GREAT BRITAIN: Instead of Feathers

One night last week the 1940 crop of 196 top-ranking British debutantes, all of whom would have liked to have stuck Prince of Wales feathers in their hair and gone to Buckingham Palace, stuck flowers in their hair instead and went to swank Grosvenor House. For this war year there will be no court presentations of debutantes, and—at a loss to London caterers, florists, et al. of $3,000,000—no individual debut balls. It was all done at one whack at the Grosvenor, and it was the biggest social event in London since break of war.

Instead of golden thrones on a...