Dropping back to the late nineteenth century, here's another short blurb from the pages of Demorest's Family Magazine, following the Thanksgiving Pumpkin Party I described last year. This little tidbit appeared in the "Chat" column of the February, 1891, issue, along with a description of a Valentine's party and comments on the overuse of floral decorations. The anonymous author described the fashion that season of using a thé dansante (tea dance) held at the "usual hours" for a reception, four o'clock to seven o'clock in the late afternoon, for the purpose of introducing debutantes to the fashionable world. The thé dansante could stand on its own as an event or might be the lead-in to a dinner.
One might assume that this reception-with-dancing (and, presumably, afternoon tea) was less work than giving a full-scale ball, but lest the name give you the idea this was an intimate event, be aware that the Demorest's description claimed that five hundred non-dancing "friends" (meaning a large chunk of upper-class society) were said to attend such an event just as a reception, while the debutantes and their partners danced with a "delightful informality". The potential following dinner would be a much smaller affair.
There's not much to the description -- no details of the dancing -- and what there is is mostly concerned with a set of coordinated outfits, but here is the original text in full:
The Thé Dansante--an afternoon reception, or "tea," with dancing--is the fashionable entertainment for introducing débutantes this season. Not that all the guests participate in the dancing, but the "dear five hundred friends" whose dancing days are over enjoy themselves after the usual way at receptions, while the younger invités trip "the light fantastic toe" to their hearts' content, and there is a delightful informality about the dancing that renders it all the more enjoyable. At one notable affair of this character, the débutante was attended by four other "buds." and together they formed a most lovely group. The débutante wore a gown of white crêpe de Chine embroidered with tiny leaves in the palest green and seeded with crystal beads, and carried a quaint bag filled with lilies of the valley; one of her companions was attired in rose-colored crêpe with not even a scrap of lace to relieve the uniformity of color, and carried rosebuds of the same tint; one in pale blue embroidered with white, with a bouquet of forget-me-nots; one in delicate yellow with light green ribbon garniture, and a belt-bouquet of three long-stemmed yellow chrysanthemums; and one in gray embroidered with silver, and a single rose, deep pink in tint, very large, and with a very long stem, pinned on her bosom. The combination of colors was most artistic, and the lovely girls formed a really charming picture with a background of maidenhair ferns, lilies, narcissus, and white hyacinths.
But the débutantes by no means monopolize the dancing tea, neither is that variety lacking which is essential to success for even a single season of any innovation on the favorite styles of entertainments. From four to seven are the usual hours, as for the regulation reception; but some hostesses have made the thé dansante the prelude to a dinner to which only a favored few are invited.
-- Demorest's Family Magazine, Volume XXVII, No. 4, February, 1891, p. 245
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