School of Ladies - The Debutantes by Ennie Smith

The dances at these events felt very different from how we danced at regular parties, and more like a ceremonial exhibition. It was hard to move through the crowd in a gigantic meringue of a dress that was totally different from, say, your field hockey uniform or the Docs you wore every day. The thing I remember most about these parties was an overwhelming atmosphere of awkwardness.

Girls wore long white dresses that looked like wedding dresses (in most cases they are actually wedding dresses) and are meant to convey purity and innocence. The debutante balls I attended as a teenager felt much like regular formal dances, but with more-intricate dance steps and less rowdiness. If you are, it means your family has either some money or some status (probably both). Like a quinceañera or a sweet sixteen, the ritual marks a transition from childhood to adulthood, but not everyone can be a debutante-these parties are run by elite committees, and you must be invited. Traditionally, they were a means for aristocratic families to announce that their daughters were eligible for marriage. But some of my friends did become debutantes, and though I watched them go through the process, I only began to research the ritual’s history seriously in the past few years, when I started writing a book on the subject.ĭebutante parties have been around for centuries. Most of my friends were skipping it, too. My parents didn’t care about “society,” and so they did not object to my skipping my “debut,” as it’s called. How did this woman even know who I was? I had no idea, but I did know that I couldn’t imagine dancing in front of adults I had known for my whole life and performing a ritual that seemed to have nothing to do with anything I was actually engaged with (at that time, going to college). I said no-it was the mid-’90s and I was grunged out in flannel I had no interest in doing a performance wherein I formally and ritualistically stated I was rich and pretty. Perhaps it was inevitable that when I turned 18, a woman called my mother to ask if I wanted to be a debutante. I grew up in Connecticut and went to boarding school one side of my family is Southern and therefore has a long tradition of presenting daughters at debutante parties.

I have been to many debutante parties in my life.

Girls at the International Debutante Ball on December 29, 2012.

School of Ladies - The Debutantes by Ennie Smith