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The social season or Season has historically referred to the annual period when it is customary for members of the a social elite of society to hold debutante balls, dinner parties and large charity events. It was also the appropriate time to be resident in the city rather than in the country, in order to attend such events. The Season typically occurs during the warmer summer months.
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The Season in London
The original Season is the "London Season", coinciding with the sitting of Parliament and began some time after Christmas and ran until midsummer (ie. around late June). Historically, the Season comprised innumerable social and charity engagements, including lavish balls and dinners and evenings at the opera or theatre. The most exclusive events were held at the town mansions of leading members of the aristocracy. In effect, this series of events served as a courtship ritual for the children of marriageable age of the nobility and upper gentry. The Season began with the presentation of débutantes to the monarch.
The traditional Season went into decline after the First World War, when many aristocratic families gave up their London mansions. From this time on an increasing number of society events took place at public venues, making it harder to maintain social exclusivity. The presentation of débutantes at court ended in 1958. The events which today comprise the London social Season are increasingly hosted or sponsored by large companies (ie. "corporate hospitality").
Although there is no official organisation of the Season, according to the peerage guide Debrett's, the Season now runs from April to August and includes the events listed below (not in chronological order):
- Arts: Edinburgh Fringe — Glyndebourne — The Proms — Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
- Horticulture: Chelsea Flower Show
- Equestrianism: Royal Ascot — Glorious Goodwood — Badminton — The Grand National — The Royal Windsor Horse Show
- The Crown: Trooping the Colour — The Garter Service
- Sport: The Boat Race — Henley Royal Regatta — Guards Polo Club — Wimbledon — Cowes Week — The Lord's Test Match
Although several of these events are not actually held in London, the organisers of most events attempt to avoid date clashes, so it is generally possible to visit all of them in the same year (given sufficient leisure time, disposable income and stamina).
The traditional end of the London Season is the Glorious Twelfth of August, which marks the beginning of the shooting season. Society would retire to the country to shoot birds during the autumn and hunt foxes during the winter, before coming back to London again with the spring.
The Season in the United States
Many large American cities have a more-or-less official social season, although only those persons on the social register may be aware of its existence. In the US, timing of the social season is adapted to the climate, rather than to the sitting of Congress and may start as early as the autumn and end in the early summer when the rich elite traditionally fled the hot and humid cities for the camps of the Adirondacks, seaside retreats such as the Hamptons, or, in California, the Napa and Sonoma Valleys.
In New York, the opening of the Metropolitan Opera in September is a major event of the early social season; in Los Angeles, it is the Las Madrinas debutante ball; in San Francisco, the Opening Night Gala of the San Francisco Opera.
The Season in literature
A London Season features in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and is often a key plot device in Regency romance novels.
Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence uses the New York social season as a backdrop for its story.
Further reading
Florence Adele Sloane (ed. Louis Auchincloss): Maverick in Mauve: Diary of a Romantic Age, Doubleday, 1983.
Kate Simon: Fifth Avenue: A Very Social History, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.
External websites
- The London Season website
- The London Season by Michelle Jean Hoppe
- Debrett's (click 'The Season')
- Society Guys ('The Social Season')
- New York's Social Elite Today
- Late Victorian/Edwardian London Season
