Vaisselle is the tableware label Léa Zana started during the 2020 lockdown, and it is the most cheerful thing I have looked at all week. Hand-painted bowls, gingham dispensers and floral vases for a table that feels collected, never matched.
Vaisselle Tableware: Pieces for Playful Tables
The table Léa Zana imagined
I have a soft spot for brands that start at a kitchen table, and Vaisselle is very much one of those. Léa Zana spent years designing footwear before she ever painted a plate, and she started the label during the first lockdown in 2020, when being stuck at home turned lunch into the main event of the day (at least it did for me). The name is simply the French word for dishes, which tells you most of what you need to know about her sense of humor.
What I love is that nothing here is precious. The pieces are made by hand with artisans in small drops, and you can see it: the gingham wobbles a little, the flowers look like somebody actually painted them, and no two vases feel like they came off the same line. Her own telling of the story roots it in the South of France, and the whole collection has that long, late, outdoor lunch feeling.
If you are the kind of host who owns one good set of white plates and nothing else, this is the brand that will loosen you up. One bowl, one dispenser, one cloth. That is genuinely all it takes.
A table built for color and company
If I were starting from zero, the Ginette Cotton Tablecloth would come first. The peach and lilac colorway already works as a whole palette, so everything you set on top of it only has to agree with it. Then the Tutti Frutti Fruit Bowl in the middle, piled with whatever fruit is in the house, and a stack of Dinette Dessert Plates with their big red painted flower.
The Salt N' Pepa Salt & Pepper Dispenser and the Oily Baby Oil Dispenser are the pieces that make guests laugh, and I mean that as the highest compliment. They are useful, slightly ridiculous and far too charming to put away, so they end up living on the counter. The Drop It Like Its Hot Vase is the one I would move to a shelf once the plates are cleared.
My one rule with this brand: pick a lead pattern and let it win. The gingham, the florals and the blue painted vases all want the spotlight, so give it to one of them and keep the rest quiet with white napkins, plain glasses and a good loaf of bread. What I would skip is buying the whole set in one go. Vaisselle looks best gathered slowly, a piece at a time.
Lunch deserves a little color
The biggest thing Vaisselle has done for me is kill the idea of saving nice things for later. The Love Vase, the Mug Shot Mug and the Buttercup Butter Dish make no sense in a cupboard. They make sense on an ordinary Wednesday, with bread, butter and something cold to drink, when nobody is coming over and it does not matter at all.
That is the table Léa Zana seems to be designing for, and honestly it is the one I want too. Although I will admit the Bon Appetit Large Platter is probably coming out the next time anyone does come over.
