, which I think lets the reader know fairly quickly what to anticipate. it. Seven years ago, I did another entertaining book that was a little bit more formal, a little bit more perfect orientated. In the intervening years, I realized that actually, I have quite a strong point of view on entertaining because I've done quite a lot of it. And the best part of it is the chaos. And I think we need to not be so focused on having this perfect life, perfect table, perfect meal, perfect evening, perfect everything. And I have a lot of chaos in my life and I'm embracing it.

1:55India Hicks:Yes, I was thinking as I was reading the book, I think chaos is probably what most people would hope does not appear at their occasion, but sometimes it is inevitable that it may sneak in. So maybe give us a little taste of some of the types of chaos that you embrace when hosting? Again, chaos comes in all sorts of forms. The entertaining is the important part. And I think in this crazy, unbalanced world that we are all finding ourselves living in, we need to more than ever get together. We need to sit around a table. We need to look each other in the eye. We need to put that phone down for a moment.

2:41We need to have meaningful conversations. And we need to leave that table feeling, that was really lovely. And so I think from folding a pretty napkin to the right lighting, to the right plasma, to eating something delicious, to having the table set up somewhere extraordinary, that all builds to the moment of, ooh, wasn't that nice? But I do think gathering is important, especially at the moment. You know, most of my children now are fairly grown up, although we treat them as though they're six-year-olds. They're actually sort of 26. And so we sit at a table most evenings when we're together, and we're together a lot.

3:22And that is the time where we really do either fight or argue or laugh or cry, and all of that's important. And then you take that onto the bigger picture of inviting others over and having guests come or colleagues from work or family that you don't particularly like. I even have a chapter in that it's called, Why Are They Still Here? But there are in the book, there are recipes, none of which come from me. Thank God we have a top banana who has managed to stay with us, live with us and cook for us for many, many years. She's absolutely part of our family and the recipes are from her. But there are lots of tips and tricks which are from me.

4:04and I hope that this is kind of part manual, part inspiration, part coffee table book, part book to open up and look at beautiful imagery. So there's a lot that goes on inside of this book but you asked an example of chaos. There are many examples of chaos inside the book from my Dachshund Stretch who's sitting here in the room with me. When Claire's back was turned, he got on to the kitchen table and ate the beef from the beef salad. And really, without the beef in the beef salad, you're just left with rather boring salad. And I was just remembering another summer, very similar to the one we're having here in the Bahamas right now, very, very hot summer.

4:51And all five of my children were home and they all invite friends. And then we invite the parents, the friends, and then we've got family friends. And the table extends and extends. And I had it beautifully laid up in the garden and candles on it, plates on it, chairs laid. And I suddenly just thought we are going to melt. We're going to melt if we stay here. And I went down onto the lane just outside our driveway and there was a beautiful breeze coming up from the ocean. And I said, we've got to move the table. And there were a lot of horrified looks from everyone around me saying, we can't move the table.

5:22It's too late. There are 30 people coming and there are 30 places laid. And I said, we have to move the table. And moving the table was the best thing that we did. The evening went on, everyone lingered, the breeze was amazing. And even though we were in a lane, we did face one or two people trying to drive around us in their golf carts. Luckily, I live on an island where a golf cart is mainly the main form of transport. But the evening was actually, it was perfect because of that last minute decision. And had I still been in my perfect frame of mind, my perfect phase, we would never have dared to move the table at that last moment.

5:59Everybody was carrying their own wine glasses, their own plates, their own cutlery. Nobody minded. Moving 30 people just sounds rather epic at the last minute. Rather epic at the last minute. My secret to all of my entertaining, whether I'm in England, whether I'm in the Bahamas, whether I'm in New York, is a folding table. Very inexpensive from Amazon, folding bamboo chairs, because then you can lift them up, move them around, fold them up, put them black out. If you've got a big, heavy dining room table, you're in more trouble. But folding tables are very easy to move at the last minute. Do you think that there's a time where you recognized where it was time to embrace more chaos?

6:47No, I think it seeped in unexpectedly. I think there's a lot of beautiful imagery in the book and there's a lot of perfection in the book, don't get me wrong. I do care, of course I care. But I want to just encourage hosts to feel that nothing has to be perfect. I think if you wait until your house, your children, your food, your life are all perfect before inviting anyone over, you'll die alone with beautifully folded napkins. No, that's very true. And I think, you know, to your point, every table looks absolutely meticulous, but you talk a lot about how you're embracing, because you live in the Bahamas, you know a lot of times you have to decorate the table with what you have on hand or what is freshest at the grocery store or so um talk to us a little bit about how you're kind of doing things a little bit more on the fly because of that very much on the fly and i actually believe that even though island life is challenging um you know if the boat doesn't come in we don't get certain things.

