White hand embroidered tablecloths are still perhaps the most elegant. Throughout the 1980’s we saw an abundance of brightly colored or sticky sweet pastel heavy fabrics, often polychrome embroidered, which barely passed for tablecloths. Cleaning your mouth with those huge, heavy napkins was like passing sandpaper over your mouth. The nicest tablecloth (you should always smooth it when you placed it on the table) is an old one, even a little faded, but in a smooth and soft fabric, embroidered in the center and around the edge (it should hang no more than 30 inches below the table), and should have matching large and soft napkins. With a white, beige or neutral color tablecloth, patterned napkins go well, or perhaps Japanese ones in geometric designs, or brightly colored monochrome (red, fuchsia, yellow or even black). If you are a collector, you could use an assortment of different kinds of napkins and place cards and perhaps, (if you wish to and if your memory is good), give the same napkin to the same guest every time.