#austrian nobility

[tiaramania]

TIARA ALERT: Countess Leonie von Waldburg-Zeil-Hohenems wore a diamond necklace tiara for her wedding to Count Caspar Matuschka at St. Karl Borromäus Church in Hohenems, Austria on 22 June 2024

[royalty-nobility]

Cosimo II de’ Medici with his Wife, Maria Maddalena of Austria and their son, Ferdinando II

Artist: Justus Sustermans (Flemish, 1597-1681)

Date: c. 1640

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: The Uffizi Galleries, Florence, Italy

Description

Recorded in Medici inventories since 1666, with the correct reference to Sustermans, this family portrait brings together Cosimo II, grand duke of Florence from 1609 to 1621, Maria Maddalena of Austria, and Ferdinando II, ruler from 1628 to 1670.

The canvas seems to be a dynastic commemoration in honour of Cosimo II, a cultured, balanced ruler, with the allegory for Justice on his armour - perhaps in reference to the symbolic role of exemplum virtutis, which inspired both Maria Maddalena in her capacity as regent and Ferdinando, his legitimate successor.

The portrait also stands out for its extraordinary display of clothing and jewels, which are also extremely interesting in terms of costume history. The grand duchess is wearing a black dress with a petticoat in silver and gold, topped with a wide lace collar. Ferdinando wears a cloak with the cross of the Knights of St Stephen, an order created and supported by his great-grandfather, Cosimo I. The most interesting piece is the tiara in pearls and precious stones worn by Maria Maddalena, set with the Fiorentino, a 138-carat diamond purchased by Ferdinando I in 1601 and preserved among the Medici treasures until the end of the dynasty. It was taken to Vienna, where it remained in the imperial collection until the early 19th century, before disappearing into nothing, perhaps to make other gems or just sold and since then, nothing more is known about it.

[microcosme11]

An Austrian noble feels conspicuous

Prince Charles de Clary-et-Aldringen was assigned to deliver a letter from Francis II confirming the proxy marriage of his daughter. The prince was ordered to Compiègne and then to a hunt, but he didn't have the right outfit with him so he had to borrow from French generals.

At the hunting rendezvous, another meal: it was the only time that I found myself at table with the Emperor. It was for me the strangest feeling in the world to be almost next to him, dressed the same as Savary, as Davout, as Duroc. I was wondering if it was really me. Lunch was a ten-minute affair. I was quietly having coffee when, looking up, I noticed that I was the only one there; I even thought I saw the Emperor smile with one of these gentlemen at the fact that the Austrian chamberlain was so leisurely; and at the moment I put down my cup in fear, we all got up.

[Following this is a hilarious description of the hunt. Napoleon kills a deer after many attempts and then asks the prince if he's ever seen such a lovely hunt. "Jamais, Sire!"]

(Souvenirs du prince Charles de Clary-et-Aldringen: Trois mois a Paris...) google books but it's only in French.

[indristian]

Y'know if Activision had straight up been like "Yeah, so there's this Austrian guy and his name is König." I would have maybe been like "Is that a jab at how noble titles are illegal in Austria?" But no, there probably wasn't a thought behind the eyes of the designer other than "What's a funny German codename for the tall man?"

[illustratus]

Schloss Paulenstein by Joseph Holzer

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Franz Schrotzberg (Austrian, 1811-1889) Gräfin Mako, ca.1878 Belvedere palace, Vienna

[omgthatdress]

Sorry if it's a stupid question, but I thought you'd be best to answer it. Why was Coco Chanel's "Little Black Dress" so special? I've been going though your early 1900s tags and knee-length dresses existed way before Coco. Black dresses too. Knee-length black dresses too. What was so special about Chanel? I'd argue that Paul Poiret had a much bigger influence on fashion, with some of his looks being 1920s back in 1910s. So why Chanel became so big? Is it all down to business?

It's historical context. One of the biggest things about appreciating fashion history is being able to put it all in context.

Although black dresses were popular evening wear throughout the Victorian and Edwardian era, the dresses of that era were still over-the-top and extremely fancy. The dress was designed by a couturier, House of Worth being the most influential and popular, silk had to be imported and woven, the beading and embroidery and other details hand-crafted by métiers, and then all assembled by seamstresses in the atelier.

Poiret started out with this notion of radically simplifying fashion. His robe de minute was a sort of proto-flapper dress, and it got its name because it only had two seams and could be sewn up in a minute. In spite of this, Poiret couldn't fully escape Edwardian ostentatiousness, and frequently used exotic silks and fancy detailing, still seeing his designs as works of art. His primary supporters were still the titled nobility of old Europe

World War 1 had everything to do with simplifying fashion. Well, that and the Russian Revolution the collapse of the Hohenzollerns and Austrian Habsburgs and the general collapse of the old aristocracy. Couture houses were forced to close, and Poiret was made to serve as a tailor for the French army. When he re-opened his house, he re-opened to a new world.

