Evening in Paris

The cloak and swagger game ended with a fairy tale finale last Saturday at the 2011 edition of Le Bal at Crillon in Paris. Last week,the Express first reported the participation of two Indian girls at the lavish European ball for debutantes–Leana,daughter of tycoon Vijay Mallya and his second wife Rekha,and Shaiyra Devi,granddaughter of the Maharaja of Kapurthala. The tall and light-eyed,Leana,18,was dressed in a cherry-coloured Dior Couture gown. A sophomore at the elite Branson High School,Marin County,San Francisco in the US,Leana has never been seen in an Indian publication before. The Bay Area student is is also a member of the Young Professional Advisory Council Jury of a charity network called Make-A-Wish Foundation. Her name is listed on the Fiscal Year rosters of both 2010 and 2011. “Very happy to waltz with my daughter,” tweeted Mallya after the ball on Saturday.

The other Indian girl Shaiyra Devi,the 19-year-old poetess from the royal family of Kapurthala,too is a freshman at Amherst,a top liberal arts college of US. She stepped out in a parrot green couture gown by designer duo Lecoanet-Hemant of India. “Both Leana and Shaiyra live and study in the US; they are sophisticated and cosmopolitan. What I see at the Le Bal is that all these young girls and the boys (their cavaliers) study in the US and because of their work ethics,blend well together,” says Ophelie Renouard the founder and organiser of Le Bal. Renouard found Leana a little more reserved than a usual European or American girl.

“Le Bal has evolved a lot in the last decade,” says Renouard tracing it from being primarily couture defile to a ball with only one gown per debutante and cavalier. “This format has not changed though the families who come here are unique every year. This is the first time that Le Bal had two Indian debutantes. The former Indian debutantes who debuted here were Laxmi Dalamal in 2001 and Adishree Singh in 2009.

Amongst the other young beauties at Le Bal this year was Tallulah,the youngest daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore and Sarah Margaret Qualley,the look-alike daughter of former American supermodel and L’Oreal girl Andie McDowell.