Deb and Alive

FOR the seventy-eight New York girls chosen to debut at Beekman Downtown Hospital's Debutante Cotillion (known as the Infirmary Ball), preparations had begun last August with endless fittings for the dress. As costly as a term of school, it had to be long, white, lovely, and absolutely correct by local taste (one poor girl a few years ago actually had the mink tails snipped from her hem moments before her first official Curtsy to Society). And the designs are registered, since no two girls in a year's cotillion should dress exactly alike.

For the first time in ages, this year's ball was completely sold out (indeed, the girls for next year were already chosen). Naturally, those involved felt the event itself was completely unchanged, even if the world had changed rather dramatically.

As usual, by ten the Waldorf's ballrooms were all mirrored grandeur and nerves. Private suppers across the city were over, and final adjustments to hair and gown complete. And it was true: Little had changed from prior years. The Grand March, the Presentation of the Debutantes (each girl upon an escort's arm, emerging from the elaborate bower situated stage center among the Meyer Davis Orchestra), the Cotillion Figures (culminating in a star formed by all the debutantes, holding electric candles), even the music, the overpriced champagne, the dancing, the conversations, were much as they have always been. Somehow everyone—from the most jaded divorcee to the most predatory account exec—had fun. Perhaps what evoked the unsuspected innocence lurking in so many cynics' breasts was the suspicion that this may have been life's only moment to be both a grown-up and a fairy princess.

Guy Lesser