Does anything capture that quintessentially contemporary sentiment of simultaneous revulsion and infatuation like seeing images of Apple Martin – not the name of a cocktail, but the daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin – being “presented to society” at a Paris debutante ball this past weekend?

The idea of a debutante ball was irresistibly outdated from its beginnings, at least for Americans. A homegrown answer to the United Kingdom’s practice of parading women of newly marriageable age before the ruling monarch to encourage matrimony, the deb ball gathers notable daughters (often from American dynasties), who dress up in white dresses to signal that they are wife material. (A bit like shopping for a car, with a waltz.)

Washington Post