Free Republic

You had to look hard amid the four-foot floral sculptures and the Vera Wang originals to see signs of the economy’s collapse at the International Debutante Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria on Monday night. There was the daughter of the Duchesse de Magenta, Pélagie de Mac Mahon, a willowy 18-year-old with chestnut hair who is a great-great-granddaughter of a 19th-century French president. And there were the two sisters from Hong Kong, daughters of a heart surgeon and a jewelry designer, who stayed not two nights but two weeks at the Waldorf, passing the days on the lookout for designer dresses. Champagne...

Half a century ago this week, a strange ceremony ended. I was among the last 400 girls arriving at Buckingham Palace to make our formal curtseys to the Queen. It was the usual wild March weather, cold winds ruffling our full-skirted silk dresses, our mothers in their furs and our moustached fathers wore top hats as we lined up by the railings, gaped at by waiting crowds kept at a discreet distance as if in an Ealing comedy. The scene had been made poignant by the recent unexpected announcement from the Palace that these would be the last presentations. We...