From Call Me by Your Name to Moschino, Schiaparelli, Beetlejuice and Squid Game, discover how tables are elevating cinema and fashion storytelling
The Dinner Table Aesthetics Taking Over Fashion and Film
Some tables tell stories. In film, a dining table is never just furniture; it’s a stage that transports viewers into a genre, an imagination, a context—even a culture or social class. Every plate, fork, and gesture carries meaning. Meals become cinematic moments that linger, shaping the visual language for which a director is known.
Fashion is no different. Campaigns, editorials, even product launches turn tables into storytelling sets. It’s easy to see why: style, ritual, and conviviality converge here. Consider Dries Van Noten’s SS 2005 show, celebrating his fiftieth runway—a gala dinner for 500 guests, a single long table set beneath 130 sparkling crystal chandeliers.
Tables make their grand entrance across runways and luxury collections: they cease to be mere décor and become theatre, costume, even performance. Every detail speaks louder than words. Gucci opens (and closes) restaurants and sells glasses; Prada acquires Marchesi and designs trays; Louis Vuitton produces serving plates; LVMH owns Cheval Blanc. It’s the ultimate blend of marketing, storytelling, and lifestyle.
The table, in short, is everything. And when it becomes cinematic, it carries references that immediately connect with the worlds of fashion and film, fusing the visions of creative directors and filmmakers alike. Every arrangement, every object, every colour draws you in. It’s an invitation: take a seat and enter a world designed to mesmerise.
From Beetlejuice to Moschino: The Maximalist Table Trend Everyone’s Talking About
When Tim Burton stages the dinner scene in Beetlejuice or Peter Greenaway transforms the banquet into chaos in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, the table becomes baroque, grotesque, theatrical—almost obscene.
It’s an aesthetic Moschino revels in: napkins folded like couture skirts, hand-painted plates as ironic accessories, food transformed into pop jewels. This sensibility was embraced by founder Franco Moschino and is continued today by creative director Adrian Apaiolaza, who often plays with excess and the theatrics of food. Luxury and dining clichés are displayed, deconstructed, and elevated to performance art.
In a completely different way—both in tone and visual impact—Versace Home, with its golden plates, Medusa mugs, and tapestry-like tablecloths, elevates the table to cinematic theatricality. Here, excess is never accidental; it is a deliberate choice that defines both the frame and the collection.
The Surreal Table Imagery from Dalí to Squid Game That’s Inspiring Fashion and Film
Schiaparelli, on the other hand, turns surrealism into clothing. Eyes, lips, noses, and even Salvador Dalí’s lobsters, have all become wearable art. Yes, lobsters. Beginning in 1934, Dalí began incorporating lobsters into his work—from New York Dream-Man Finds Lobster in Place of Phone, published in American Weekly (1935), to his 1936mixed-media Lobster Telephone.
After following Dalí’s work with fascination, Elsa Schiaparelli reached out to him in the spring of 1937—already connected by deep friendship and mutual artistic respect—to ask if he would design a lobster for a white organza evening gown. Dalì agreed, and the designer was introduced to surrealism.
The surrealism of the Lobster Dress lies in its disorienting juxtaposition of unexpected symbols. What Elsa Schiaparelli explored in the 1930s is echoed today in the work of Daniel Roseberry, who shares the same impulse, though with completely different results.
Again, it’s less about the visual outcome and more about the idea—the mood, the approach. Consider, for instance, the triangular table in Squid Game Season 1, Episode 8 (“So-far So-good”), during a lavish dinner for the finalists (Gi-hun, Sang-woo, Sae-byeok). It is one of the series’s most unsettling scenes; for many, the large geometric table and white tablecloths inevitably recall the celebrated artwork, The Dinner Party, by artist and writer Judy Chicago.
Call Me by Your Name Meets Jacquemus: The Quiet Luxury Table Look on Screen
Another scenario is the so-called “understated luxury” seen in films like Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name: everything seems anchored in tradition and effortless simplicity, yet nothing is left to chance—white linens, fresh fruit, and the carefully curated casualness of an outdoor breakfast.
The table scenes in Call Me by Your Name radiate intimacy and warmth, bathed in the soft glow of summer sunlight filtering through the trees, evoking a profound sense of tranquillity and a slow, mindful way of life. The choice of natural elements and the subtle, almost pastel colour palette reinforces authenticity and familiarity, making the ordinary quietly extraordinary. The table becomes more than a setting; it is a space of connection, where gestures, glances, and small interactions carry narrative weight. Gentle camera movements and meticulous attention to everyday detail make this intimacy tangible.
This sensibility is echoed in Simon Porte Jacquemus’s visual language, which often draws on similar inspirations: simple, seasonal food, crisp linens, hand-crafted tableware, and outdoor picnics. Both cultivate a poetic, refined elegance, where beauty arises not from extravagance or opulence, but from the thoughtful arrangement of modesty, atmosphere, and the delicate choreography of human presence.
The Table: Where Fashion and Film Tell Their Most Honest Stories
At its core, the table has always been a place of encounters—an open stage where people come together. For this reason, it becomes a space where cinema and fashion sit side by side, mirroring each other and exchanging ideas like guests at the same meal. Its centrality in both worlds comes from its remarkable ability to amplify familiar imagery or bring to life entire worlds envisioned by a director or a designer, all while serving as the backdrop for something deeply human: our senses, our needs, our pleasures, our emotions. Every shot, every styling choice, every dish set before the camera becomes a point of view, a gesture, a narrative thread.
Today, as luxury brands bring sofas, lamps, and full table settings into our homes—while investing in or stepping away from the world of dining—the table remains the most genuine stage for expressing style. A table is never just a table; it is a set, a miniature theatre of intention. And we, ever-curious spectators, keep taking our seats, ready to witness and share the next story that unfolds across it.