Chanel viewed clothes through a much more practical lens, rather than as works of art. She made menswear-inspired clothing with clean lines and few accessories, which was much more in line with the new, liberated woman of the 1920s. The little black dress caught on because it was something every woman could wear and every woman could look good in. It was dependable and practical, thus, "the Ford of fashion." Rather than relying on the old, decaying nobles whose money was running out, Chanel's clientele came from the industrial business class that had an endless supply of new money.

Of course, the world would change again after World War II, and Chanel would be usurped by Christian Dior as the new arbiter of elegance and modernity. Dior brought extravagance and opulence back to French couture, and his nipped-waist designs hearkened back to the nostalgia for pre-war times. Chanel was dealing with the fallout of an affair with a German intelligence officer and had to self-exile from France for several years.

Eventually, she returned, but the brand was out-of-date and diminished. Rather than cutting-edge elegant ballgowns like she had made before, the Chanel brand was pretty much just limited to its iconic suits, and as time wore on, it was considered to be something of a stuffy old lady brand until Karl Lagerfeld revived it in the 80s.

[fafayayarhen]

Austria in bed with France be like: Ughhh fuck me like how you fucked up my empire 😫😫

IM PUTTING YOU IN TIMEOUT ANON 🫵 ‼️

WHO ALLOWED THIS

in all seriousness I'm HOWLING please it's such a peculiar situation that had HRE not been dissolved the house of Austria would remain that, a nobility house of the Habsburg family producing one emperor after the next

It was only after the dissolution that they proclaimed themselves Austrian empire

The hate fuck for France and Austria goes hard I'm so sure

[justforbooks]

Marianne Faithfull, singular icon of British pop, dies aged 78

Singer and actor overcame drug addiction and homelessness to collaborate with everyone from the Rolling Stones and Metallica to Jean-Luc Godard

Marianne Faithfull, whose six-decade career marked her out as one of the UK’s most versatile and characterful singer-songwriters, has died aged 78.

A spokesperson said: “It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of the singer, songwriter and actress Marianne Faithfull.

“Marianne passed away peacefully in London today, in the company of her loving family. She will be dearly missed.”

With a discography that spanned classic 60s pop tunes to the prowling synthpop of Broken English and onto collaborations with Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Lou Reed and more, Faithfull was idolised by fans and fellow musicians alike, and was also celebrated across the worlds of fashion and film.

Mick Jagger, with whom she had a four-year relationship, said: “I am so saddened to hear of the death of Marianne Faithfull. She was so much part of my life for so long. She was a wonderful friend, a beautiful singer and a great actress. She will always be remembered.”

Born in 1946 in London, Faithfull was descended from Austrian nobility on her mother’s side – her great-great-uncle Leopold von Sacher-Masoch wrote the erotic novel Venus in Furs – but grew up in relatively ordinary surroundings in a terraced house in Reading.

After leaving for London in her teens, she met Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who asked Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to write her 1964 debut single As Tears Go By, which hit the UK Top 10. She had three other Top 10 singles in 1965, all of which also reached the Top 40 in the US.

Faithfull also began acting at that time, appearing on stage in productions of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, alongside Glenda Jackson, and Hamlet, playing Ophelia with Anjelica Huston as her understudy and performing each night’s climactic “madness” scene, she later revealed, high on heroin.

On screen, she acted alongside Orson Welles, Oliver Reed, Alain Delon and Anna Karina, and played herself in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1966 film Made in the USA.

Her fame as an icon of “swinging London” was superseded, though, by the infamy that came from her relationship with the Rolling Stones. She had married the artist John Dunbar in 1965 and had a son, Nicholas, but soon left Dunbar for Mick Jagger.

She was often described as a muse for the band: she once told Jagger “wild horses couldn’t drag me away”, which became the chorus line to Wild Horses, and her drug struggles also proved inspirational for the songs Dear Doctor and You Can’t Always Get What You Want. She said: “I know they used me as a muse for those tough drug songs. I knew I was being used, but it was for a worthy cause.”

She co-wrote her song Sister Morphine, recorded with Jagger, Richards and Ry Cooder, and later recorded by the Rolling Stones for their album Sticky Fingers, but her writing credit was left off until she won a protracted legal battle.

Her addiction to cocaine and heroin worsened, and her reputation was damaged by being discovered naked, wrapped in a fur rug after having a shower, during a 1967 police search of Keith Richards’ house, alongside Richards, Jagger and six other men (described by one person as an innocent gathering “of pure domesticity”). “It destroyed me,” she later said. “To be a male drug addict and to act like that is always enhancing and glamorising. A woman in that situation becomes a slut and a bad mother.”