8:05We have a three-month hurricane season. There's no doctor, dentist, or vet. There were definite challenges to 30 years of living here. But also, it's the most incredible place to live as well. And I feel very much part of a community. And one that I respect hugely. But when you suddenly think, ooh, I need a lampshade, or ooh, wouldn't it be nice to have unsalted butter? or wouldn't a fresh tablecloth from a shop be lovely to go and buy? Those options aren't available. So in fact, you use your imagination a lot more. And I think one page in the book shows tomatoes suddenly becoming a centerpiece.

8:50And it was just born out of the simple fact that we had run out of ideas and energy and options of what to put down the table. Certain times of year, Mother Nature offers us the most incredible bounty of lovely free things, whether it's night-blooming jasmine, whether it's flame trees in bloom. And we can go and borrow from Mother Nature and put that down the table. But this particular evening, I think there really was nothing. And I was like, oh, I've done palm fronds a hundred times. We've had the shells down the center too many times. And I sort of thought, tomatoes. When you think tomatoes, you can't just look at three tomatoes because that looks like you've just been shopping.

9:35You need to look at basketfuls of tomatoes. And suddenly that becomes rather dramatic and that actually, you can get away with it. You can get away with it. And then of course, the next day, you're making tomato soup that could be frozen for the next six months.

9:51India Hicks:I absolutely loved that table. You know, I think your ability to create such imaginative tables is in part probably because of, what is the saying, scarcity is the mother of invention or something? That's correct. But what advice would you give to our listeners about how to think outside the box a little bit? Because, you know, are you walking around looking at what do I have in abundance? Are you thinking what textures look good together? Like, is there a mood in your mind you're trying to capture? I guess what's the jumping off point and then how do you go build from that? Yes, there is always a jumping off point.

10:35I mean, I design, create, and sell collections of hand-block printed table linens with pomegranate, which I've done for a number of years. So there is normally a starting point in my head, a mood board, a story, and whether it's canasta vintage playing cards that I sit at the table and play with my mum, or whether it is a stinging nettle from a garden in England. So those designs then come and then that leads to, oh, actually, maybe one could have amazing, beautiful tablescapes, which actually involve big bowls of stinging nettles or something unusual. But I like to start with the sort of foundation of a table cloth.

11:19I do do bare tables as well, but I like a table cloth because I am invested in this. And then from there, I build out. So the tablecloth will normally set the tone of what color are we going for? And then what napkins do we have? What cutlery do we have? Again, I'm very careful about budget. And I always am a great believer that it doesn't take a huge budget to make or create a very beautiful tablescape or an evening. And it takes very little to either make a lunch for two or a business breakfast come alive with a bud vase or just some pretty flowers on the table or a pretty candle that we've lit.

12:06Just something that makes you feel like you've made that effort. And it doesn't need to be a huge floral arrangement delivered by the latest, trendiest, smartest florist. It can be as simple as a bud vase with one bud in it. Yeah, I think some of the most beautiful and simple tablescapes you've done have just reclaimed bottles dancing all the way down the middle with a single stem in each one that just delivers consistency and beauty and a little bit of unexpected with the reclaimed bottles. I love unexpected. My whole life is an unexpected journey for sure. did I ever imagine after my upbringing in England that I would live on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere with five children, one of whom is Bahamian and three dogs and two cats and several lovebirds, most of whom got eaten by a snake, by the way.

13:03So no, life has been very unexpected for me here. But talking about those bud vases and having the drama of them going all the way down a table, whether it's a round table for six or a long table for 26, those bud vases don't need to be matching. Again, you could have an empty glass ketchup jar or a mustard jar that you've just washed out, but the idea that they're all glass is what unifies them. I'm also a great believer in your crockery or plates or cutlery not needing to necessarily match. As long as there's a colour theme that holds it together, I think you can get away with an awful lot. So chip plates that are all blue and white are lovely.

13:46I've got a collection that comes from disparate antique stores all over Oxfordshire. But together, they actually begin to form a collection and sit together really nicely. But I buy one and one and one. It's not a whole collection to begin with.

