Hi, I’m the Daughter of a Dinnerware Designer.

Sooner or later, we all arrive at the moment of acknowledgement: that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. We concede that, perhaps, we have become more like our parents than we would like to admit. Or maybe, we’ve been more like them than we realized all along. And maybe it’s not even remotely a bad thing. Maybe even—to quote a certain iconic figure of the lifestyle industry—it’s a good thing.

I’ve come to understand that I am my mother’s daughter in quite a few ways. Here are some of those ways:

Traits My Mother And I Share

• Maximalist design sensibilities

• Penchant for theatricality

• Appetite for orchestrating elaborate theme parties (preferably with a surprise element)

• Inclination to share (Impose? Share.) our vision with the world

• Willingness to hand carry ceramics halfway across the world as spoils of our travels

• Enforcement of setting the table for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

• Interest in ensouled items: objects that bear the spiritual thumbprint of human creation

• Insistence on beautiful environments

  

  These are the qualities that have allowed my mother to make a Rosana Bowles-shaped mark on the world with Rosanna Inc., and these are the qualities I carry forward. They are the ones I’m thinking about when someone in my life looks at me like I’m crazy for replacing the paper napkin they are holding in their hand with a cloth one, or when I make them lift up the plate they’ve already begun to eat from to slip a placemat underneath it.

  I am grateful that for all my life, I’ve watched a woman, my mother, lead and grow a business made in her image. And I’m grateful that by nature and nurture both, I walk through the world drawing upon some of those qualities too.

  Martha had Alexis, the daughter of the gracious entertaining mogul.

  Alice had Fanny, daughter of the slow food visionary.

  And Rosanna had me, daughter of a dinnerware designer.

  You’ll be hearing from me every month or so, with a little story about the Rosanna of Rosanna Inc. through my eyes, and from my lifetime vantage in the front row.