"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Former debutantes recall coming-out parties past as the Telegraph reports on the decline of the Season in the London social cosmos.
And so, ultimately, it is left to Tatler, which describes itself as Britain's most stylish and indispensable social guide, and which every spring includes a small booklet entitled The Season, sponsored by Champagne house Veuve Clicquot, to be the mediator on the matter of the Season. Its current editor, Geordie Greig, has, however, left it to Veuve Clicquot to administer, a job that it, in turn, has delegated to its London PR girl Genavieve Alexander. And so the world's most famous summer party has fallen into the hands of a young press officer who, with the help of a "trend agency", compiles the list of what posh "do" is in and what riotous assembly is out. Interestingly, the 2007 booklet does not mention the 250th anniversary or the Berkeley Dress Show, but does include the sponsored Business Woman of the Year award, Gumball 3000 Rally and an obscure oyster festival.
However, for those of us not bound by the capricious rules of a social-climbing Champagne house, the gauge as to whether an event is part of the Season or not is whether it combines the open air, drinking, royalty and people in hats. For the Season is, in all but name, an unstructured long-running alcoholic picnic punctuated by horses and human excess.
The Victorian image at top is from the Lafayette Negative Archive, which includes a section on Presentation at Court in its gallery of late 19th- and early 20th-century Court Dress images.
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