In 1970, Faithfull lost custody of her son, split with Jagger and became homeless, living on the streets of Soho in London as she tried to quit heroin. “I’d been living in a very fake sort of world in the 60s,” she said in 2016. “Suddenly, when I was living on the streets … I realised that human beings were really good. The Chinese restaurant let me wash my clothes there. The man who had the tea stall gave me cups of tea.” She slowly turned her life around, ending an almost decade-long spell away from music with the country album Dreamin’ My Dreams in 1976.

She cemented her comeback with one of her most acclaimed albums, 1979’s Grammy-nominated Broken English, embracing synthpop and postpunk with an affectingly raw, deepened voice. She quit drugs for good in 1985, and regularly released music throughout the rest of her career. Her collaborators over the years included Nick Cave, Damon Albarn, Emmylou Harris, Beck and Metallica. She released 21 studio albums.

Faithfull married and divorced two additional times, to Ben Brierly of punk band the Vibrators, and the actor Giorgio Della Terza. “I’ve had a wonderful life with all my lovers, and husbands,” she said in 2011, excepting Della Terza: “He was American, and he was a nightmare.”

There were other acting roles, too, notably playing God in two episodes of the sitcom Absolutely Fabulous; the devil in a 2004 production of The Black Rider, a musical by Tom Waits and William Burroughs; and Empress Maria Theresa in Sofia Coppola’s film Marie Antoinette.

In her later years she lived in Paris, and reacted to the 2015 terror attack at the city’s Bataclan concert venue, in which 90 people were killed, with a song called They Come at Night written on the day of the attacks.

Faithfull had numerous health issues. In 2007, she announced she had the liver illness hepatitis C, having been diagnosed 12 years previously. She had successful surgery following a breast cancer diagnosis in 2006, and weathered numerous joint ailments in her later years, including arthritis. In the early 1970s, she also suffered from anorexia during her heroin addiction. In 2020, she contracted Covid-19 and was hospitalised for 22 days.

She is survived by her son, Nicholas Dunbar.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[the-arcane-booty]

I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of studying the real-life influences that went into the creation/worldbuilding of Nevarra.

For example: Antiva is based off of Italian and Mediterranean influences, Tevinter has Roman Empire vibes, and Orlais has a lot of commonalities with France.

I’m not saying that it these influences have to be 1:1, but I’m a huge anthropology/folklore nerd and it’s fun for my brain to dig deeper into stuff like this. It supports that fantasy is not just an escapist genre, but a method of deeper exploration of the world we already live in. More beneath the cut:

Nevarra is a tricky one. My initial inclinations were to lean toward ancient Egypt as its primary influence. Mostly their reverence for the dead is one that is very tangible. The mages work with corpses and cadavers, all while tending to tombs and cemeteries. A majority of Thedas deal with the concept of death in a spiritual manner, rather than a physical one, due to the nature of Andrastean beliefs.

The food culture is also described to be inspired by North African cuisine. Lots of flat breads, yogurts, and veggies are dominant in their dishes. It’s common for Nevarrans to be vegetarian. The landscape is also implied to be fertile with agriculture. Such connections are similar to that of societies along the Nile river. Beetles are also highly respected as a symbol. Like scarabs, people collect the wings and display them as decor.

While the Egyptian symbolism and archetypes surrounding death may play a big role in the cultural practices, there’s a few things that are also to Central European/Balkan culture. Like the concept of royalty/nobility more closely resembles the political structure of the Austrian empire. There’s mentions of dukes and duchesses being involved in cultural celebrations.

The artistry is also highly appreciated in Nevarran culture. There are so many artisans involved in making jewelry for grave dowries. There’s expert landscapers tending to beautiful memorial gardens. Sculptors that create magnificent statues to honor the stories of the dead. Nevarran art may seem morbid, but brings the subjects of darkness to light. This is a rather gothic approach to artistic expression and appreciation.

I like to think that Mourn Watch! Rook is artistically inclined as well. Even if it is in a way that is seen as dark or morbid.

ANYWAY I’ll probably ramble more about this later but I am interested in how the cultures mix to create a whole new world :3

[mariacallous]

Like many non-Austrians, I first discovered Vienna’s winter ball season through German-language tabloids. The celebrity-studded Opernball (Opera Ball), the season highlight, is widely covered in the German-speaking world, where it is streamed live on TV and culled for clickbait online. Glittering details are consumed with a mix of aspiration and resentment: debutantes, tiaras, and pricey opera boxes (starting cost: $14,000)! The only sign of the 21st century is a name-drop such as Kim Kardashian, who attended in 2014.

