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"Cocktail napkins still seem quaintly retro, despite the popularity of Mad Men and the enduring appeal of a good martini, but to me, few entertaining accessories say \"party\" more than those little linen or cotton swatches. Traditionally measuring five to six inches wide and eight inches long (anything smaller is basically a coaster), cocktail napkins blend utility and panache, two words not often seen in close proximity. And though their dimensions mean that they're fairly useless outside the cocktail hour, the limited surface area can be a powerful vehicle for expressing personal style.\n\nPlain-color napkins will do the job, but why settle for the monochrome? (As for paper napkins, reject them altogether; they bring down the entertaining tone a serious notch, even on picnics.) Embroidered monograms plain or fancy are a specialty of Leontine Linens (from $45 per napkin), while other makers turn out cheeky mottoes and thematic motifs (Schweitzer Linen's cocktail-glass-pattern napkins are $130 for a set of six). Cocktail napkins can also be fashioned out of fabrics that match or coordinate with a room's decor\u2014D. Porthault offers cheerful napery in its classic cotton-percale prints at $45 each and embroidered sets of six from $190\u2014or be stitched with a motif that reflects the architecture of a house, say, Greek key banding or egg-and-dart molding. I'm also fond of Sharyn Blond Linens' perky cocktail napkins, especially the hand-appliqu\u00E9d and -embroidered Simian pattern that features a monkey swinging from a leafy vine ($38 each); the motif was created in 1972 by the late Constance Leiter, a Kansas City, Missouri, textile and tableware designer whose whimsical works Blond has kept alive.\n\nNumerous cocktail-napkin sets occupy a shelf in the cedar-lined linen press in my dining room; more can be found in the library's chinoiserie bar cabinet, stacked in a rattan tray. All are vintage, picked up at auctions and flea markets or on eBay, and all have the kinds of playful motifs that seem to go with lively after-five gatherings. Cross-stitched pagodas center one set, for example, while exotic birds flit across another. One day I'd like to commission cocktail napkins to match our dining room wallpaper (see this post on our wallpaper) and another with representations of the array of pets\u2014dogs, cats, even a Cayuga duck\u2014that we've had over the years. I know the latter plan sounds wincingly hokey, but it is certainly personal, which is one of the points of entertaining\u2014to put your own stamp on an event.\n\nFor some years my husband and I have been acquiring cocktail napkins made by Marghab, an American firm that was in operation from 1933 until 1980 and was famed for sprightly table linens embroidered by artisans on the Portuguese isle of Madeira. We have Marghabs speckled with orange goldfish, scalloped with golden seashells, and sprouting blue irises. And since they and their brethren take up so little room, it will be years before we run out of storage space\u2014or out of reasons to ask people over for a round of drinks."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/the-aesthete-cocktail-napkins>