In the still short, too swish, life of gold-star nepo baby Apple Martin, two events, thus far, have defined her existence in the public consciousness.
The first happened literally with her arrival on May 14, 2004 — and the naming itself. Throwing a new buoy into the wacky sea of celebrity baby nomenclature, her parents Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow upended the fruit aisle, too. It was a massive thing, this name Apple. Perhaps you had to be there.
The second biggest viral-causing moment of the now 20-year-old? It happened last weekend with her “debut” at Le Bal des Débutantes in Paris. Playing out on social media, as these things do nowadays, while giving ChatGPT-era “Bridgerton,” Martin immediately earned a disproportionate amount of attention out of the 19 dolled-up “debs” this year.
For one, there was her custom Valentino gown — one that took a reported 750 hours to make (?!). For another, there was one unfortunate clip that made the rounds in which one participant was seen posing at the event when Martin defiantly sashayed in front. Took over. A “Regina George” moment, cried the commentariat!
Not pretty, but in a world where the only currency is attention, ultimately — and given the amount of coverage Martin further received — is there any doubt that she, a brand merger of Coldplay and Goop, is more famous this week than she was last? Can a Vogue cover be far behind?
Also more of a “thing” now, consequently, than it’s been in some years: this event, which takes its cue from those old-world balls in which notable women of marriageable age were paraded before “the court”; was revived in 1992 and is the handiwork — this always amused me! — of a publicist. (More on that in a bit.)
Drawing socialites and celebutantes, the odd Olympian and sometimes genuine nobility — in which lasses are paired with “cavaliers” to escort them, young men from similarly tony backgrounds — le Bal is camouflage for charity, raising coin for various philanthropic efforts. One beneficiary this year? Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital, a provider of advanced pediatric care.
Fact: before Emily was in Paris, Lily Collins was at le Bal — Phil Collins’ daughter marking her territory here in 2007. Other showbiz progeny over the years? They’ve included Ava Phillippe (issue of Reese and Ryan), Scout Willis (Demi and Bruce’s offspring) and Autumn Whitaker (dad is Forest). Princess Diana’s nieces, Lady Kitty Spencer and Lady Amelia Windsor, have done their time, as have darlings carrying the names Hearst and Kennedy.
Make way for the chignons: notable granddaughters here have included Anna Pei, granddaughter of starchitect I.M. Pei, Juliet Gordy James, granddaughter of Motown legend Berry Gordy, and Xenia Gorbachev, granddaughter of former Soviet honcho Mikhail Gorbachev. This year also added Lucia Sofia Pontin, granddaughter of actor Sophia Loren, to the roster.
You have to be invited, to confirm.
“Yes, I look for girls with breeding, but they are also all very smart and interesting characters.” How Ophélie Renouard, the ball’s mother-hen — born in Saigon to French parents — once described. She concocted the idea of a debutantes ball, which had all but vanished in France for decades, when she was heading up events at the Hôtel de Crillon, where the new event initially ran. (It now unfolds at the Shangri-La.)
The ritual is the thing. A “hard launch” into society — or, hey, a bid, at least, for more IG followers. Admittedly, many see it as purely a hoot. Take Tatiana Mountbatten, a great-niece of Lord Mountbatten and a distant cousin of the late Queen, who appeared at the ball at 17, and remarked to a reporter: “It’s not about the ‘coming out’ into society for me. I’m at boarding school in the middle-of-nowhere English countryside and I get to come to Paris to wear haute couture — who could resist?”
As an observer of these things, it also strikes me how much of a geopolitical snow-globe le Bal is — how, as years pass, we’ve seen it become increasingly diverse (even if privilege is the great equalizer here). On the Netflix reality series “Fabulous Lives vs. Bollywood Wives,” for instance, one story arc involved an Indian power couple preparing their daughter for the event.
As Rachel Tashjian notes, too, in the Washington Post, the whole shebang is instructive in how it depicts money, old and new, at a time when it can be hard deciphering the many permutations of class. “Here, at le Bal is a picture of pure wealth coming shamelessly out of its bat cave,” she wrote, ”… highly choreographed in some ways, yes, but darkly revelatory … an ironically egalitarian view of what it means to be rich. Gone are the antiquated rules that direct more typical balls. Being the child of a movie star is as important as being a royal — or, frankly, as unimportant.”
It’s true. Celebrity might trump society in the present era, but one thing appears to be static: young ladies with decorous pedigrees are ever, and forever, a renewable resource.