The Opera Ball, I have since learned, is only the tip of the iceberg.

More than 400 formal balls are held in Vienna each winter carnival season. This February, I visited three. The tradition combines the public festivities of the medieval carnival with the legacy of the “Waltzing Congress” of 1814, better known as the Congress of Vienna. Held just a year before Napoleon’s final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, the Congress—a series of diplomatic meetings between leaders of various powers opposing France—aimed to reinstate Europe’s monarchies and hash out the continent’s post-Napoleonic order.

Its more immediate effect, however, was to transform Vienna into a giant ballroom.

With representatives from Prussia, Austria, Great Britain, Russia, and France, as well as assorted royalty and nobility from across Europe gathered at the imperial Hofburg Palace, the prevailing atmosphere was that of a permanent “house party,” observed historian Dorothy McGuigan in her book The Habsburgs. The dance halls were packed, and the streets were filled with music and fireworks; to lubricate negotiations, Emperor Francis hosted evening balls and musical entertainment, including a concert featuring 100 pianos. The enduring epithet of the so-called Waltzing Congress stems from a quip by the rakish Prince Charles-Joseph de Ligne of Belgium, who proclaimed that “[t]he Congress doesn’t work; it dances.”

The Viennese ball season has been celebrated almost continually since 1814, breaking only for the two world wars and recent pandemic. In a country of only 9 million people, it draws more than 500,000 ordinary people out to waltz. Nearly every profession in Austria hosts its own celebration: A nonexhaustive season program includes the Police Ball, the Firefighters’ Ball, the Engineers’ Ball, the Doctors’ Ball, multiple farmers’ union balls, and the Lawyers’ Ball. Some of these dances, such as the Coffee Brewers’ Ball or the Hunters’ Ball, have outlived the imperial-era professions that they were created to celebrate. Others, such as the Ball of the International Atomic Energy Agency or the recently retired Life Ball—founded to raise awareness during the height of the AIDS crisis—are decidedly contemporary.

It was the improbable continuity of 19th-century traditions, however, that drew my attention. The frenzy of the waltz—still performed in the same ballrooms as in the imperial era—echoes a persistent anxiety for Europe’s over-touristed, economically uneasy, and politically pessimistic capitals: On a continent that relishes golden-era traditions yet finds itself slipping in the geopolitical world order, how do you face the future without romanticizing the past?

Viewed through this lens, the ball season refracts the flamboyant anachronisms of a region in transition. Dozens of guests and former debutantes—most balls include a debutante ceremony—described the events to me in terms of glorious contradiction. The balls, I was told, are elegant, tacky, rarified, intimidating, democratic, elite, ironic, gorgeous, decadent, tiresome, astonishing; they are both political and apolitical, accessible and inaccessible, international and decidedly Viennese.

This cacophony carried over to my own impressions. I saw tiaras and hoop skirts and a tattoo of the Sistine Chapel fresco framed in the V-line of a backless ballgown. Orphaned evening gloves and ostrich feathers drifted across the parquet floors of the Hofburg Palace; hair fixtures nested in updos like Fabergé eggs. I witnessed government ministers dance the disco and saw at least six debutantes faint.

I was told by veteran ball journalists that the publications I write for sound “serious and political,” and that a Viennese ball is neither a serious nor political event. A ball is frivolous, they said; a ball is for fun. I don’t disagree. But I also believe that a society’s attitude toward tradition shapes its expectations for the future—and how much that future should resemble the past.

Maryam Yeganehfar, the creative director of the Opera Ball, emphasized the balls’ capacity for rejuvenation and even escape. The carnival festivities were originally founded, she said, to give people “hope, life, enjoyment” in the weeks leading up to Lent, the 40-day period before the Christian celebration of Easter.

“[W]hy is enjoyment always framed as decadence?” Yeganehfar asked.

At a time when Europe’s post-COVID-19 pandemic headlines—on immigration, war, inflation, right-wing extremism, climate change, energy crises, and strained trans-Atlantic relations—often give reason for pessimism, the balls are a testament both to the temptations of nostalgia and to the resilience to party on.

The Science Ball

The first ball I attended was the Ball der Wissenschaften (Science Ball). Oliver Lehmann, who has served as the event’s director since 2014, is aware of the season’s appeal for foreigners: “For a lot of our friends and guests from the U.K. and the U.S., but also from Switzerland and Germany,” he said over a Zoom call before I arrived, “a ball sounds like a sugar fairy tale from a Walt Disney movie.”

Lehmann admitted that there is some truth to that image. But the balls might be better understood as the “Austrian version of a huge networking event,” he said. Even socialists once held balls; in the 1860s, party members at the Workers’ Ball waltzed wearing bright red ties, attracting attention from political censors.

