Does anything capture that quintessentially contemporary sentiment of simultaneous revulsion and infatuation like seeing images of Apple Martin — not the name of a cocktail but the daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin — being “presented to society” at a Paris debutante ball this past weekend?
The idea of a debutante ball was irresistibly outdated from its beginnings, at least for Americans. A homegrown answer to the United Kingdom’s practice of parading women of newly marriageable age before the ruling monarch to encourage matrimony, the deb ball gathers notable daughters (often from American dynasties), who dress up in white dresses to signal that they are wife material. (A bit like shopping for a car, with a waltz.) It was one of the first signs that a country that had been founded to reject aristocracy was nonetheless seduced by the pomp and circumstance of a ruling class. These presentations are as old as America itself; even George Washington hosted them.
