One of my greatest non-conformist moves in high school was skipping cotillion. Twice.

yeah i found it strange that the OC and Gossip Girl had cotillions – even though ive read all the GG books and the series is COMPLETELY off, and there was no cotillion at all… but i did find it funny that both had one especially since I was recently in one and im from the South.

blasphemy! Of course Gossip Girl is the very best use of my time! :)

Cotillions or deb balls are a lot more common than a lot of people think. Until going away to college I thought they were reseved for those in the south. I have since met girls from Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and the Maryland/DC area that all had such events.

went to an ues private school. though no one ever thought to call them “cotillions”, deb balls were, indeed, a fact of life. so i’d have to say it was spot on having one on the show. however nate wearing grey tails? quel faux pas!

Re: “who goes to a Debutante ball outside of the South?”
Hmmm… don’t know about that. I went grew up in socal ala the OC girls, and pretty much every wealthy girl at my high school had a debutante ball. It was definitely pretty standard there. They were sort of excruciating, but definitely not unusual.

Yes, I’m from Pittsburgh and had a couple of friends who went to a deb ball. They all wore white, actually. Some awful people surely raided David’s Bridal.

i’m from the bay area of california, and there were several different deb balls there. now i am at college and i h ave friends from all over the country who are debuting (however you spell that)
that being said, i had a hard time swallowing the colorful gowns (serena’s was gold!) as well as nate’s grey tux

The colorful outfits were a bit absurd and totally unrealistic. Regardless, I thought Serena’a dress was amazing.

cwtv.com has a fashion video about their dresses for the Cotillion/Deb ball and the stylist explains that they chose to have the girls wear metallics rather than “basic, typical white debutante ball.”
however, they still stuck to the traditional wearing of gloves.
i think it’s awesome that they make the dresses rather than bring them in from outside designers.
but eric daman always sounds like his arm was twisted to make these videos. of course, if i had to promote dress-up sleepovers, i would be annoyed as well.

Actually I’ve read about some of the big NY society deb balls in Vogue and the girls do wear couture gowns, they don’t wear white.
I liked that the Gossip Girl version is sort of traditional and “meaningful” in their society, whereas the OC version is somewhat tacky and seems like its trying too hard. Upper East Side vs. Newport = old money vs. new money?
And cotillions are definitely not just a Southern thing; we have them in Chicago.

I debuted and wore a couture gown, but gown’s always have to be approved by the organization hosting the ball, and metallic would never be allowed… But I am pretty sure the show isn’t going for realism…

agreed with the cotillion thing – i know this is gonna sound kinda off, but it’s kind of a major thing in filipino-american communities, at least the ones in the ny tri-state area. i’ve never had one myself (i opted to go to europe instead) but i’ve been to and been in a couple of my friends’…

did cotillion. wore white. the dance practice s enes brought back horrible memmories…

Both Cotillions were disrupted by someone being punched, too.