Farm + Market: ENCORE Collections by Liza Gershman
With floral designs provided by: Peaches & Poppies
For designer Liza Gershman, the most memorable gatherings tell a story. Growing up in California Wine Country and spending part of her childhood in the French countryside, she developed an early appreciation for hospitality, collecting, and the rituals that bring people together. Seasons spent in Nantucket and years living in the American South, where she taught art at a university in Savannah, further shaped her sense of atmosphere and place. At home, she spent countless hours exploring her mother’s china cabinet and linen closet, studying the patterns, monograms, crystal, silver, and textiles collected over the years. Pieces such as her great‑grandmother’s silver and her mother’s wedding china from Tiffany became quiet markers of family history, meant to be used, not simply displayed. That early fascination with things, ritual, and setting never left.
Over time, that curiosity became a career devoted to creating experiences. For more than three decades, Liza has designed and produced hundreds of events, ranging from intimate dinners and hospitality moments to exhibitions, summits, luxury celebrations for world leaders and notable figures, brand activations for fortune 500 companies and the beloved back yard BBQ. Travel has played a central role in that work, sharpening her eye for how cultures express welcome through rooms, rituals, and table settings. Drawing on backgrounds in food, wine, travel, publishing, and the visual arts, she approaches each event with an emphasis on comfort, authenticity, and ease. Whether curating a vacation home, styling a table, or planning an evening, she is drawn to the details that turn a setting into an experience. Her work is guided by a simple belief: the most beautiful spaces are the ones that bring people together.
This year, Liza founded Farm + Market Press, her independent publishing house, and released her twentieth book, Farm + Market: Healdsburg, a portrait of the people, places, and traditions of California Wine Country. Farm + Market: ENCORE Collections by Liza Gershman: Summer Edition grows naturally out of that work. It reflects the balance she returns to again and again: refinement without stiffness, beauty without excess, and comfort without compromise. Natural textures, classic silhouettes, and enduring materials create a foundation that feels both elevated and welcoming. Each grouping is meant to be aspirational yet attainable, showing how thoughtful layering, color, and texture can transform a gathering without elaborate flowers or ornate decoration.
WHAT INSPIRED THIS COLLECTION
Summer has always felt like the season of possibility. Doors stay open a little longer. Friends drop by unannounced. Lunch becomes cocktails, cocktails become dinner, and somehow everyone stays later than planned.
For this inaugural Summer collection, Liza looked to three destinations that continue to shape the way she entertains and thinks about hospitality, beauty, and place: Nantucket, Savannah, and Palm Beach. Each has its own character, and each holds personal history for her, but they share a common thread. They are places where guests are welcomed warmly, meals linger, and sitting down at a beautifully dressed table remains one of life’s great pleasures.
Rather than recreate any single destination, the aim was to capture the mood each evokes and translate those impressions into a set of tablescapes designed to inspire gatherings throughout the season. Nantucket suggested a classic blue‑and‑white scheme layered with woven textures and vintage details. Palm Beach brought its iconic green‑and‑white palette, seen through the lens of racquet‑sport clubs and long outdoor lunches. Savannah inspired an exuberant mix of pattern, crystal, and red, white and blue Southern tradition. Together, these places inform a series of settings that celebrate regional character, personal style, and the enduring pleasure of gathering well.
DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
The table is where Liza has the most fun.
While many interiors benefit from restraint, she sees the dining surface as a place to be more adventurous. Layer the patterns. Mix the textures. Bring out the crystal. Use the wedding china. Add the vintage salt and pepper shakers that belonged to her mother or grandmother. Her fascination with tables began long before she ever designed one and has never really left. That early sense that cherished pieces can hold memory, and that a place setting can tell a story before anyone sits down, still guides the way she works.
Liza is rarely interested in perfect matches. The most inviting arrangements feel assembled over time rather than purchased in a single afternoon. A vintage vase. Sterling silver candleholders. A favorite set of salt and pepper shakers. An heirloom ribbon tied around a linen napkin. A treasured dessert plate slipped into a place setting. Even one or two older pieces can add warmth, character, and a sense of history. Whenever possible, she weaves vintage elements into the mix. Ten percent is often enough. A few inherited items, a flea‑market find, antique napkin rings, or crystal candlesticks can shift a setting from simply pretty to truly memorable. Matching is easy. Coordination requires a point of view.
