As the daughter of supposedly right-on millionaire liberals Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin… what on earth was Apple doing at the Paris debutantes’ ball?

Admittedly, she looks amazing. In a baby-blue Valentino couture dress, Apple Martin, 20, is the spit of her mother, Gwyneth Paltrow, and seems to have inherited the statuesque height of her father, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.

At Le Bal des Debutantes in Paris on Saturday evening, both her parents and her brother, Moses, plus her maternal grandmother, Blythe Danner, looked on as she waltzed around a ballroom in a dress which took 750 hours to make.

Apple’s date? A curly-haired chap from ‘a distinguished Austro-Hungarian family’ called Leo Cosima Henckel von Donnersmarck, which is a heck of a name to fit on a passport.

And yet all I could think on seeing the photos was: what on earth is she doing there?

What on earth were any of them doing there? Apple was just one of 21 women who took part in the ball over the weekend. 

Alongside her was Lucia Ponti, Sophia Loren’s granddaughter, in Armani couture paired with a diamond and emerald choker. 

Also, HRH Princess Eugenia de Borbon Vargas (a name I promise I haven’t made up) in strapless Caroline Herrera plus tiara, along with Sophie Kodjoe, the daughter of Nicole Ari Parker, one of the stars of Sex & The City Spin-off, And Just Like That, wearing Oscar de la Renta.

An array of other bright young things have taken part in the ball in recent years, watched by their adoring, superstar parents – Ava Phillippe, daughter of Reese Witherspoon; Sylvester Stallone’s daughters Rose and Sophie Rose; Scout and Tallulah, daughters of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore; Andie MacDowell’s daughter Margaret Qualley; and Lily Collins, daughter of drummer Phil.

Shortly before the evening kicked off, this year’s crop gathered on the sweeping staircase of the Shangri-La Hotel in Paris for a group photograph: big hair, big frocks, big rocks. But come on, a debutantes’ ball? What is this, 1853?

Three months ago, at the beginning of September, a similar party took place in London. The Queen Charlotte Ball was held at One Whitehall Place in Westminster and also featured 20 young women, although they were all dressed in white (as debutantes traditionally always were, to denote purity), and in loaned jewels from Harrods, which also donated a cake for the evening’s festivities. (This seems a touch unfortunate given the recent revelations about former Harrods boss Mohammed Al-Fayed and the subsequent tarnishing of the luxury department store, but presumably the organisers didn’t want to look a gift horse – or in this case a gift diamond and a gift cake – in the mouth.)

According to the Queen Charlotte’s Ball website, it’s ‘the most sought-after ball in the world’.

Those who go to Le Bal des Debutantes may dispute that. One attendee last year declared it the ‘Met Gala for teenagers’, referring to the annual New York shindig thrown by Vogue editor, Anna Wintour (whose daughter, Bee, has also attended the Parisian debutante ball in 2004 wearing Chanel.)

They’re both (ostensibly) glamorous events which feature ballgowns and diamonds and waltzing, where beautiful young women are paired for the evening with eligible young men. Or ‘cavaliers’, as they’re referred to for the Parisian knees-up.

If you’re a hopeful 18-year-old and wish to attend the London party as a debutante, you can apply via the website and a lady called Jennie Hallam-Peel will oversee your application.

A few years ago, there was an application form on the website which asked for a photo, plus the details of what your parents do and where you went to school. This form appears to have been tweaked more recently and now it asks for a photo and your CV.

The French ball, meanwhile, is overseen by a fierce PR executive called Ophelie Renouard, who apparently ‘invites her guests based on their appearance, intelligence and family connections.’

I don’t wish to be mean, but really? Am I the only person whose heart sinks at the sight of these presumably bright young women taking part in something so anachronistic? 

What are Gwyneth and Chris, supposedly such right-on liberals, doing parading their daughter at such an event? Doesn’t the very phrase ‘debutantes ball’ sound very ancien régime?

The original Queen Charlotte Ball started centuries ago when this sort of caper was fashionable. 

In 1780, to be precise, when George III threw a birthday party for his wife, Queen Charlotte, who stood beside a large cake while a procession of debutantes curtsied to her. 

