AT Christian Dior in Paris, Kyra Kennedy, great niece of the late US president John F. Kennedy, carefully descends a grand staircase in a powder blue couture dress and towering heels.
The 18-year-old has just finished her final dress fitting before a social gathering on Saturday, one of the events of the year at which high society meets haute couture.
The glittering event will see 20 hand-picked “debutantes” dine and network the night away in dresses loaned by some of Paris’s most famous couture houses.
Lord George Porchester whose family owns Highclere Castle, the setting for the hit television series “Downton Abbey,” has also been invited along with Kennedy’s father Robert Kennedy Jr — the son of the slain president’s brother Robert, who was also assassinated.
“It’s my first time wearing haute couture so that’s really exciting, and I’m obsessed by the color,” Kennedy, an aspiring fashion designer, told AFP.
Others taking part include British royal Lady Amelia Windsor, the granddaughter of one of Queen Elizabeth II’s cousins, Francesca Packer Barham, granddaughter of Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer and Romy David, daughter of Seinfeld creator Larry David.
From Asia, there will be Akshita Bhanjdeo of India’s Bhanja dynasty, Filipino ‘It girl’ Monica Urquijo Zobel, and Rebecca Eu, the Canberra-based daughter of a Chinese health care company chief.
Now in her 21st year organizing the event, Frenchwoman Ophelie Renouard makes no secret of her quest to track down as many big names as possible.
In another publicity coup this year, she has secured the presence of London taxi driver’s daughter Lauren Marbe.
The 17-year-old made headlines recently when she notched up an IQ test score of 161, one point higher than Einstein.
“I read about her in the newspapers and so I phoned her up and she said ‘it is not my world but if you invite me I will come’,” Renouard said.
The event at the Automobile Club of France in Paris is based on the gatherings that were once an established part of the British upper class’s social calendar.
These launched well-born young women into society and — with luck — also introduced them to a potential husband.
But the event started to fall out of favor in the late 1950s after Queen Elizabeth abolished the practice of the debutantes also being presented at court.
In recent decades, they have been reinvented as glittering fundraisers with the emphasis on philanthropy and contact building rather than finding a husband.
Among the new generation of event, Renouard’s alone offers participants the chance to borrow a haute couture dress for the night.
“They are not interested in finding a husband, they are too young,” she said.
“What they prefer is the dress, because even if they are privileged they have never been to a haute couture house.”
In previous years “Le Bal” has attracted the daughters of European aristocracy as well as Hollywood A-listers such as Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, Andie MacDowell, Clint Eastwood and Sylvester Stallone.
Donations are made direct by the debutantes’ families to the Children of Asia charity which funds underprivileged girls through school in the Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam. In the past decade Renouard has also been able to tap into the newfound wealth of countries such as China and India.
The event now has a strong showing from Asia but Renouard says she still has to crack Russia.
“I’m not good on Russia. It’s all about networks...,” she said.
As for next year and beyond, she has plenty more names in her sights.
“Every year in January we sit down and go through the files to see who we want. David Bowie’s daughter, I’m waiting for her to grow up,” she said.
“I also want Bill Gates’s daughter and I want more daughters of artists like Anish Kapoor,” she added.
Kennedy’s niece a star of Paris’ elite circle
Kennedy’s niece a star of Paris’ elite circle
In southeast Pakistan, Ramadan brings Hindus and Muslims closer
MITHI: Partab Shivani, a Hindu in Muslim-majority Pakistan, has fasted on and off during Ramadan for years, but this time is different as he practices abstinence for the entire holy month.
Every year, he and his friends in the southeastern city of Mithi arrange iftar, when Muslims break their daily fast, to foster peace and solidarity between the two religions.
“I believe we need to promote interfaith harmony. First, we are humans — religions came later,” Shivani, a 48-year-old social activist, told AFP, adding that he also reads the teachings of the Buddha.
“His message is about peace and ending war. Peace can spread through solidarity and by standing with one another. Distance only widens the gap between people,” he added.
Ninety-six percent of Pakistan’s 240 million people are Muslim. Just two percent are Hindu, most of them living in rural areas of Sindh province where Mithi is located.
In Mithi itself, most of the 60,000 inhabitants are Hindu.
Many of the city’s Hindus also observe Ramadan and iftar has become a social gathering where people from both faiths happily participate.
“This has been a wonderful tradition of ours for a very long time,” said Mir Muhammad Buledi, a 51-year-old Muslim friend who attended Shivani’s iftar gathering.
“It is a beautiful example of harmony between the two communities.”
Like brothers
Discrimination against minorities runs deep in Pakistan.
Following the end of British rule in South Asia in 1947, the subcontinent was partitioned into mainly Hindu India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
That triggered widespread religious bloodshed in which hundreds of thousands were killed and millions displaced.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, freedom of religion or belief is under constant threat, with religiously motivated violence and discrimination increasing yearly.
State authorities, often using religious unrest for political gain, have failed to address the crisis, the independent non-profit says.
But such tensions are absent in Mithi.
“I am a Hindu but I keep all the fasts during this month,” said Sushil Malani, a local politician. “I feel happy standing with my Muslim brothers.
“We celebrate Eid together as well. This tradition in the region is very old.”
Restaurants and tea stalls are closed across Pakistan during Ramadan.
Ramesh Kumar, a 52-year-old Hindu man who sells sweets and savoury items outside a Muslim shrine, keeps his push cart covered and closed until iftar.
“There is no discrimination among us if someone is Muslim or Hindu. I have been seeing this since my childhood that we all live together like brothers,” he said.
Muslim shrine, Hindu caretaker
Locals say Mithi’s peaceful religious coexistence can be traced to its remote location, emerging from the sand dunes of the Tharparkar desert, which borders the modern Indian state of Rajasthan.
Cows — considered sacred in Hinduism — roam freely in Mithi city, as they do in neighboring India.
At two Sufi Muslim shrines in the middle of the city, Hindu families arrange meals, bringing fruit, meals and juices for their Muslim neighbors to break their fasts.
“We respect Muslims,” said Mohan Lal Malhi, a Hindu caretaker of one of the shrines.
Mohan said his parents and elders taught him to respect people regardless of religion or color, and the traditions pass from one generation to the next.
Local residents said both communities consider their social relationships more important than their religious identity.
“You will see a (Sikh) gurdwara, a mosque, and a shrine standing side by side here,” Mohan said. “The atmosphere of this area teaches humanity.”