For Liza, true sophistication comes from harmony rather than uniformity. A patterned cloth with a contrasting napkin. Vintage crystal beside contemporary stemware. Sterling next to rattan or wood. The interplay among these elements creates depth, personality, and a sense of discovery. The aim is not perfection. The aim is character.
Sophistication is often mistaken for formality, but the two are not synonymous. A thoughtfully composed place setting should feel as right for a casual lunch as it does for a celebratory dinner. Crystal, fine linens, layered pieces, and vintage details do not make a gathering stiff; they signal intention, generosity, and an appreciation for the ritual of coming together. One persistent misconception in entertaining is that daytime occasions should feel less polished than evening ones. A layered surface can move easily from brunch to cocktails to dinner. Add candlelight, a larger arrangement, and a few additional details, and the atmosphere shifts on its own. The foundation stays in place.
Many people reserve their most beautiful pieces for major occasions or rare milestones. Liza believes they should be part of everyday life. Crystal need not wait for a special celebration. Silver does not belong at the back of a drawer. Wedding china deserves more than a single annual outing. Linen should not be saved for some future date on the calendar.
At its heart, Farm + Market: ENCORE Collections by Liza Gershman is an invitation to gather more often. Use the crystal. Light the candles. Set the place. Invite friends. The occasion does not need to be extraordinary. The gathering itself is reason enough!
SAVANNAH
Savannah, the Hostess City, is aptly named for its grand dames whose mansions anchor the city’s oldest squares. Entertaining here is a way of life, carried out on screened porches and in lush gardens, with ceiling fans turning and the air still thick from the heat. Through time spent living and teaching art in Savannah, Liza Gershman developed a close understanding of how this city welcomes and looks after its guests. She draws on that world to create a table that feels elevated and lived in at the same time.
Using Encore’s pieces, she layers an indigo floral Dahlia cloth, red and white check napkins, and a mix of blue‑and‑white plates so the patterns feel unmistakably Southern without tipping into stiffness. Indigo florals, gingham checks, cut glass, and natural woodwork together to echo traditional Southern pattern and texture while still feeling fresh. Royal goblets, Cosmo Azul glassware, and wood chairs and vessels add just enough shine and warmth. Red, white, and blue flowers pull the whole look together, making it a natural choice for summer entertaining, whether a shaded afternoon on the porch or a warm evening that runs late.
PALM BEACH
Palm Beach is all clipped lawns, pale stucco, and facades that light up as the sun drops, with courts and courses just beyond the hedges and terraces set for long lunches that slip into evenings in black tie. Season here is a steady run of ladies’ luncheons, cocktail hours, and charity balls, with houses that were built for entertaining and still used that way. It remains one of America’s last truly formal enclaves, where the dress code may have softened but the expectation of a proper table has not.
Using Encore’s pieces, Liza lays a lime linen cloth with a white Dottie overlay so the palette quietly recalls tennis whites against green. White flowers with soft green detail mirror the palms and clipped hedges beyond the terrace, keeping the table fresh and graphic rather than floral‑heavy. A whitewashed Willow charger with Odette dinner and salad plates gives each place setting a light, tailored profile that suits an unhurried ladies’ lunch. Clear stemware and Sloane cream flatware, with their smooth, luxurious handles, lend a relaxed kind of glamour to the table—equally at home for a sun‑drenched toast after a win on the court or a late‑night black tie event, where the only necessary addition is candlelight.
NANTUCKET
Nantucket is classic American style, thirty miles out to sea: cedar‑shingled houses silvered by salt air, hydrangeas spilling over low fences, and bicycles gliding past weathered picket gates. Having co‑written, photographed, and styled a book on the island, she knows these rooms from the inside out, from the old‑school Ralph Lauren feel of navy blazers and boat shoes to the L.L.Bean canvas bags dropped by the door and the Serena & Lily touches that have quietly joined them. Afternoons stretch long here, and the same table that holds a bare‑feet, sunlit lunch can, with almost no adjustment, host a dressier evening, which is why Nantucket entertaining always feels both easy and considered. Entertaining here feels collected rather than decorated, with baskets, blue‑and‑white, and well‑loved pieces that look as if they have simply always belonged.
