DEBUTANTES LINK TO HISTORY
The tradition of debutante balls has waned, but the few that remain in Montreal can offer participants the chance to connect with history — and to develop proper etiquette, writes Julie Anne Pattee
Ball is chance to travel back in time
It’s a week before the ball. Fashion designer Astri Prugger’s tiny dress shop on Victoria Ave. in Westmount is filled with sparkly white ball gowns. A glass case in the corner displays a small crown and a pair of white satin shoes.
Over the next few days, 11 university students will march into the shop, pop off their headphones and pick up one of the matching princess dresses Prugger is altering for them.
“I’m not really like a fairy godmother,” laughs Prugger, who nevertheless seems like one. She is not only the official dressmaker but also the president of the Viennese Ball, one of Montreal’s last debutante balls.
Up until a few years ago, at least six annual debutante balls were held in the city, among them the St. Stephen’s Ball, the St. Mary’s Ball and the German Ball. Over the last 30 years, the city’s major balls have evolved into charity fundraising events and the debutante tradition has waned.
Today, debutantes are only presented at two of the city’s major balls: the Viennese Ball, hosted by the Austrian Society, and the St. Andrew’s Society Ball.
Debutante balls used to be exclusive events. Debutantes — girls of marriageable age and well-off families — were presented to society in a process that was called “coming out.”
Now anyone between the ages of 16 and 25 can be a debutante or an escort, their male counterpart. Open calls are sent out to universities, CEGEPs and high schools.
The St. Andrew’s Society charges recruits $90. The fee includes entrance to the ball and several associated receptions, as well as a pewter thistle broach, a commemorative key ring and six weeks of dancing lessons.
Recruits for the Viennese Ball are charged a $175 fee, which includes gown or tuxedo rentals, 10 weeks of dancing and etiquette lessons as well as entrance to the ball, a soirée at the Marriott Château Champlain hotel that features a five-course meal and a chance to mingle with high-profile guests.
Prugger says the experience is transformative. She says young women gain self-esteem and selfassurance by participating in the process, and by mastering the difficult choreography of the formal waltzes that are a major part of the ball. But she observes an even greater difference in young men.
“They come in chewing gum, with their jeans sagging, and you wonder if they will ever stop squishing their water bottles and making that terrible noise.
“By the end of rehearsals, you see them placing their hands gently on the girls’ backs and leading them down the stairs so they don’t trip on their dresses. You see them dancing with their mothers or their grandmothers.”
The tradition of presenting upper-class girls of marriageable age to the sovereign began in European courts during the 18th century. The practice faded in the middle part of the 20th century, and in 1958 Queen Elizabeth stopped the practice in the United Kingdom.
In North American cities such as Montreal, the balls simply evolved. Marilyn Meikle Rochford of the St. Andrew’s Society says balls are no longer about putting girls “on the market,” but about promoting cultural traditions and connecting with history.
Prugger agrees. She was invited to the ball 11 years ago. She says she fell in love with it then and has been involved since. “At the Château Champlain there is a winding staircase. And there were musicians standing there and they were playing the music I grew up with.
“As I walked down the staircase, I thought of my grandmother. She would not have believed that her granddaughter would ever go to a beautiful event like this.”
Prugger’s grandmother was a governess in Vienna in the 1920s. She used to tell Prugger stories about sitting on the top of the stairs and watching all the beautiful people enjoying elegant parties she would never be invited to.
“Every year, I make my husband meet me so we can walk down the staircase together. It’s just so special,” Prugger says.
Elizabeth Wirth, past president of the Viennese Ball, is a Montreal philanthropist and businesswoman. Her mother grew up in Vienna and attended the kind of parties Prugger’s grandmother dreamed of.
In 1938, Wirth’s mother was set to make her grand entrance at the Vienna Opera Ball.
“There she was at 16 years old and she found out her debutante dress cost more than the cook earned in six months. My mother was horrified. She said, ‘This is wrong.’ She told her mother she wouldn’t do it.”
Wirth’s mother was finally persuaded to make her debut. It was a good call: not only did she meet her husband-to-be at the ball, she witnessed a historic event. Historians call the 1938 edition “the last great Vienna Opera Ball,” and the end of an era. One year later, the ball was under Nazi control. Jewish cultural leaders and other members of the intelligentsia fled the city or were captured.
By the 1960s, Wirth says, many of her friends were having comingout parties when they turned 21 at the Ritz-Carlton, “but we all found them old-fashioned. I told my mother I wasn’t into it.”
However, Wirth now says the process has advantages. She says good manners never go out of style and young people benefit from learning how to be courteous — not just to the opposite sex, but to everyone around them.
At the Marriott Château Champlain, this year’s debutantes and escorts are getting ready for rehearsals. The women are sharing a vegan chocolate bar while they put on their dancing shoes.
One of the debutantes is a McGill neuroscience student who plans to go to medical school. Another is on the Canadian national synchronized swimming team. A handful of the escorts are political science students from Concordia, and one is an engineering student at ETS.
Some have European ancestry and want to connect to their heritage. All agree that a chance to travel back in time is what most attracted them to the event.
Edan Alati-Coventry loves the ball so much he has been an escort four times. The 19-year-old heard about the event through LOVE, an anti-violence youth organization where he works part time as a public speaker. It’s one of the charities for which the ball raises funds.
“I’ve seen movies that have this setting and I always imagined what it would be like,” he says. “It’s just so alive when you are in that room. You don’t want to leave and you don’t want the night to end.”
Devon Ellis-Durity, 24, decided to become a debutante after watching an episode of Gossip Girl.
“I was like, ‘Wow. I wonder if there is something like this in Montreal.’”
She found the event online. She says she loves the way the event makes her feel.
“Life is really fast now, and it just kind of slows it down.”