The Science Ball, for its part, brings together representatives from Vienna’s nine public universities, its expansive network of private and vocational colleges, and numerous research institutions to celebrate—and boost—the city’s reputation as a center of innovation.

The Science Ball also has a unique, quasi-political agenda. It was first held in 2015 in part to undercut the claim of the far-right Akademikerball, or Scholars’ Ball, to “scholarship,” Lehmann said. The gathering of right-wing fraternities is organized by the nativist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). In 2014, the annual protest against the Scholars’ Ball turned violent, resulting in injuries and damaged property.

Today, the Vienna government offers the Science Ball its palatial city hall free of charge, signaling its continued support for the ball’s mission and helping to lower ticket prices for attendees. Regular entry is 100 euros, or $107, while students can attend for $43. It’s a win-win arrangement: Scientists celebrate field achievements; students attend on the cheap; local government discredits nativist misinformation; and a city whose reputation for innovation is often overshadowed by its cultural-historical attractions gets to advertise its technical heft.

To Lehmann, the Science Ball’s focus on contemporary Vienna is evidence that the balls have “nothing to do with nostalgia.” When I asked if the recent rise of right-wing nativism in Austria (the nativist FPÖ came in first in Austria’s elections for the EU Parliament this month and is currently polling at more than 30 percent ahead of elections this fall) has begun to politicize the balls, he replied, “Only counterintuitively, because we’ve never sold out so fast.”

When I arrived, the Science Ball proved to be many balls in one. The dancing unfolded through a series of rooms across three floors of the city hall, each with its own band and musical style. The main ballroom, lined with chandeliers and debutante couples in tuxedos and white gloves, opened onto a grand stairwell decked out with flowers. Beyond this lay the sultry tango room, followed by a baroque cloister where a cover band played “Que Será, Será,” and a ground-floor disco crowded with younger guests. The latter venue is where I spotted Austria’s federal climate minister briefly boogying to “Stayin’ Alive.”

This year’s ball was dedicated to promoting more effective strategies for communicating the threats posed by climate change. There were leaflets floating around with a carbon-emissions logic puzzle, plus a cryptic exhibit devoted to whales that featured a fog machine. In the flagstone courtyard, an 8-by-8 meter inflated cube (about 25 feet across), reminiscent of a giant bouncy house, offered a visual representation of one metric ton of carbon emissions; the average European Union citizen emits between 7 and 8 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year.

The importance of these issues to the Austrian government’s agenda was underscored by the presence of Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig and Leonore Gewessler, the federal minister of climate action, environment, energy, mobility, innovation and technology. On the main stairwell, the politicians posed for selfies with students, many of whom expressed interest in climate-related issues. The balls can facilitate this sort of direct constituency engagement. But Gewessler also warned against overstating the events’ political importance: “A lot has changed since the Congress of Vienna,” she said. “As it should in an open democracy.”

She is right: Things have changed. Many young women—including the president of the Vienna student union—took advantage of the gender-neutral dress code, donning smart tuxedos and white ties. The organizers “don’t give a damn” about who wears what, Lehmann said, as long it’s evening attire. A couple of biologists I spoke to with roots in India, who now work at a Viennese research outlet, appeared in a tux and emerald sari repurposed from Mumbai’s wedding season. (The fact that I, too, had worn my wedding dress became a bonding moment.)

A group of American exchange students from St. Olaf College in Minnesota had bought their outfits at a budget shop in nearby Bratislava, Slovakia, about an hour away by train. They were starstruck. “It’s amazing,” one said. Another chimed in: “But the drinks are really expensive.”

The balls’ class dynamics are the subject of much local scrutiny. Open any Austrian newspaper in January and you will find an announcement about the average cost that each guest spends per visit: $371. About a third of that is paid for entry, and the rest on attire, taxis, styling, and infamously exorbitant concessions. Local headlines decry $15.50 pints and $17 Wiener sausages. In 2022, an Austrian state governor went viral for her tone-deaf tip that constituents restrict themselves to owning three—rather than 10—ballgowns.

The considerable spending associated with the balls is also a source of revenue that working-class Viennese—taxi drivers, caterers, dance instructors, and hairdressers—depend on. Norbert Kettner, the CEO of the Vienna Tourism Board, an independently run organization that also receives funds from the city, pointed out that the hundreds of millions of euros that this year’s 540,000 guests spent on the balls filter back into the local economy. At a “styling corner” at the Science Ball, where guests can stop by for touch-ups, one freelance makeup artist estimated that she makes more than half her annual income during the ball season.

Later that evening, my taxi driver explained that he organizes his night shifts around the ball schedule, which he pulled up on his phone; there were five events that night alone. When I asked whether he’d ever attended a ball himself, he laughed: “Just outside!” That is, at the taxi stand.