For Nantucket, Liza pulls pieces from Encore that echo the way island houses mix inherited treasures with newer favorites. A Specialty Dandy Sky Blue linen cloth sets a soft, sea‑washed base; the small dots keep it lively without feeling like a print. Blue‑and‑white checked napkins sit in vintage‑style silver rings at each place, turning an easy American pattern into something more tailored and finished. White dinner plates keep the table clear and bright, while a natural‑toned charger adds a quiet layer of texture that suggests baskets and sun‑bleached wood rather than anything overtly rustic. Stemware with the look of classic cut glass feels as natural in afternoon light as it does by candlelight, and more polished flatware gives the table a quiet sense of occasion. Together, the pieces create a setting that carries the quiet, coastal ease of New England straight into any wine country event.
LATE SUMMER
Late summer shifts the palette and the light: greens deepen, flowers move toward gold and rust, and daylight runs longer across the table. These settings follow that lead—mixing fresher color with warmer tones and pieces that look right in August and as the season starts to turn.
MASAI MARA
The Mara is a landscape you know from the inside, from Liza’s time living in Kenya and watching the light change over long grass and acacia shadows. It is evening fires, lanterns swinging from guy lines, and the sound of something moving through the grass just beyond what you can see. Dinners here are about horizon and heat more than decoration, with everything built around what the sky and the land are doing at that hour.
This table takes its cue from that memory. A strong, graphic linen in sand, stone, and charcoal anchors the setting, its repeating pattern echoing the movement of grass and shadow rather than any literal print. Dry grasses and seedheads gathered in a simple pale vessel stand in for flowers, keeping the arrangement low but sculptural. Matte, smoke‑toned plates are stacked over a band of warm wood, so the colors stay close to earth—wheat, bone, bark—while dark, ribbed glass brings in the sense of evening and firelight. Metal candleholders punched with tiny perforations cast a soft, dappled glow after dark, giving the whole setting the feeling of a camp table drawn a little closer to the fire.
HEALDSBURG
Healdsburg is home: vineyards giving way to orchards, farmstands on the back roads, and evenings that shift as soon as harvest starts and the first leaves begin to turn. You’ve written that rhythm into your farm and market book, and it’s the same cadence that shapes the way you set a table here—pulled from what’s growing, what’s being picked, and what has just come in from the crush pad. Late summer runs in tones of straw, honey, and sun‑worn wood, with flowers still going strong even as the light drops earlier and the hills start to show a little more gold.
At Healdsburg’s table, that palette stays close to the surface. A white cloth embroidered with overscale flowers sets a soft, textured ground, with a dark woven charger bringing in the color of baskets and old barrel staves. Cream and pale‑gold plates stack above it in an easy, repeating pattern that looks thoughtful without feeling stiff. A mustard‑and‑white checked napkin lies across the setting, picking up the color of dry fields and old barn boards in a way that feels deliberate rather than nostalgic. Clear and amber glass, slim gold flatware, and a simple champagne bucket add just enough shine, while a loose arrangement in apricot, yellow, and cream keeps the whole table anchored in late summer and the early days of harvest.
LUCCA
Lucca is a walled city set inside Tuscany, known for its churches, towers, and streets that feel unchanged for centuries. It has a reputation for discreet, elevated living: music spilling from churches, piazzas that fill slowly as the day cools, and houses where rooms open onto small terraces and loggias. Time spent studying art history in Italy gave Liza Gershman a feel for that older, more traditional side of Tuscany, where beauty comes from proportion and restraint rather than show. She draws on that to design a table that nods to Lucca’s calm, ordered rhythm while still belonging anywhere this collection is used.
For this setting, she starts with a green‑and‑white striped cloth that has the ease of an awning and the structure of a garden walk. A woven charger sits under a pale, beaded plate, with white china edged in gold stacked above so each place setting feels polished without reading as formal. A floral napkin held in a rope ring brings a softer, Italian‑garden note to the center of the plate, while warm‑toned flatware quietly echoes the gold rim. Green stemware and smaller green glasses introduce depth and color without overwhelming the stripe beneath them. The palette stays light and sun‑washed so different flowers and menus can move through this design, and it will still read as Lucca‑inspired, traditional, and naturally beautiful.
