Frill seekers: We gate-crash a debutantes' ball in Paris - Times OnlineJanuary 26, 2003Frill seekers: We gate-crash a debutantes' ball in Paris
The Paris Haute Couture Ball is de rigueur for Europe's eligible high-society set. But don't call it a dating club - or mention the word 'debutante'. By John Follain
Naomi's eyebrows shoot up towards the gilded ceiling. 'Is that the dress you're wearing for the dance tomorrow? How will you dance in it?' she asks her friend Katie. 'No problem,'her pal replies. 'I'll gather up the extra cloth over my right arm, and the boy will be on my right, and it will be fine.' Katie twirls in front of a mirror to demonstrate. Naomi shakes her head. 'I don't mean the dancing. I mean your boobs. I can see them!' So can we all. Katie's Vivienne Westwood dress has a bodice that is slashed from the neck to the waist. No bra can be worn, which is why bouncy Katie is causing a stir.
This is no ordinary teenage pre-clubbing chat. Naomi is the Honourable Naomi Gummer, from a family influential in politics and business, and Katie is the Hon Katie Green - family interests: property and shipping. Both 18, they are among 23 girls preparing for a photo call at an annual high-society love-in. Every winter the luxurious 18th-century H™tel de Crillon, on the Place de la Concorde in Paris, hosts a special mix of high fashion and high society officially called Le Bal des DŽbutantes. But in English it's the Paris Haute Couture Ball. Because in cool Britannia, nobody wants to be called a debutante - that conjures up visions of robust, horse-loving gels from the shires, dressed in ugly white dresses, galumphing around a ballroom in a ghastly seduction routine.
But it's a very different situation in Paris, when the daughters of some of the oldest families in Europe - and the seriously nouveaux riches - gather at the Crillon. This year there's a Russian in the starring role: Xenia Virganskaya Gorbachev, granddaughter of the former Soviet president and Nobel laureate, Mikhail. She's blonde, with her late grandma Raisa's high cheekbones, and traces of puppy fat on show, thanks to the midriff top and low-slung jeans that she, like all the other debs, favour when in civvies. While Grandpa is yesterday's man back home in Moscow, Xenia is the girl of the moment here. Perhaps all the press attention has gone to her head - her manner wouldn't be out of place at the Russian imperial court. She smiles for the photographers, but becomes increasingly frosty as the photo shoots drag on and the media pack dogs her footsteps.
As the debs parade in the salons, heads perfectly poised, the event's mastermind is overseeing preparations from the bar downstairs. Ophelie Renouard, publicist and organiser, says that she launched the ball in 1991 for the great and the good of France - and for charity, ostensibly. It is an adaptation of the Berkeley Dress Show, which had for decades launched the London season. The show was itself part of the debutante tradition born in Britain, where young ladies from smart families were presented at court before they made their appearance in high society.
Renouard is coy when asked how much the event, sponsored by the Japanese jeweller Mikimoto, raises for Aids and cancer research. 'A few thousand pounds,' she says quickly; she won't give a specific figure. 'Asking about money is a typical English and American thing.' She selects the participants every year. Because of the sponsor, she has to have one Japanese girl. And there have to be Americans and Greeks - that's who really buy haute couture.
But nationality is not the only criterion. 'The girls have to be from famous families - families that have achieved something,' she says. Much of this year's bunch have somewhat distant ties to high-achievers. So we have the granddaughter of a former Japanese prime minister, and a Portuguese girl, 'both of whose grandfathers were very close to the King of Portugal'. There's the great-granddaughter of David Sarnoff, who spent 72 consecutive hours at a Morse-code station relaying the survivors' names when the Titanic sank, and who founded NBC television and Radio Free Europe. And Son Altesse la Princesse Alix de Ligne of Belgium, who refused to wear a tiara, choosing a pink rose for her hair instead.
None of these can rival the show-stealing Ms Gorbachev, who has naturally bagged the most valuable dress: a jewel-encrusted black-and-violet silk creation from Christian Dior, said to be worth £60,000. But there's a Kremlin-like secrecy to Xenia. 'We have no idea what her parents do for a living,' says Renouard's assistant Stephanie Rouchy, who is chaperoning the 20-year-old and her fiance, Kirill Solod, during their visit to Paris. All Xenia revealed on her entry form was that her mother, Irina - Mikhail's daughter - works at the Gorbachev Foundation. She didn't even put her father's name down. But she did record that Grandpa Gorby is happy for her to be the first Russian to attend the ball.