It’s natural to wonder whether the 19th-century aura does more to promote or impede democratic norms, especially when far-right nostalgia—such as that channeled through the FPÖ-sponsored Scholars’ Ball—is on the rise. The object of that nostalgia is pre-globalization Europe. There is a perception that the continent’s status has declined since then: The eurozone’s respective share of the global GDP, for example, has fallen by more than a third since 1960. On the other hand, Europe remains comparatively wealthy; Austria’s per capita GDP is the 14th-highest in the world, according to International Monetary Fund estimates.

Meanwhile, as war rages on in Ukraine, Sudan, and the Middle East, the EU Agency for Asylum predicts that 2024 could bring the highest number of asylum-seekers to the bloc since 2015, when 1.3 million refugees arrived in Europe, about half of them from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Just before this year’s carnival season, the 35-year old Austrian right-wing extremist Martin Sellner presented a bone-chilling “remigration” plan for migrants, asylum-seekers, and “unassimilated citizens” at a November conference of far-right actors near Berlin. He has since been banned from entering Germany.

The balls appear to offer a welcome respite from these thorny challenges—if they don’t feed back into the well of nostalgia from which these troubling political headlines are sourced.

Around midnight at the Science Ball, a psychology master’s student from Bavaria took a break from her heels on the red-carpeted stairs. She told me that this was her second time attending the event; she and a friend visited last year as well to celebrate the conclusion of a dreaded statistics exam.

“We love it,” she said, gesturing at the glittering crowd of young people posing for pictures behind us, “but we also hate it.” In her view, ball culture is elite and exclusive, reserved for the rich—but more so at other events than at this one. All the same, she conceded, “Why not feel super special? For 40 euros, look what you get.”

The Coffee Brewers’ Ball

Hosted by the Club of Viennese Coffeehouse Owners, the Kaffeesiederball, or Coffee Brewers’ Ball, is another of the season’s most-anticipated events. It celebrates and promotes the history of Vienna’s famous coffeehouse culture, which was inducted into the UNESCO list of intangible world heritage practices in 2011. Were there a people’s choice award for balls, the Coffee Brewers’ Ball would likely win; multiple guests, none of them coffee brewers, told me that it’s the most beautiful ball of the season.

The stately Hofburg Palace, where the ball was held, took on the atmosphere of a black-tie nightclub. Attendees—whose ages spanned from 18 to 80—had traveled from Munich to celebrate a 40th birthday; from Dubai, for the glamour; from Austria’s southern Carinthia region to see the scheduled performance by the Vienna State Ballet; and from northern Austria, to see a disco cover band (called the Bad Powells). Most were from Vienna itself. They had come to see the Hofburg, whose status as the former imperial palace lends the events held there a particular lure and elegance.

The guests were there, above all, to dance: the polka, the quadrille, the polonaise, and the tricky Viennese “left waltz,” in which couples follow a double rotation, revolving on their own axes while simultaneously orbiting the room, like planets hurtling around the sun. The dancing spilled from the main ballroom into gold-trimmed apartments leading deeper and deeper into the palace; I finally reached a dead end at the storied Redouten Rooms, which ball-enthusiast Empress Maria Theresa renovated in 1748 to better accommodate waltzes and masquerades. That evening, they had been furnished with neon lights, a gin bar, and a DJ spinning techno.

The balls have long dramatized a broader European tug-of-war between democratization and aristocratic control. From the 16th to 18th centuries, the monarchy strove to regulate, then ban, public masquerades and dances in the weeks leading up to Lent. The prohibitions were issued on the grounds of mischief (murders were known to be committed from behind the anonymity of carnival masks) and the threat of popular uprising.

Meanwhile, the nobility began to host their own masquerades in private ballrooms such as the Redouten Rooms. When Emperor Joseph II opened these rooms to the nontitled public in 1772, the nobility retreated once again to exclusive spaces, where they could better monitor the guest list (and, by extension, the marriage market). The same trend followed the rise of public dance halls at the turn of the century, when every profession began to hold its own celebrations.

Today’s balls are also increasingly international and cross-cultural. “Twenty years ago,” a 40-year-old Viennese guest told me, “you wouldn’t see so many international guests.” This year, he had brought two friends from Paris. As the night wore on, I also met a fashion journalist from Switzerland, a reporter from South Korea, and a correspondent from Munich. In one of the palace’s many golden bars, a local journalist pointed a camera at two models posing in a black tuxedo and a frothy pink gown. When I asked what the photoshoot was intended to advertise, he gave a cheerful answer: “Vienna!” The staged images will run in an international travel magazine.

