There are no single debutante balls being held in Canberra this year, and experts in the art of teaching traditional manners say social media is to blame.
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Young women and men once took part in the tradition of coming out: being presented to society in a formal, elegant way, the ladies often wearing an innocent white gown.
While the Pony Club community held a deb ball last year, it won't this year. Nor will many schools that once did, such as St Clare's College or Canberra Girls' Grammar.
The closest, according to a variety of sources, will be held in Goulburn.
The tradition of the debutante ball changed with the introduction of social media, said Canberra-based image consultant Lizzie Wagner.
"The coming-out party was to introduce them to society, but unfortunately now with social media the kids are introduced way earlier, because mums put their pictures all over Facebook," Ms Wagner said.
"There is no real 'ta-da' moment. It worries me, to be honest."
While the tradition appears to have been let go for now in Canberra, Ms Wagner holds out hope it will return. "I give it five to seven years," she said. "The deb will become very fashionable again, but not for a while."
The difference, Ms Wagner predicted, is that it will become an event for younger girls from the age of 14.
"People are already out when they're older. A lot of these formals and functions they do now get risque and raunchy, that's why I'm suggesting it for the younger ones, with no alcohol," she said.
She said school formals, while popular, were a terrible sight.
"When they do their formals, they spend an absolute fortune on dresses, nails, hair, make-up, the whole thing," she said.
"It costs the parents so much money and, unfortunately, it's unlike a deb ball where you were taught the social graces, how to walk and how to speak nicely, conversation skills.
"You just have to watch them get out of the car and they're walking in heels like a newborn baby calf, and they scream and run to their girlfriends. It makes me really sad, because they're not taught those social graces."
Ms Wagner said traditionally debutantes were taught manners, ballroom dancing and personal presentation. But in modern times "Facebook classes" would be just as beneficial.
