NEW YORK DEBUTANTE CONFESSES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23037, 14 May 1938, Page 17 (Supplement)

NEW YORK DEBUTANTE CONFESSES

poly on the business is an understatement. But they are necessary people. A deb party is too complicated an affair for any family to manage. Whichever of these three or four women you engage will have lists of all the eligible young men and has the final word as to who will be invited to your party. All of the sub-debs must have attended one of a selected list of schools, such as Foxeroft, Miss Hall's, Shipley's or Miss Walker's. Then perhaps they finish at a school in New York. They would positively never consider going to a public school, and they would have no social standing left if they did. "Catching Up" on Sleep After the Tuxedo ball, things quiet down for a few more months. The men go back to college or go to work, and the big parties are pretty well limited to the week-ends. This is the season of interminable deb lunches. A few of the debs do social work during the autumn, but most of us took time out to catch up on our sleep in preparation for the winter season. In December things get going again. The necessary men are home from college, which means from Harvard, Yale or Princeton, with a few from Dartmouth. From now on there will be four or five parties every evening, and you arc expected to drop in at all of them during the .night. They must be given at approved places, of which the most important are the Ritz, the Plaza, Pierre's and the Rainbow Room.

THIS is not a warning to future debutantes. But if I evfer have a daughter of my own, I hope she won't go through this absurd business of "coming out." I know what it's like, because I've just gone through the mill myself. And I can say in all sincerity that being a debutante in New York is the maddest kind of existence ever invented.

9 o'clock and sleep until late in the afternoon.

I remember one morning, however, when none of us felt very sleepy, so wo went out to the tennis court in our evening clothes and played tennis. After that wo moved to the pool and had a swim, stayed up all day, and began the round with cocktails again that evening. There are two or three of these parties every evening in June. Naturally you can only endure a month of such a life, and around July 1 all the debs go away for a couple of months, most often to Europe, for a complete rest. But they are back again in September, for about September 7 the whole thing begins over again for another three weeks.

But these parties are definitely less lavish than those given during the summer. The ordinary coming-out party given on Long Island will cost around 15,000 dollars, but here in New York the cost is nearer 5000 dollars, with 10,000 almost the upper limit. The chief items of expense are the orchestra and champagne. My coming-out party, for instance, was a dinner dance, and 1 had to have 25 cases of champagne, which cost a lot of money. Cost of Clothes Clothes, of course, are expensive, and another 5000 dollars would cover the cost of clothes for the average debutante. It is necessary to have seven or eight summer evening gowns, and another ten for the winter. I know there are some debs who got along on less. There are other clothes required. Every debutante comes out at an afternoon tea as well as at an evening party. She is at the tea, while the younger people go to the dance. It is necessary, therefore, to have a complete wardrobe of expensive afternoon dresses in addition to your evening gowns.

I live on Park Avenue, and our family has a social position in Manhattan that is unquestioned. We belong to the right clubs and know the right people. I made my debut last year, when I was 18 years old. Happily I was invited to all of the four or five balls that really count —in addition to nearly 300 other dances and parties.

Early in October comes the first really important event, the Tuxedo ball held at Tuxedo, New York. This is a frightfully formal affair, with lines and lines of patronesses, and only the upper crust of debutantes is invited 1o attend. There is supposed to be no drinking at the Tuxedo ball except for champagne, but most of the guests managed to evade the rule last season. Being a debutante in New York is no easy matter. You must have a giltedged social position, and you must have money. There are ordinarily fewer than 300 debutantes each season. How to Qualify The first step in becoming a deb is to be taken to the junior dances when you reach the age of 14. For this you must have letters of introduction and an invitation from the hostess. Your antecedents are carefully looked over, and it is here that your chances of becoming a full-fledged debutante at 18 are decided. Once you have attended the junior dances, you are put on the sacrosanct social list, and your life as a sub-deb commences.

And I'm still very much in the social swim. I can't very well get out of it. Nearly all my close friends are debutantes, and I'll have to remain anonymous to say what I'm going to Bay. But every word of it is perfectly true. Out on Long Island Suppose we start with the month of June, which is the beginning of the debutante season in New York. Perhaps contrary to what most people believe, June and September are the two most active months for comingout parties. These coming-out parties during June and September are the most lavish of the entire year. The estates are far out on Long Island, too far to commute into New York, and as a result, a good many of the guests make a house party of it. „ • '• My days, or rather nights, throughout June were all alike. I got up at 4 or 5 p.m. and dressed. Cocktails were wound 8, and dinner at 9.30. We'd go to the dance at midnight, and'it invariably lasted until 8 or 9 o'clock the next morning. Then I'd get to bed at

The big events of the winter season are the series of Junior Assemblies, always held, at the Ritz. Out of 285 debs, not more than 75 will receive invitations to the assemblies, but the people who do have position enough to get invited got eoaked in tht3 bargain. There are three Junior Assemblies during the winter, and eyery. girl who is invited must pay 50 dollars. She brings two men, whidh means a large "stag line," but these parties ar6 too formal to bo much fun. As at the Tuxedo ball, the parents also attend and watch the dancing from the balcony. Any deb who attends during her coming-out' year is also privileged to go againias a post-deb. It is impossible to know all the debutantes who come out during the season.

In your 18th year you automatically become a debutante, and then your life passes intorfche hands~of the three or four women whose business is putting on deb parties and running the deb season. To say they have a mono-

"Upper Crust" Social Life Described as

"NEVER WILLINGLY GO THROUGH IT AGAIN"

By a Park Avenue Debutante: As told to CULVER JONES

Last year, out of 285, I knew only 40 or 50. They run in cliques, and you can't pretend to know everybody. You can't have an interesting conversation with most men. Many of them arc talented and keenly interested in important things, but they would rather be caught dead than talking about such things at a coming-out party. For being a debutante is a cut-throat occupation. Most debs take their com-ing-out with dead seriousness. It is a career to them, and if they are not a success, it leaves a sore in thoir souls for years to come. The conversation of a debutante is frightfully trivial and almost incomprehensible to anyone else. Tal'l at a deb luncheon usually revolves about who had the best gown, who is engaged, and who has the best man on the string. There are rather esoteric expressions, such as "meat ball," which is the deb's description of anyone sha doesn't like.

I've never heard two debutantes in a crowd talk about anything seriously. Aftor a year of it, I've come to the conclusion that in the deb racket nothing exists above the eyebrows. If you meet an interesting man, you see him at his worst. More than half of the dobs go completely crazy, and after a ydar of that life they cannot return to normal. They become members of what is known as the "cafe society," which means going to a night club every night of the year. If I had it to do all over again, I'd try not to be in New York in my 18th year. If I were in New York, I'd simply have to come out. All my friends would be making their debut, and I'd be on the lists. The alternative, if I stayed in New York, would be to attend the parties without giving one of my own, and that's known as "slipping out." A very few girls whose families are not well off will "slip out" each vear.

I know I would never willingly go through another year as a New York