Wax is dripping down cavalier candles mounted to the walls in copper candle holders. Maroon colored suede drapes the floor-to-ceiling windows, tied together with thick satin ropes. Through a chandelier, reflections of light are dancing across the hardwood floors. Tittle-tattling behind thick double doors of oak is an equal parts anxious and excited line of adolescents, dressed in white, feathers in hand.
You are witnessing one of the foremost social events of yore, The debutante ball. Parents and relatives of prominent families have been sat on pins and needles awaiting the day they finally get to introduce the apple of their eye, that is the new generation, to society, and it has arrived. The ball is a meticulously orchestrated event, not only the waltzes have rehearsed choreographies, but also the order of whose hand everyone is to shake or kiss first and the pattern in which staff will serve appetizers to guests of varying social standing. Emptying the fountain of bottomless champagne, dancing to one’s favorite song and gorging on handcrafted pastries are all subpar goals for the evening, the aim is to find an acceptable match for the young people to soon wed. But wait a minute, this sort of rings a bell, doesn’t it? The setting is different, definitely, and the part about the white gowns does sound slightly foreign, for sure, but how about the part about being in a setting with the sole purpose of finding a match? Let me introduce you to the modern legacy of the centuries-old debutante ball; Tinder.
Once you delve deeper into this, the resemblance is striking. Just in case everyone is not yet brought up to speed, Tinder is an algorithm-based dating app where users are presented with a profile containing a name, a couple of pictures and perhaps a job title or interest or two from a preferred sex and age group, to then swipe the profile across the screen of their smart device. Swiping the profile across the screen to the left signals that one is not interested, swiping the profile to the right instead signals that one is interested, and once two people have signaled their interest in each other, they officially have a match and can strike up a conversation (to soon be wed). Back to the ball!
In the days of yore, debutantes would walk the grand promenade. Escorted by a family member who was considered one of good judgment, they would walk along an avenue of lime trees or on the cobbled road by the river, and for every eligible bachelor they walked past, there was a signal; A nod, a bow, a turned head, all indicated the level of interest in courtship from the counterpart. Every swipe right on Tinder is a courtesy, a glimpse of an eye and a polite smile across the ballroom, a silent wish that maybe, just maybe, this person might be the one.
Debutantes did not have much agency themselves back in the day but were instead carefully supervised by their elders and other chaperones. Previously, it was Cousin Arthur and Aunt Charlotte who made sure you weren’t making an inappropriate impression of the kin or accidentally mingling with the wrong sort; hissing at you when you danced with the same bachelor too many times in a row or buttering up mothers they didn’t necessarily like to get a chance to introduce their daughters to the counterparts sons. Fast forward to modern day and the chaperones come in the shape of carefully crafted algorithms. In the same way, they seek out what they believe are appropriate matches for you, filtering out any people they deem incompatible with you due to their age or location.
The waltz and the mingling are not the only important parts of the debutante ball. Equally important, if not more so, are the preparations prior to. Debutants were squeezed into tight corsets, teams of multiple siblings enlisted to pull strings and tie ribbons, and poked with pins and needles, teams of seamstresses enlisted to tailor silk and suede into trailing dresses, all to present to the best of their abilities on the big night. Much like the corsets and layered skirts squeezed people into society’s ideal of beauty, poise and coquette, a Tinder profile is a carefully curated abstraction of a person, presenting the best possible angles in photos, snapshots of exciting events in a person’s life and a catchy bio that has been re-formulated multiple times and carefully considered in discussion with a friend. With only six photos and a couple of clicks, your persona is cinched in at the waist for maximum appeal. The corset that is a Tinder profile might be invisible, but it is equally binding.
In all fairness, the debutante ball was in fact a slightly more well-rounded social event on paper; the official story was that it was equally about finding partners as it was about networking and building relationships with friends from equally wealthy families, but for the sake of this article, let’s focus on the mating.
And so we wind up once again with the age-old question; Does society really change? Do we grow, learn from our mistakes and move forward, or are we refusing progression by putting the same content in new packaging? In the end, the traditional debutante ball might be a dying breed, but the matchmaking desires of society and our incessant need to present the best version of ourselves in the search for love remains, only now, they may cater to trends of individualism, technology and the identity economy. Corsets, baggy jeans, rum punch, hazy IPA, promenades, swipes, waltzes, student nation night clubs, orchestras, DJs; The debutante ball is still alive.
