Debutante Balls

[bluestateguy]

I saw the latest episode of the "O.C." tonight, which featured the characters at a debutante ball. My question is, does anybody still do these things anymore? Aren't they a little passe now? Even in my childhood hometown, a fairly affluent area, I can never remember anybody talking about participating in a debutante ball. It seems more like an old money thing, not a new money thing, and most of Orange County (the rich people in the county, that is) are new money.

[acmavm]

1. Yeah, they have that type of thing here in the good old midwest...

I once read that a debutante's ball was the closest thing we have in this country to a Sudanese slave market. I almost died when I read that, and I wish I could tell you where, but when I thought about it, I understood exactly what the remark meant.

edit: my fingers got ahead of my brain.

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

2. I read an article in one of those "teen mags"

about a girls getting ready for a debutante ball. they had to take manners and tea lessons and stuff.

I think that it's a southern/midwest thing if they still do them. I've never seen it done up North, anyway.

[WillParkinson]

3. Debutantes have balls?

But I thought they were girls?

Yes, they still have them. We get a group of debs at the hotel every year.

[blondeatlast]

4. They are still popular in Scottsdale. I used to work at a Bullock's

in Scottsdale and the girls would come there to get their dresses.

Manners? Yeah they taught 'em, but they weren't used. At least not to me.

[cally]

5. Ever been to a quinciera (sp?)

and invited to a couple of debutante balls. They still exist and are just as strange as ever. The whole concept is strange. My advice is save the money for college.

[blondeatlast]

7. Been to several quinceanaras; on the surface, much the same, but

a heck of a lot more fun!

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

9. Quinceañeras are a Spanish tradition

They are a bit different than debutante balls because they celebrate a girl's 15th birthday and her "coming of age". It is sort of like the old "Sweet 16" parties girls used to have when they turned 16.

Quinceañera is from quince (Spanish for 15) and anos (years).

[angee_is_mad]

6. south

Evidently you are not from the south!

[blondeatlast]

8. Welcome to DU! We like mad people, but remember,

you can always chill out in the Lounge!

:toast:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. The bulk of OC's wealth is not new money

but old money like William Lyons, Buffett, the Segerstroms, the Irvines etc.

Yes they still have debutante balls. They are generally around graduation and the girls that are presentees at these balls have usually contributed about 1000 hours to a charity.

[RecoveringAsshole]

14. How many balls did you

uh .. let me rephrase that .. how many balls did you debutante in your youth?

[Skittles]

11. I WAS A DEBUTANTE

HA HA, HA HA HA HA. Please.

[maxanne]

13. You were??

Bwaaaahahahahahahaha

I was supposed to be one. I fell from grace early in my teens, thank maude.

[SOteric]

12. They still have them in my neck of the woods.

[kodi]

15. god,i lead sheltered life, is this a dance for young transvestites?

.

[lazarus]

16. if the debutantes in your area have balls

Something's up.

:evilgrin:

[Shanty Oilish]

17. If my parents had had their way

...they sure tried. But in 1968, they couldn't have paid me enough to set foot in a cotillion ball. Most teenagers in those days thought it hopelessly archaeological. I'd never have lived it down.
Some years later, I eloped and they didn't get to throw a wedding either.
I gave them grand funerals, though.

[RecoveringAsshole]

18. That was funny

warmed my cockels anyway.:D

[ikojo]

19. Here in St Louis they have this ball

called the Veiled Prophet Ball. I really don't know much about it but it has something to do with an event that used to be called the VP Fair but due to bad PR surrounding the racism of the Veiled Prophet organization the name of the annual 4th of July celebration on the Mississippi was changed to Fair St Louis. The same folks run it but use a different brand name.

http://www.system.missouri.edu/upress/spring2000/spencer.htm

"The Veiled Prophet organization has been a vital institution in St. Louis for more than a century. Founded in March 1878 by a group of prominent St. Louis businessmen, the organization was fashioned after the New Orleans Carnival society the Mystick Krewe of Comus. In The St. Louis Veiled Prophet Celebration, Thomas Spencer explores the social and cultural functions of the organization's annual celebration--the Veiled Prophet parade and ball--and traces the shifts that occurred over the years in its cultural meaning and importance. Although scholars have researched the more pluralistic parades of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, very little has been done to examine the elite-dominated parades of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This study shows how pluralistic parades ceased to exist in St. Louis and why the upper echelon felt it was so important to end them."

"Spencer shows that the celebration originated as the business elite's response to the St. Louis general strike of 1877. Symbolically gaining control of the streets, the elites presented St. Louis history and American history by tracing the triumphs of great men--men who happened to be the Veiled Prophet members' ancestors. The parade, therefore, was intended to awe the masses toward passivity with its symbolic show of power. The members believed that they were helping to boost St. Louis economically and culturally by enticing visitors from the surrounding communities. They also felt that the parades provided the spectators with advice on morals and social issues and distracted them from less desirable behavior like drinking and carousing."