Xenia is no stranger to Paris, nor is she short of a rouble; she'd had a happy afternoon loading up at Printemps, while Kirill went to buy vintage armagnac for Grandpa. Then it was off to Dior for the dress, and the sort of royal treatment that left her marvelling. 'In Russia this doesn't happen,' she said. 'Nobody knows who I am back home.'
Xenia has no problem with being labelled a deb - not so the British set. 'The word 'debutante' wasn't mentioned when I was invited,' says Naomi Gummer. 'I wouldn't do this at home. But this is a bit of a laugh.' Genevieve Chapman, an art history student and the stepdaughter of an earl, says: 'I don't want to be a deb. That's not what I am.'
These girls are here for fashion and fun. Says Natasha Rufus Isaacs: 'It's every girl's dream to be made up, have your hair done by professionals and be a model. And it's for a good cause.' Her mother is the Marchioness of Reading, her great-grandfather was one of the viceroys of India. The days when such events were a gentrified mating game are gone; many of the girls already have boyfriends. But take out the matchmaking mamas and what's left is little more than a marketing tool.
The next afternoon there is tension in the air. One mother gives Renouard an earful because no journalist bothered to interview her little darling. Xenia Gorbachev, by contrast, has been swamped with interview requests and decides not to talk. Things start to run late. At 2.30pm, the girls have been promised a waltz practice. Most haven't danced one before. It doesn't materialise, and nerves start to show. 'Try to be natural,' they are urged. 'You have to be happy. So smile.'
They are whisked away for hairdos, make-up, fittings and endless waiting. The blonde, doe-eyed Florence Brudenell-Bruce hangs back to seek some reassurance from her escort, her cousin Charles de la Ferriere. Florence is a Franco-British member of the family that invented the cardigan; at 17 she is the youngest and the most angelic of the girls. 'I've just been told that I will open the ball,' she confides worriedly.
Genevieve Chapman's mother, Countess Woolton, the jewellery editor for British Vogue, says the only elitist thing about the event is 'that the girls have to be tall and slim to wear these gorgeous dresses'. 'I haven't told many people about this,' says Genevieve. 'Florence is a bit upset because her photo appeared on page three of a newspaper, and she got text messages from some friends calling her a page-three girl. Ha, very ha.'
Xenia is one of the first ready. Clad in the Dior gown and a diamond tiara, she has nothing to do except to drag nervously on her cigarette. Why is she here? 'Because I was invited,' she replies. Would she care to elaborate? 'I thought it would be fun.' Kirill is more forthcoming: 'I came because she asked me to - and I'd never seen anything like this before.' But Ms Gorbachev turns and commands him, Politburo-style: 'Come, Kirill, we have to fix something.' Questions could be raised about how well she's doing in her public-relations course at Moscow university.
It is 7.30pm, an hour before kickoff, and at last the debs get their dance practice in the lobby. The Emperor Waltz strikes up - on a synthesiser. Not exactly classy. The space is cramped, and what happens is like dodgems in frocks. But the hotel's ground floor has been transformed: birdcages hang above tables decorated with white candles and rose petals. Florence and her escort appear; she is stunning in a Bruce Oldfield grey silk dress. With echoes of Miss World, the show's host reads a few comments about each girl as she emerges - and manages to mention the sponsor 23 times.
The Hon Katie, in Westwood S&M-style boots, poses mischievously, poking her tongue out to touch her upper lip. It all goes swimmingly. Ms Gorbachev is even seen to laugh during a dinner of cauliflower soup, duck pie and patisseries.
Florence makes a fine job of launching the proceedings. After three waltzes, the music switches to pop and the girls are rocking'n'rolling. But long before midnight they steal away to their rooms. When they slip through the lobby later, they're in frayed jeans, their coiffures the only legacy of all those hours of preparation.
Ms Gorbachev is not among them: she has gone to bed. But her fellow debs are up for a big night - just not here. 'Yes, the ball was great fun,' the Hon Naomi Gummer says breathlessly. So would she recommend the experience? 'It's important to do it with the right attitude. It's fun, but don't take it seriously,'she says tactfully. And then she's gone, out into the freedom of the Paris night.