Tthe event began with an opening dance, after which “the debutantes lined up to waltz with their fathers” before being “handed over to their grooms”. “The family and other guests sat at tables in golden chairs and took it all in as the chandeliered ceiling dripped with decay.”
These sentences were not written in the 18th century, but earlier this week when Vogue reports an event in Paris that could be considered to have just a whiff of the ancien régime on the strength of the jewels on display.
The event was Debutante Ballan annual invitation-only gathering where about 20 well-born young women from around the world are dressed in haute couture, bejeweled and paired with hand-picked “chevaliers” to appear at “a fashionable debutante ball that emphasizes individuality and tailoring self-expression”.
This year’s event attracted particular publicity thanks to the presence of Apple Martin, the 20-year-old daughter of Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow. She wore a “stunning baby blue silk pleated chiffon gown with large black ribbon by Alessandro Michele for Valentino that took 750 hours to create.” Although “partnering her suitor Leo Cosima Henkel von Donnersmarck,” she also managed to fit in an awkward waltz with her beaming father.
Martin’s thoughts on the event were off the record, but her fellow debutante Sophie Kodjou, the daughter of And That’s Right actor Nicole Ari Parker, told the magazine she took part because: “I wanted to honor the tradition of being a debutante. .. I think its story is rooted in sending young women around the world to get married, but in this case it shows how individual all the women involved are and how diverse and creative they all are.”
The very rich obviously don’t live like everyone else (and having rich, famous parents is an express requirement to be invited). But this is not the Regency period, and young women should not make their ‘social debut’ by ‘coming out’.
But apparently he still has a taste for it. New York was the host International Debutante Ball since 1954 In London, Queen Charlotte’s Ball was revived by an organization called The London Season in the 21st century. In fact, while the grand balls that expose young women to them may have a long history, today’s debutante balls don’t have a terribly long pedigree. Bal des Débutantes, famous until 2012 like the Crillon ball, is the work of Ophélie Renouard, who took up the idea as a young PR working for the Hôtel de Crillon in the early 1990s.
“My main occupation was to organize luxury events that provided media attention and coverage,” she has said. The expensively dressed young women may attract the cameras, as well as the charitable donations from their wealthy parents, but the designers are arguably the stars of the ball. They’ve been carefully matched with debutantes by Renoir and her team—though debutantes get some exposure, says Laura Sutcliffe, fashion and beauty editor at Hello!, who also covered the event.
“I know it sounds silly, but they choose their own dresses. They know [their style]they know how they want to be presented. So I think in that sense it might seem a little dated to some. But I think in a world where everything is moving so fast, it’s so different and it’s something they would never get a chance to do normally.
The official presentation of eligible young women to the English court can be traced back to at least the reign of Elizabeth I, but it reached its zenith with Queen Charlotte, wife of George III (extremely loosely fictionalized in Netflix’s Bridgerton). It remained the highlight of London’s social season from the 18th century onwards and was emulated across the empire.
By the 20th century, however, balls seemed hopelessly out of date even to the women themselves, and in 1958. Elizabeth II ended the practice (“We had to end it,” Princess Margaret reportedly said. “Every cake in London went in.”)
The most puzzling question, perhaps, is why today’s young, solvent and undeniably powerful young women would want to participate. For Renouard, the answer is simple: their involvement offers something that, ironically, money can’t buy.
“The girls are beautiful and look and feel like princesses for a night,” she has said. “And Paris is, well, Paris. Modern life is not so full of glamour, but at Bala, glamor and romance are everything. I think that’s why everyone likes it so much – it gives them an experience they can’t find anywhere else.”
