This story is part of a series, Past/Present, highlighting images and articles from Vogue that have personal significance to our editors.
Sunday dinners weren’t really a thing in my house. Growing up, my parents and I (an only child) went out a lot during the week or ordered in. And that was okay, we bonded plenty over meals at the local steakhouse. I never felt any kind of longing for those Lifetime channel family meals. The pandemic has changed that, though; today I find myself craving a seat at a big, cozy table, surrounded by my parents, my stepbrothers, my aunts and uncles and cousins, and best friends, too.
The kind of dinner party I’m dreaming of is the kind you dress up for, with beautiful food, and the best linens and tableware. All this daydreaming of get-togethers keeps leading me back to Dries Van Noten’s spring 2005 show. The designer marked his 50th collection with a 500-person dinner party in Paris the likes of which had never been seen before. After dinner, models walked the tables—still set with crystal and china—like a runway. I wasn’t physically there to enjoy the poisson en papillote or the vibrant tapestry-prints and full-skirted white cotton dresses, but I remember being moved by the images of all those people dining together, enjoying the beauty of the clothes together. I’m still moved by them, especially now when the idea of being with loved ones seems out of reach. And so I’m using Van Noten’s magical soirée as my own personal meditation on the bright and wonderful possibilities of the unknown future. We will all gather to eat together again—though maybe not at a 500 person table flanked by crystal and silk. Wherever that future dinner is set, my RSVP will be an emphatic Yes! I’ll be there with bells on, in fact.