Debutante balls were anachronistic (even then) and far from feminist but, to a young woman from Wainuiomata, this was a night to remember. By Sharon Stephenson
Lets pretend for a minute it’s 1985. Live Aid is beaming across 150 countries, women are wearing shoulder pads so wide they could cross time zones, and to 40 or so young women across the Wellington suburbs, the only thing that matters is the upcoming debutante ball.
Even typing those words almost four decades later makes me recoil in horror.
Allow me to enlighten you: a debutante – or deb ball – is a "coming out’ ceremony where young women wear meringue-like dresses to curtsy in front of dignitaries such as the governor or bishop. Yes, a curtsy so low your forehead almost hits the floor.
Kind of like Bridgerton but with uglier dresses and a much lower production budget.
In my defence, I was six months out of high school and, thanks to the kind of ignorance you have at that age, the concept of feminism didn’t mean anything to me yet. So I willingly sank into the quicksand of craziness, agreeing to be ‘presented’ to the bishop.
Six months earlier I’d graduated from a Lower Hutt Catholic girls college where the idea of becoming a deb was seen as the pinnacle of achievement. I can’t remember the exact words the nuns used, but they marketed the concept as a fun bookend to our high school years and the start of our adult lives.
It clearly worked because we’d all spent months enthusiastically planning our big night (ie what to wear).
I grew up in a home with too many children where budgets were stretched so thin there was little left over for frivolities such as fancy white dresses. But my deeply Catholic parents had also fallen under the deb ball spell and somehow they found the cash to have a dress made.
Naturally, there were rules: we weren’t allowed to show any skin, which meant no off-the-shoulder or short dresses. I figured, rightly as it turns out, that it was the only time in my life I would wear a wedding-style dress so I went big. These were pre-Internet days, so I scanned the bridal magazines at the local hairdressers, ripping out pictures I liked. Overwhelmed by choice, I poured various styles into a blender and hit puree.
That dress, made by my mother’s friend up the road, featured metres of taffetta, a lace bodice and sleeves and a scratchy, complicated neckline. Your guess is as good as mine as to why there was a half-arsed attempt at scalloping towards the end of the skirt.
In peak 80s style, I’d been on the grapefruit diet for weeks (grapefruit halves, cottage cheese and cigrarettes) but the week before the ball I got the flu so badly I couldn’t get out of bed for a few days. It shames me to admit it, but at the time I was thrilled that a flu-induced lack of calories meant my dress fitted even better.
On a wintry Friday night, when the sky was bruised and swollen with rain, a handful of family and friends headed to the recently opened Michael Fowler Centre for an evening of ill considered choices and awkward dancing.
In photos, we look as though we’re trying not to laugh at the absurdity of it all. But from memory, it was a lot of fun. In the 80s, there weren’t many opportunities for cash-strapped girls from Wainuiomata to have their hair coiffured with so much hairspray it took weeks to wash out. I was determined to enjoy it, ridiculous outfit and all.
A highlight of any debutante ball is the debs dancing the Viennese Waltz with their white-gloved fathers. In preparation, Dad and I spent a month of Sunday afternoons driving into Wellington to practice, all of us strugging not to trip over each other.
On the night, the waltz went off without a hitch. But if you listened carefully, you would've heard each of us hissing at our fathers to turn left or step right.
A surreal part of the night was being called by name onto the stage to do a deep curtsy. It’s hard to look graceful when swamped by a giant marshmallow dress, let alone when manoeuvring yourself downwards, arms akimbo, as the floor rises up to meet your forehead. Thankfully, no-one face planted, although there were a few close calls.
Debutante balls were once high stakes
Originally a rite-of-passage for upper-class girls, deb balls began in England, just after the Industrial Revolution.
“Debutante balls were a way for fathers to marry their daughters off to wealthier men or improve their social status,” writes Kristen Richardson, in The Season: A Social History of the Debutante.
“The stakes were high because marriage was, of course, the only career for women, particularly women of a certain social status. You couldn't become a scullery maid or a dressmaker or any of these other professions, because they were socially unsuitable.”
English girls who were really lucky were presented to Queen Elizabeth II at St James Court, although Her Majesty abolished the ceremony in 1958. As the acid-tongued Princess Margaret allegedly said, "We had to put a stop to it. Every tart in London was getting in".
In Aotearoa, deb balls were common up to the '60s, particularly in rural communities.
They fell out of favour for a long time, although apparently they’ve recently been revived by England’s wealthy. These days, though, the vibe is more Kardashian than royal wedding, more fake tan and Instagram than tiaras.
Given the chance, I wouldn’t be a deb again. But when everything is bleak and everyone is broke, I can understand that nostalgic desire to dip into a simpler past for one night.
Sharon Stephenson is a writer based in Wellington.
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