Set Your Holiday Table—and Stock Your Bar—Like a Top NYC Designer

Shopping Set Your Holiday Table—and Stock Your Bar—Like a Top NYC Designer Markarian's Alexandra O'Neill shares her tips for bringing your signature style to every table. By Brittany Loggins December 23, 2025 When Alexandra O'Neill , the founder and designer behind the NYC-based fashion line Markarian (she dressed former First Lady Jill Biden for her husband's inauguration in 2021, among other accomplishments), picks up her video call, she’s coming live from South Africa—and tells me that a hyena just ran by. “We're sitting at the lodge right now, and they have a really beautiful watering hole right here that all the animals come to,” she says, promising she'll alert me to any more wildlife sightings. O'Neill's partner lives in South Africa, so she visits the country often, but that doesn't mean she's become immune to its beauty. “Each visit is always really special,” she says. That’s also how most people would describe her designs, which are often blooming with floral prints and intricate embroidery. O’Neill founded her line in 2017 and all of the clothing is still made right in New York City. This means she has easy access to fabric swatches to use as linens when she's creating opulent tablescapes when hosting events, something she loves to do. Below, read our conversation about crafting the perfect holiday table and the seasonal drink O'Neill always brings to the party. Bon Appétit : You must be a person that likes decorating and hosting for the holidays. How do you incorporate your design sensibilities into your holiday decorating? ** Alexandra O'Neill: **I love it. I mean, I think it's the fact that I love dressing up so much that really kind of gets me in the mood. Decorating your house for the holidays is kind of the best way to get into the festive spirit. So I always like to do something a little bit special—I love a garland over the fireplace. I love tying ribbons into things and putting different flowers around. In the photos I've seen of tables you've designed, the aesthetic feels so unique to you. How can people bring their own personalities into gatherings over the holidays? Similar to what I do with Markarian, I like to layer prints on top of each other. So much of the collection is based off of prints and fabrics and embroidery and design. So I kind of approach the table that way with all these different layers. I like mixing different prints together, but obviously there has to be a common thread, so it all looks nice. You can pull different elements from the prints too, so you have the pop of color. For a dinner at the Mayflower Inn and Spa , I did pops of red with the amaryllis, which tied back to the place tags. Then we made custom little Christmas tree ornaments. Williams Sonoma English Floral Dinner Plates $160 Williams Sonoma Frasier Sterling Bows Dinner Napkins Set Of 4 $48 Revolve Do you have a favorite host gift you like to bring when you’re going to a dinner party? For my recent collaboration with Woodford Reserve bourbon, I wanted to create the perfect hostess gift or host gift—a bottle you'd be excited to display it in your home. It's beautiful enough to have out on your shelf and it feels festive—you're just dying to break that bottle open and share it with your closest family and friends. It really sets the mood for the holidays, I think. Woodford Reserve Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Holiday Edition 2025 $57 Reserve Bar Tell me about designing this bottle. Did you go about it differently than how you think of a pattern for a piece of clothing? I actually approached it in a similar way to designing a dress or designing a print for a dress. Basically, at the end of the day, we're putting clothing on this bottle, right? So I wanted it to feel appropriate for Woodford, but I also wanted it to feel appropriate and look like something that would be Markarian. So I turned to florals, which I often do for my own collection. It felt appropriate for the holidays. And since we were wrapping the bottle, I wanted it to feel like antique or vintage wrapping paper. Etsy Vintage Holly Wrapping Paper Roll $25 Etsy Rifle Paper Co. Wrapping Roll $12 Rifle Paper Co. Did you visit the distillery and take any design inspiration from there? We got a really beautiful tour of the distillery to understand what the essence of Woodford is about, and where and how it's all made, and I love how artisanal it is. So we took some of the bourbon's tasting notes and incorporated them into the design—there's citrus, cinnamon, spice and figs. We also have our little floral stripe, which feels holiday, but not too-on-the nose holiday. How do you like to drink your whisky? It's always delicious neat, but I have a big sweet tooth, and I absolutely love an old fashioned. My other go-to, especially during the holidays, is a hot toddy. I make a mean hot toddy—I often bring jugs of hot toddies to friends’ houses. Pottery Barn Antique Cut Double Old Fashioned Glasses - Set of 4 $72 Pottery Barn Williams Sonoma Riedel Spey Double Old-Fashioned Glasses $90 Williams Sonoma How do you pre-batch it? Obviously, you start with a really good bourbon, and then I like to cut up some lemons, and I stick little cloves and the lemon slices in there. I like to make mine with honey. So I mix some honey in there, and then basically just some hot water and a full cinnamon stick. Williams Sonoma Festive Cocktail Mix, Fireside Toddy $23 $16 (30% off) Williams Sonoma Find more tips for A-list hosting Give gifts like R&B superstar Usher Nick Offerman shares his favorite whisky (and the best snack to go with it) Why cookbook author Sophia Roe has this sheet pan on auto-ship Tennis stars Frances Tiafoe and Ayan Broomfield on how to throw a Grand Slam party