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The social season or Season has historically referred to the annual period when it is customary for members of the social and political elite of society to hold debutante balls, dinner parties, and large charity events, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It was also the appropriate time to be resident in the city rather than in the country, in order to attend such events. The social season typically occurs during the warmer summer months.
The Season in London
The original Season is the "London Season", coinciding with the sitting of Parliament, and beginning some time after Christmas, and running until midsummer (ie. around late June). Historically, the Season comprised innumerable social and charity engagements, including lavish ballroom dances and evenings at the opera or theatre. In the effect, these series of events served as a courtship ritual for the children of marriagable age of the nobility and upper gentry.
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 organization of the season, according to the peerage guide Debrett's, the season runs from April to August and includes the events listed below.
- Arts: Edinburgh Fringe — Glyndebourne — The Proms — Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
- Flowers: Chelsea Flower Show
- Equestrianism: Royal Ascot — Glorious Goodwood — Badminton — The Grand National — The Royal Windsor Horse Show
- The Crown: Trooping the Colour
- Sport: The Boat Race — Henley Royal Regatta — Wimbledon — Cowes Week — The Lord's Test Match
Although several of these events are not actually held in London, the organizers 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 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 Parliament, and may start as early as the autumn and end in the early summer when the upper classes traditionally fled the hot and sticky cities for the so-called camps of the Adirondacks or seaside retreats such as the Hamptons.
In New York, the opening of the Metropolitan Opera in September is a major event of the early social season; in Los Angeles, the Las Madrinas debutante ball opens the social season.
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.
Further reading
Florence Adele Sloane (ed. Louis Auchincloss): Maverick in Mauve: Diary of a Romantic Age, Doubleday, 1983.
External references
- A London Season
- Debrett's (click "The Season")
"Season (society)"