14:01India Hicks:Is that something, you know, you mentioned having a more traditional English upbringing and kind of coming away from that as you, you know, kind of entered adulthood. But I was curious if that ability to mix and match and the freedom to not necessarily use a set, is that something that you learned from your parents or that you sort of, I guess, built as a philosophy on your own? Well, when you sent a few of these questions in advance, one that you asked was that my father converted the family chapel at Brittle House into a dining room. And as you said, quite correctly, it was covered in red damask silk.

14:47It was a crystal chandelier. There were butlers in white gloves, lighting candles. And you said, what was it actually like eating in that room? And I said, of course, completely normal until you realized it wasn't. But in actual fact, as small children, we weren't really invited into that room. That was really for adults. But it was drama. And my father was brilliant at creating theater. And any guest who ever had the privilege of eating in that chapel dining room wouldn't have forgotten it. It was remarkable. But then my father was one of the world's most renowned decorators and designers of the 60s and 70s.

15:26I am not. and nor do I live that kind of life. So I grew up in interiors that were all theatrical, but my own life is much simpler, much more down to earth. It certainly had the edges knocked off it because of island life, because of living geographically on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere. It also seems that five children would knock a few edges off there as well. Yeah, that also knocks the breath out of me. It's not just the edges. Yeah, that's a lot. That was a wild mistake.

16:03India Hicks:you you you spoke earlier about doing uh moving your table into the lane and as i was reaching the end of the book i was sort of thinking back on it and thinking i'm not sure i remember a single table in her dining room and and i did flip back through and there were a couple but you know the vast majority are outdoors on a patio um on the beach in a courtyard on the porch and i'm what i I was wondering if that is there a certain magic to doing your table in a new place, an unexpected place? Is that a fact of your dining table, dining room maybe being small? Like what was that that took you to new places every time?

16:47And a number of reasons. And it's interesting you should say that because actually when my husband looked at this book, he said, he thought it was actually quite different because he felt it wasn't so tropical. And that there were quite the majority of the book has been shot certainly with tables laid up by me, designed by me, created by me, but in different parts of the world. It's not all so island-centric. But living here for 30 years, one of the great privileges, obviously, is that I have a garden and space and good weather. In England, you don't really have the opportunity to move your table around your garden or set it up in different places.

17:26And here I do. So I think that that was where it sort of started. And then also chasing the breeze is another one. And also at wintertime, we can lay up a table down in our palm grove where it's less open to the sea breeze. So there are different elements of mother nature that's dictating where our tables go, but also having fun with it. I like the idea of having a surprise. Where is the dining table going to be now? People drive up our drive and think, oh, are we eating on the terrace? Are we eating on the beach? Are we eating by the pool? Are we eating on the drive? So I like that too. I think mediocrity and just the knowing, the anticipation is very boring.

18:13The surprise is what's fun. We need to have a little drama.

18:16India Hicks:Okay, and that led me to my next question, which is logistically, what are your tricks for setting up the table and also serving a dinner when it's maybe not in close proximity to your kitchen? Are there tricks of the trade for that? Great, great question. And now one learned from much experience. Firstly, the only upside to five children is that they can be put to work. So screwing in light bulbs for lights that are going to be put around a terrace or lighting fire flares that can align your driveway or moving those folding bamboo chairs. us. But also, we do more and more now kind of buffet suppers.

19:02So people will go up to the table on the top of the hill. They'll see where they're sitting. They'll pick up their plate. They'll come back down to the kitchen. And then they will help themselves to a beautiful arrangement that Claire has put out on that kitchen table for lots of different reasons. A, everybody has the most annoying eating habits nowadays. Someone won't eat flour, someone won't eat meat, someone won't eat wheat. It's so annoying. I make a point of not asking anyone if they have an eating difference because it's, I think, just eat before you come out to dinner if you can't eat in a certain way.

19:40I don't think it's up to the host to re-engineer her entire dinner party because you can't eat wheat. That annoys me enormously. But taking a deep breath and thinking like a kind hostess, not a cross hostess, we actually now do do this big buffet where there is pasta, there is fish, there is meat. So you can help yourselves to whatever you want from that, a smorgasbord of choice. And then you go back up to the top of the hill. So you've got to do a little bit of work, I'm afraid. You've got to walk down the hill, you've got to get your plate, and you've got to walk back up the hill. A little bit of work is expected from the guests.

20:16And then, again, the same with dessert. Normally, we'll bring the dessert up and have it passed around the table so people don't have to get up again.

