Debs down the decades

When the first of the models stalks down the catwalk at the Dorchester hotel for the annual Berkeley Dress Show in 10 days' time, several well-bred ladies will breathe a sigh of relief.

For 50 years, the show has been the inaugural event of the London Season, that antiquated whirl of parties and balls that sees the daughters of the well-born and wealthy launched into society. Debutantes, from Amanda Ferragamo, of the famous Italian shoe house, to It girls Victoria Hervey and Tamara Beckwith, have all modelled the latest couture designs in front of admiring parents and potential suitors.

For 40 years the Season's activities were co-ordinated by Peter Townend, Tatler's social consultant. When he died last year, many feared that the Season would die with him and his address book. It was Townend, after all, who wrote, each autumn, some 220 letters in turquoise ink to the mothers of girls he wanted to invite to be debs (one doesn't really apply).

But an executive committee of Townend's friends has been set up to keep the Season alive, to choose and supervise the 100 or so girls who are "coming out" this year and kick off the whole shebang with the Berkeley Dress Show. This year's event is a retrospective, in memory of Townend and in aid of the NSPCC, for which the show annually raises some £25,000. Models from the past 50 years have been tracked down by Jean Broke-Smith, the former principal of Lucie Clayton, who for 28 years has picked girls for the show, and persuaded to dust off their period frocks and give them a twirl alongside this year's models. Here, we give an exclusive preview of the show which reveals how much - and yet how little - Society has changed over the past 50 years.

The Fifties

Jenefer Tatham, 62, did the Season in 1957, one of the last years debs were presented to the Queen. She was chairman of the Berkeley Dress Show in 1986. She is married to husband David, lives in Fulham, and runs her own company, Tatham Decoration. She has two children, one of whom is also modelling in the show, and two grandchildren.

"I nearly didn't get to do the Season, because in those days your mother couldn't present you at court if she'd been divorced. So, I missed the dress show and Queen Charlotte's Ball, but then a friend of my mother's, Lady Nott-Bower, very kindly agreed that she would present me instead. Her husband was the chief commissioner of police, so I was driven to Buckingham Palace in a police car with motorcycle outriders, which was incredibly exciting. We sat like rows of little swans in the ballroom, and when your name was called, you had to walk forward and curtsy to the Queen. I'd left school at 17 and started at secretarial college, but I had to give that up to do the Season. Girls didn't think in terms of having a career in those days. I made some of my best friends that summer, and through one of them I met my husband a couple of years later. So, in a way, it did work for me."

The Sixties

Caroline Garvey is 51 and was a 1968 debutante. Flower power was the order of the day, but the debs carried on regardless. She lives in Fulham with her husband, Simon. She has two children; her daughter will be joining her in the dress show.

"Because of the student riots I was brought back from Paris, where I was au-pairing, to join in with the rest of the London Season. I worked at the Courtauld so that I could afford all my dresses, which cost about £5 each from a place called Fifth Avenue. You could tell the girls who didn't work, because they always had their hair done properly. It was the most wonderful thing to have done, but we were there to have fun rather than to find a husband. I met mine a few years later while working for Juliana's disco in Portugal."

The Seventies

Baba Hobart, 48, came out in 1970, when one of the highlights of the Season was the deb who streaked along the balcony at Queen Charlotte's Ball. She is married to Robert and has two daughters, who were also debutantes. She lives in Kensington and runs her own public relations company, Parker Hobart Associates.

"I'd been brought up expecting to do the Season. My mother did it, and my late father, Archie Parker, was a famous society photographer. He would photograph all the debs every year, and I was used to seeing all these beautiful creatures traipsing in and out of the house in their twinsets and pearls. Doing the Season meant I made masses of new friends. I remember it as a wonderful time. I didn't meet a man, but that was because I'd already met Rob, who's now my husband.

I had a big dance at my grandmother's place near Hampton Court Palace, with 300 people, and it was brilliant.

It sounds quite something but it wasn't unusual in those days."

The Eighties

Alexandra Langman, 37, did the Season in 1983, by which time, thanks to unemployment and recession, it was rather less ebullient and many aristocratic girls were refusing to be debs. Alexandra is married and works for a private investment bank. She lives in Wandsworth with her husband, Nicholas, and their three sons.

"I had plans to go to university in the States to study marketing, and thought the Season would be a good thing to do in my gap year. The girls in my year fell into two groups. There were some who were extremely traditional, and took the whole thing very seriously; then there were those of us who were going to university, or abroad, who had a rather more lighthearted approach. I was chosen by Peter Townend to help entertain a group of American debs one evening; we all had to wear white dresses. They were all amazingly serious about the whole deb thing, and they looked celluloidbeautiful. We seemed comparatively crumpled. Only one girl I know got married as a result of the Season."

The Nineties

Charlotte Stewart-Brown, 21, was a 1999 deb - she not only has a pierced navel but a discreet tattoo on her stomach. Dress-show supremo Jean Broke-Smith chose not to cover up these unladylike attributes, but to flaunt them, and Charlotte opened the show in a Mulberry gingham bikini. She is single, studying psychology at Kingston University, and lives in Chelsea.

"I did the Season purely for the experience - I was very curious to know what it was like, and so was my mother, Luisa, who is Portuguese and had done her Season in Portugal. We both found it wasn't what we expected - my mother was surprised that it wasn't more traditional. I didn't do the Season to meet boys, and I didn't get to know many, even after all those parties. There weren't any I fancied. Most of my friends accepted the fact that I was doing the Season quite happily, though some couldn't understand what it was all about. I did meet some lovely girls who I am still friends with, but the Season just doesn't have the relevance to modern life that it had a generation ago."

The Noughties

Ophelia Hohler, 19, was a millennial deb, and found it an excellent way to make new friends. She is reading history at Oriel College, Oxford, and plays the harp with the London Philharmonic Youth Orchestra.

"There was absolutely no pressure for me to do it, but I think my mother was delighted I did, because it gave her a chance to catch up with old friends. I was very keen to do it, because until the sixth form, when I went to Benenden, I'd been at music school, which meant studying every evening and also on Saturdays. I just hadn't had much time for friends until I was 17. Everyone laughed at the idea but when they realised what it entailed (all those parties) they wished they'd done it. I didn't have any boyfriends at the time, but I made masses of new friends, both boys and girls.

? The Berkeley Dress Show, in aid of the NSPCC, will take place on 8 April at The Dorchester, W1. Tickets (£52, including champagne reception) are available from Helen Driscoll of the NSPCC on 020 7596 3725.