For European states, the continent’s golden era is readily monetizable through foreign tourism. In cities such as Barcelona and Amsterdam, the annual total of visitors outnumbers locals by more than 10 to 1, prompting some local governments to dissuade further travelers from coming. Today, tourism makes up almost 10 percent of Austria’s economy, the same share as for the eurozone as a whole, which also claims more than 60 percent of the world’s international leisure travel.

There are many reasons to be drawn to the continent; Vienna itself is frequently ranked as the world’s most livable city. Yet among locals, the pandemic, climate change, and geographic proximity to Russia’s war in Ukraine can contribute to a mood of perceived domestic decline.

One former debutante reflected on her experience with a contagious nihilism: “Europe is lost,” she said. There’s “Ukraine,” and “nobody has money. Everything is fucked, basically, so why not party?”

It is not the kind of sentiment that will make the travel magazine spread.

Despite signs of disillusionment, Kettner—the Vienna Tourism Board CEO—said that young people such as the former debutante have “rescued” the balls. The discotheques and increasingly gender-neutral dress codes are part of a concerted effort to appeal to younger generations.

It’s been successful: Debutante classes ahead of the balls, which draw from the under-30 crowd, are full at the city’s top dance schools. Post-pandemic participation across all ages has risen from 520,000 in 2019 to an estimated 540,000 in 2023. The challenge of keeping the ball season relevant is a microcosm for Europe’s overall challenge: How to protect proud cultural traditions while also making sure that they can keep up with the times.

The Opera Ball

This official state ball, the “ball of all balls”—Austria’s most beautiful, decadent, and exclusive event—arrived on the scene in the year 1935. It is a fundraiser, with revenues flowing to the Vienna State Opera, in whose building the dance is also held. In 2019, the event raised  the equivalent of more than $1.1 million for the national opera and ballet.

In recent years, the Opera Ball has also developed a side reputation for celebrity antics. This is in large part thanks to Austrian reality TV star and businessman Richard Lugner; the reveal of his date is an annual tabloid event. In 2005, Lugner was accompanied by former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, who, headlines gleefully reported, refused to dance with him. His other previous companions have included Pamela Anderson, Kim Kardashian, and Grace Jones. This year, he took Priscilla Presley.

A livestream broadcast of the ball is popular with viewers at home. This winter, more than 1.6 million Austrians and 1 million Germans tuned in.

The Opera Ball, with its outsized media footprint, also attracts dissenters. An annual demonstration that has been held on the same day as the ball since the late 1980s has become as much a part of the tradition as the waltz itself. Organized by the Communist Youth of Austria, this year, 400 to 600 people marched to the slogan “Eat the Rich.” More specific demands included a nationalized housing policy, the reinstatement of a national inheritance tax, and wage increases to keep pace with inflation.

The group’s media relations manager, Johannes Lutz, said that the protest stands against the inequity that the Opera Ball “symbolizes” rather than the ball itself. The minimum entry price of about $426 ($38 of which is earmarked for charity) is a point of contention; basic tickets for the season’s other exclusive balls range from $107 to $208.

Yeganehfar, who has served as the creative director of the Opera Ball since 2023 and also runs a successful local event production company, conceded that the ball “has its price.” She compared it to a major sporting event: Some fans will save up to attend, but many more will watch from home. (By comparison, the average ticket price to attend an NFL football game in the United States was $377 in 2023.) It is precisely because ordinary people “save up to be in this room” that Yeganehfar said she aims to make the Opera Ball so memorable.

“This is the most beautiful event in the entire country,” she said. “We should put it on a pedestal.”

The ball unfurled throughout the entire opera house—onstage, in the wings, in the basement, and in the many gilded bars and cafes—lending a night-at-the-museum giddiness to the evening. From a lobby erupting with Pink Floyd roses, arriving parties filtered through linoleum hallways and past dressing rooms usually reserved for singers and ballerinas. The dancing took place on the stage itself, which had been extended over the orchestra pit.

To debut at the Opera Ball, one breathless young debutante told me, is to occupy the same stage where the “the greatest singers in history” have performed.

The idea that the Opera Ball is something “you should see once in your life” is a sentiment that I heard from guests again and again. A couple from Berlin—a retired secretary and the manager of a hydrogen firm—said they were in attendance because Vienna is “the city of music.” Eight middle-aged women from Kyrgyzstan had arrived in matching pastel gowns after discovering the Opera Ball on the internet. Two Austrian students—a couple studying education and social anthropology, whose gelled hair and all-black palette gave the requisite dress code a punk twist—told me that they are usually at the leftist demonstration outside. This year, they’d saved up to attend the ball itself, saying, “[o]nce at the Opera Ball, the rest of the time at the protest!”