20:22India Hicks:But they're rewarded for that work. It was an impeccably dressed table and I'm sure wonderful conversation and entertainment. Yes. Okay. You mentioned the folding table and your love of a folding table and folding chairs. And there are any other things that an aspiring hostess would own, things that maybe aren't as sexy as glassware or linens, which obviously are beautiful, but those sort of workhorse items that are the backbone of a hosting supply. I've got the book right here beside me. And And in it, as I said, there are these tips and tricks. But one page is dedicated to the debate of table lamps, those battery-operated table lamps, bore candles.

21:21And I'm finding more and more that we're using the table lamps. They throw a very good light. They're very easy. here on Harbour Island, it's much easier to have them than trying to source a candle onto the island. So I think there's a big debate about that. But I would definitely say, obviously, if we're talking about evening, candlelight or table lamps are really, really important. The lighting is really important. I'm quite old, so now we like to think about our lighting much more carefully than we did before. I still love candles. I'm sort of torn between whether be it's a table lamp or candle.

21:58But I do think those battery operator ones are really clever. Okay, so let's talk about some other things that might be a little bit, I don't know, controversial is too strong of a word, but like you definitely have viewpoints so that you start off the book with placemats or no placemats? Placemats. You know, as this conversation goes along, you know, I sit here and think how utterly ridiculous it is that we are literally here together, three of us, fairly educated women debating placemats. One thing that I was very keen on in the book was to have that chapter on Coming Together, which is all about fundraising events, and that actually the book is balanced with some talk of the philanthropic work that I do, that actually we do need to be more aware as a community, as a world, that we can easily give back.

22:50There's a chapter that says Behind every great fundraiser is a terrified host. But that hopefully balances out that we're actually now going to talk about placemats. Funnily enough, it wasn't as confusing to me as a table runner. When I first started working with Pomegranate, they were very keen on table runners and they said they sold very well and their audience liked a table runner. I hadn't understood what a table runner was or whether there was any value in it. I'm now quite a fan of a table runner. It's super quick. If you've got your white tablecloth down, you've had it down for a couple of days and someone's coming over quick, unroll that table runner on the top.

23:29It gives another layer. It gives another perspective. You can dot your tablescape down the middle of the table runner. It frames it really nicely. Placemats, again, they're quite good at framing something up. I'm a Virgo, so I like nice little neat piles of things. So that placemat makes me feel very organized and as though there's a sort of a beginning, a middle, and an end to where we're laying up. So I would first of all go for a tablecloth, but then I do also like a mat and a runner.

24:05India Hicks:For the tablecloth, does the tablecloth need to touch the floor? Can it go above the floor? Ooh, tablecloth etiquette. Caroline, there's a whole other book in tablecloth etiquette. We'll talk to you in five years about that one. Yes. I have no idea what tablecloth etiquette is. All I know is I like to have the legs of an ugly Amazon folding table hidden if I can. And sometimes I cheat because the tablecloths that I make with pomegranate come to a certain length. Most of the time those legs are hidden. If they're not, I have bolts of fabric, plain fabric, like a simple sumbrella fabric that I cut to the length of the table.

24:55So those legs are hidden. And then I layer on top of that the tablecloth. And actually, it looks very pretty, works very well. It feels like a sort of petticoat. I think having a bolt of fabric around can do a whole lot of magic for a table. A whole lot of magic. It can also do a whole lot of magic on a sofa. I've got a sofa just here where I've got a big old dog lying on it. And I've got a bolt of fabric that he now lies on, so he's not directly on my sofa. There's a whole lot of magic in that.

25:26India Hicks:What does your hosting closet look like? How do you organize things? Because I'm always curious about the back of house, you know, like, how are you, how are you organizing your linen so that you can sort of pull them out at the moment's notice and find everything that you're looking for? Is it a whole room? Yes, it's a great question. And in the same way, I live in a very Bahamian house. We bought this house. And in the Bahamas, as people's families grow, the house grows. So you have another child and you build another little room on, and another child in another little room. Our house grew room by room by room.

26:06And then we had a garage that was converted into an office. And then we had a kitchen that extended into a courtyard. And by the time we had five children, the house has extended beyond the original footprint. I think that's the same with my linen cupboard and my laundry room. It is extended in shelving. And I think shelves help with everything. An inexpensive carpenter comes in with some nails and some plywood and you make those shelves so you can keep all your linens there. And I have them out where we iron so we can see very clearly where everything is. It's not always perfect, but it's definitely accessible.