They were being presented at court, in other words, and it was a rite of passage for posh young girls. It carried on for centuries, although I’m not sure it was ever that much fun. 

Horse-drawn carriages, and later Rolls Royces and Daimlers, would stretch down the Mall as debutantes and their chaperones queued to get into Buckingham Palace. 

In 1923, when Nancy Mitford was presented, she had to wee in a chamber pot behind a screen at the palace because those were the only facilities provided.

In 1958, Queen Elizabeth II sensibly put a stop to the ball when she decided she’d had quite enough of young women being trotted past her like horses at Ascot. 

My grandmother, Ann, had somehow survived the ordeal six years earlier but times were changing and, as Princess Margaret remarked with her usual tact and diplomacy, ‘every tart in London was getting in’. 

The aristocracy was crumbling and presenting women to court by that stage seemed old-fashioned.

If a tradition was too embarrassing even for the Royal family, you might think it would be abandoned. Not in this case. 

The baton of debutante arbitrator fell to a dapper and very social man called Peter Townend, who’d worked for Tatler and would preside over the show until he died in 2001.

He was just the man for the job: born in Leeds to a mother who was a keen observer of the Royals and the aristocracy, Townend first worked for Burke’s (as in Burke’s Peerage), then for Tatler, and developed a knowledge of the upper classes that might have impressed even Princess Margaret. 

Legend has it that, while serving in the Navy during the Second World War, he hurried back to his cabin to collect his favourite book as his ship went down.

‘Where the devil do you think you’re going?’ barked the Captain. ‘I’m just popping back for my Almanach de Gotha, sir,’ came the reply. The Almanach de Gotha being a directory of Europe’s royalty and higher nobility.

The parties were very jolly during Townend’s reign, by all accounts, even if it was a fading world. 

My mother, Lucy, wasn’t a debutante but knew some of them, and has a good story about one chap of her generation who stuck a pink washing up glove through his flies at the Queen Charlotte Ball, only for one of the matronly organisers to spot this prank and thwack it with her programme. This man went on to become a member of the House of Lords.

But after Townend died in 2001, surely this archaic system was forgotten? Wrong again. Townend nominated two former debutantes to take over as ‘custodians’ of the circus, which meant that, not long before I left Wycombe Abbey school in 2003, whispers started about who was going to be a ‘deb’ in our year.

Not me, thank you very much. Four girls from my year ended up doing ‘the season’, such as it was then, which essentially meant a few organised parties in London and being photographed in Hello! 

‘At least no bloody ostrich feathers or a veil,’ says one of these friends when I quiz her, referring to the old habit of debs sticking three feathers in their hair, again to denote purity. I have promised not to name her because she’s so embarrassed about her involvement.

The Paris ball, meanwhile, only started in 1957, and declares on its website that it was ‘culturally linked’ to the British tradition. Renouard took over its organisation in 1994 and has held it annually ever since.

Both raise money for charities: in September, the Queen Charlotte Ball raised cash for Smile Train, a cleft lip and palate charity. Over the weekend, the Parisian ball raised money for two children’s hospitals: one in Paris and one in New York.

Still, I’m not entirely sure that the charitable endeavours make up for the incredible naffness of a debutante ball in the first place.

‘I wanted to honour the tradition of being a debutante,’ Sophie Kodjoe, one of the Paris attendees, told Vogue after the ball this weekend. ‘I think its history is rooted in sending young women off to the world to be married, but in this case, it showcases how individual all of the women participating are and how diverse and creative everyone is.’

Does it really showcase that? Or is it merely a party to show-off at, attended by some of the wealthiest young people in the world? The London ball seems to attract more women from the Middle East and Asia, and its website trumpets recent visits to Dubai and India.

Its more glamorous Parisian cousin is mainly made up of Americans. Posh British teenagers are scarce at both, these days. 

Young toffs are too nervous to seem posh and privileged, preferring to declare themselves Pilates instructors and DJs from East London. 

They wouldn’t be seen anywhere near Whitehall in opera gloves and diamonds from Harrods. Quite right. The whole fandango feels pretty ostentatious and out-of-date to me.