DEAR DEBUTANTES

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 20 June 1931, Page 13

DEAR DEBUTANTES

o- ‘ ‘ •GO'MXNGjOIIT ’ ’ COSTS. DEMANDS OF 'LONDON (SOCIETY. “IMy daughter’s coming-out cost me £looo,’’ declared one mother at the opening of the (London season, states a writer in a London paper. But all debutantes need not be to dear, and six, four and three hundred pounds are sums given as being sufficient for the purpose of launching a daughter in Society.

I At the start the chaperon is up [against a formidable list of things [which “must be done.” The outfit for the first season, for example. The mother who gets off with £l5O for this may consider herself lucky. It can be done, however, thanks to the vast improvement in the art of the ready-made frock. Quite smart little dance dresses cost no more than ten or twelve pounds, and with three or four of these a ‘bud” can get through her first season comfortably. The coming-out dance is another fence which has to be taken. -It is all very well to reject with scorn the suggestion that anything so mercenary as the cutlet for cutlet idea enters the mind of any hostess, but the sad fact remains that girls not entertained for fail, in some mysterious way, to be entertained. A coming-out dance there must be. At a conservative estimate put it down at £250. Presentation at (Court is very far from being the most, expensive, or even an expensive, item in a list Of first season expenses. 1 The debutante already equipped with I a simple dress, needs only a veil and |

pounds will do the trick, including the hire of a ear, the cost of a bouquet and the services of a hairdresser. 'The total expenses amount, so far, to -fill'd. Write it off as £SOO with the cost of taxis and other incidental charges and think no more about it. A debutante, at any rate, is an experience which can never be repeated. jrY DRESS ALLOWANCE, PLEASE! Once launched, the newcomer in society lias to keep her end up, often in competition with contemporaries better off than herself. “ A girl could do on a dross allowance of £2OO a year,” was the opinion, rather doubtfully given, of a first-rate dressmaker, but many girls whose good spirits and cheerful smiles have made them welcome guests at every party of 'consequence in other seasons have managed on less, and just now, when mothers dress much the same way as their daughters, a. clever maid can copy the older woman’s Paris model for her daughter's benefit is a first-rate aid to economy.

The cost, of the debutante for her first complete year has by now reached £7OO. The stern economist will denounce the figure as wickedly extravagant, others will regard it as parsimonious if not downright mean. By cutting the dress allowance to £l5O, and holding the coming-out ball at home, you can got the figure to the neighbourhood of £SOO. If that, mesda.mes, seems an excessive sum to pay for a season’s pleasure anil a year’s dressing, reflect that a good appearance is an excellent, letter of introduction anil that few can get. far without it.