English Version | A seat at the table

You Don't Own Me begins to play softly, the first bottle of wine is opened and guests begin to arrive. Wuthering Heights follows, then Le Freak, and when we get to The Charming Man, already seated around the table, the celebration is initiated. This is more or less how the dinners at home begin. With a ritual, like any celebration. It is one of those pleasures in life that we don't want to vanish. A good wine, a table full of food, lots of laughs, and a decoration that reflects our personality, this is all we need.

The art of table setting is not a consequence of social media that flood us with images of inspiration for anything and everything. In fact, the art of table setting takes us back to the Old Testament and the writings of Homer. Historically, taking the time to set a table was as important as the etiquette one used during the meal. It is not by chance that interior design magazines suggest so many great tables for a variety of meals. Some people dedicate themselves exclusively to table design. "I've always loved setting a table, my mother is a professional at it. She always invites her friends over and makes the most beautiful and elegant tables. We have many accessories at home, so watching her do that I started to gain the taste and decided to create my own style of table setting," Blanca Miró begins by telling us about how this art became her hobby of choice. Yes, the same Blanca Miró who shows us her style choices, hardly ever wrong, who takes us on her travels, and who shares her passion for art. It is also the same Blanca Miró who founded the digital platform Vasquiat and the brand La Veste, the latter together with the designer Maria de la Orden.

It was in July 2020 that Miró made his first post on his digital address, @blanca_a_table. We believe that the consecutive confinements we all experienced that fateful year made us explore more and more about our passions. The influencer and entrepreneur is a passionate interior designer and she points at her mother's trips to the South of France to buy furniture as the starting point to begin creating her personal tableware collection. A collection full of world. "When I travel I love to visit small stores with a selection of vintage or design pieces. I am always surprised because sometimes I find things I had never imagined, unique objects," she says. "Also with my account, @blanca_a_table, I had the opportunity to discover many people from different cities who create amazing and very curious things for interior decoration."

The tables that Blanca Miró creates are fun, unpretentious, and mix various colors, one of the main details of her art. "[I like] Everything that is fun and adds a touch to the table. I love when everyone sits down and starts looking at every little detail while enjoying their food." Flowers, candles, fruit, ceramics, and different types of vases are recurring choices. It is free form that these tables are born, the only briefing is the menu: "The accessories that are on the table have to match what we are going to eat. For example, if we are going to eat fish I use more Mediterranean things, if we are going to eat Japanese I use Asian tableware", she adds. About the pieces she keeps with admiration, Blanca doesn't hesitate: "Some dishes that my friend from @theplatera paints by hand and the inheritances from my grandmother and my mother." Our home is an extension of our personality and what we choose to adorn our most private space says a lot about us. Tables, naturally, enter into this equation. If we had to catalog them, Miró's tables would belong to the 60's and 70's. As good inheritors of the Iberian tradition that transformed the act of sitting at the table for hours into a religion, even after the meal is over, we don't know how to impose limits at dinners or lunches. It is something we do with pleasure. Stories are shared, connections are created, secrets are shared. Memories are created, hard to enumerate, "endless memories", as Blanca notes. And who does she enjoy creating memories with? "My family, my friends, and all the people around me that I love to spend time with."

Translated from the original on Vogue Portugal's Celebrate Yourself issue, published February 2022.Full story and credits on the print issue.