Two upcoming events on the Sydney social calendar showcase perfectly just how much life has changed in this town.

One is a much-venerated gala ball that has been going for 85 years and was once the litmus test of social standing, the other is an entirely new type of ball, which couldn’t be more different.

Fun and games at the Black & White Ball of 1960.Credit:Sydney Morning Herald

For a few years now I have lamented the changing make-up of Sydney’s social milieu, with the likes of one-trick reality TV stars, docile footy players and rent-a-pose social media influencers replacing the cast of glamorous and colourful characters who once turned up to the opening of an envelope.

In less corporatised times, guest lists were made up of people who provided good party panache, social gaffes and titillating gossip.

Sometimes they drank or said too much, and sometimes they left us in awe and amazement, like the time a couple of young actors, who went on to become big names, went missing at a Cointreau Ball in the 1990s only to be discovered by their host in flagrante delicto in the same portaloo.

Or the time society hairdresser Joh Bailey descended the giant staircase dressed as a huge glittery peacock and almost wiped out half the room with his tail feathers.

Joh Bailey arrives at the Cointreau Ball in 1998.Credit:Virginia Star

Today’s social darlings are a rather yawnful lot, by comparison, often invited based on how many social media “followers” they have, regardless of how many of them are actually humans. They are an assortment of stage-managed automatons who spend their time at such events – for which many are being paid to be there – scrolling through their timelines and posing for selfies which include their various sponsors’ brands. Dull, dull, dull.

Recently, a press release about the upcoming 85th Black & White Ball on September 10 had me deep in this masthead’s archives looking at the long and rich history of the charity event. I was keen to reacquaint myself with this once grand fixture on Sydney’s social calendar, imagining a world of sublime glamour.

In its early days, the Black & White Committee president was a formidable and deeply religious woman named Nola Dekyvere, who struck both fear and reverence in the hearts of young Sydney socialites.

She could grant social life or death on the Sydney scene via her newspaper columns, which also covered such scintillating topics as updates on her pet poodles.

This promotional photograph for the inaugural Black & White Ball appeared in the home magazine in 1936. From left Enid Hull, Anne Gordon and a young Nola Dekyvere.Credit:State Library of New South Wales

In those days names such as Lady Packer (Kerry’s stepmother), Lady Lloyd Jones (matriarch of the David Jones retailing empire), Mrs Strath Playfair and Lady Spender were the fodder of Dekyvere’s florid prose.

Over the years the ball slowly changed with the times, much to the old guard’s dismay. During one ball in the 1980s, the late Lady Susan Renouf and the late Lady Sonia McMahon dressed up as Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe and lip-synched a rendition of A Little Girl from Little Rock from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Some of the older ladies were left clutching their pearls at such a brash spectacle.

Big stars of their day Vivien Leigh, Maurice Chevalier, Bob Hope and Sir Robert Helpmann all attended the ball where Dekyvere’s underlings frantically stuck pom poms on young women’s gowns as they waltzed the evening away in order to judge “best dressed”. Those with no pom poms had to leave the dance floor, crestfallen.

While the pom poms are long gone, other traditions have stuck, like the “Derby”, which sees women reeling in little wooden horses in a race to the finish line. How quaint.

Husband and wife stripper duo “Tamara & Daz” headed to the first Erotic Ball.Credit:Facebook

Indeed, quaint is not a word one would use to describe another upcoming charity event, Sydney’s first adults-only Erotic Ball, which is scheduled to take place at a secret CBD location on October 8.

Rather than Nola Dekyvere, it is the mysterious sounding “Ms Sahara” who is running the Erotic Ball – which is hoping to attract 500 guests, with $1 from each ticket being donated to LGBTIQ+ Health Australia.

Guests will be entertained by some of Australia’s “most sultry entertainers”, including burlesque, pole, and drag performances. There’s even stripping husband and wife act Daz & Tamara, along with various other displays, including the Japanese “performance art” Shibari (about as far removed from Origami as you can imagine), “molten wax play” and your garden variety BDSM (Google it at your own peril).

In fact, pom poms are probably welcome, given Ms Sahara encourages her guests to wear as little as possible – so long as one’s rude bits are tastefully covered.

At least phones and social media are banned from the party, which Ms Sahara explains: “So everyone can leave their inhibitions at the door and party in a non-judgmental and playful atmosphere.”

We can only imagine what Nola Dekyvere and her committee would have made of it.

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