Onstage, I was asked to participate in a disastrous waltz. A ball veteran leading me through the polka, a step I do not know, insisted that the point of the Opera Ball is to escape reality. “For one night,” he said, “you don’t think about war or poverty. You just celebrate.”

But we were thinking about these issues—he mentioned them without my prompting. Awareness of the world outside was inscribed in the price of concessions, 10 percent of whose revenues were earmarked for an Austrian charity initiative in addition to the $38 earmarked from the ticket price. I saw three young men pass around a flask of liquor, a common workaround to the exorbitantly priced drinks. Exiting the stage, I dodged waiters rushing into private opera boxes with trays of petits fours and canapés.

This is about “tradition,” guests told me. It’s about prestige. It’s about attending the same ball as celebrities. (Later, I discovered that Italian actor Franco Nero was also in attendance.) It’s about “seeing and being seen.” It is, above all, about the illicit, dreamworld feeling of being where we’re not supposed to be: backstage at the Vienna Opera House and also, possibly, in the 19th century.

In the lobby, VIPs were being interviewed on live television. The sense that I’d fallen through the looking glass became more overwhelming when I stumbled into the basement, which had been transformed into a club. On a velvet sofa adjacent to the writhing dance floor lay a tulle hoopskirt, evidence of someone’s late-night costume change.

Like a hypnotist’s signal, it was my cue to head out and catch my early morning train.

Out in the real world, Yeganehfar’s comment lingered with me the most: “Why is enjoyment always framed as decadence?”

The taxi driver who picked me up outside of the opera house was originally from Poland. Our conversation drifted to the rise of right-wing politics in his native country. “History is turning back on itself,” he concluded, a reference to the ascendence of the far-right Law and Justice party in Poland and the accompanying decline in German-Polish relations. The observation compounded my sense of being drawn through multiple timelines at once.

By the time we arrived at the hostel apartment where I was staying, it was dawn. I exited onto the sidewalk and tipped my driver everything I had. Teetering in the sunrise in a pair of borrowed heels, I wondered if ball critics’ hand-wringing over decadence speaks less to a distrust of pleasure than to a profound sense of dissonance. Europeans still enjoy a quality of life that is the envy of much of the world, yet populists have managed to create—and spread—a narrative of a continent in imminent decline.

“Let us hope the future will be better!” the taxi driver said in parting. I found myself a little too eager to agree.

[dogfancier]

"Gerri von Oberklamm, a well-known, outstanding dog with finished structure and a great deal of nobility. He always shows himself to advantage and always offers to the eye, be he at rest or in motion, a captivating picture."

German shepherd whelped July 1917, Austrian Champion 1921.

[royalty-nobility]

Portrait of Princess Maria Josefa Hermenegilde von Esterhazy

Artist: Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, 1755–1842)

Title: Portrait of Princess Maria Josepha Hermenegilde von Liechtenstein, later Princess Esterházy (1768-1845), as Ariadne on Naxos

Date: 1793

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna, Austria

Princess Maria Josepha Hermengilde Esterházy

Princess Maria Josepha Hermengilde Esterházy de Galantha (née von Liechtenstein, 13 April, 1768 — 8 August, 1845) was the daughter of Franz Josef I of Liechtenstein. On 15 September 1783 she married Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy de Galantha, who in 1794 became the Prince of Esterházy. In 1785 she bore a son, Paul Anton and in 1788 a daughter, Leopoldine.

[allthedesiredusernamesaretaken]

.... endless amount of knowledge ...

The Austrian National Library in Vienna is one of the most beautiful libraries in the world. The Baroque Grand Hall houses over 200.000 historic books.

The impressive Grand Hall is almost 80 meters long and 30 meters high, and is crowned at its center by a mighty dome. The riotously colorful fresco by court painter Daniel Gran shows the "becoming a god" of Emperor Charles VI, who commissioned the construction of the library in 1723. This also stands hewn in marble in the center of the central oval – directly beneath the dome. There are other 16 statues of rulers and nobility of the Austro-Spanish Habsburg family.

[inky-duchess]

Hello Duchess, hope your day is going well! Sort of a niche question, but what do you know about fashion from the Carpathian region around the 1870s? Specifically nobility/wealthy landowners (which I think were called boyars). Thank you!

The Carpathian nobility (Serbian, Slovakian, Austrian, Czech, Poland Ukrainian, Romanian) would follow European fashion so that's bustle skirts and dresses for the ladies and suits for the men. Most of the upper wealthy class can afford the best fabrics and patterns from central Europe. They might encorporate some traditional embroidery, add some local furs.

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Karl von Blaas (Austrian, 1815-1894) Portrait of Countess Gabriella Andrássyove, born Pálffy, 1865 Vihorlatské múzeum v Humennom