Huawei founder’s debutante daughter Annabel Yao: ‘I still consider myself a normal girl’
- Yao, chosen to perform the opening waltz at Le Bal des Débutantes in Paris, was one of 19 young women to make their society debut this year
- Harvard computer science student and ballerina says, ‘As much as I enjoy coding … I have a passion for fashion, PR and entertainment’
While Le Bal des Debutantes in Paris each year is a nod to the tradition of young society ladies entering the elite social scene of Europe, these days it courts modern debutantes, aged 16 to 21, who are chosen for their looks, brains and famous parents – prominent in business, entertainment and politics.
They parade in glamorous couture gowns, waltz with their cavaliers – young men who accompany the “debs” for the evening – and take part in photo shoots and interviews.
The schedule at the event, organised by Ophélie Renouard, is full of young women such as Baroness Ludmilla von Oppenheim, from Germany; Julia McCaw, daughter of AT&T founder Craig McCaw; and Annabel Yao, daughter of Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei – the latter of whom was one of three debutantes chosen for the opening waltz this year.
“I definitely treated this as a debut to the world,” says Yao when we speak just after the ball. “From now on, I’ll no longer be this girl living in her own world, I’ll be stepping into the adult world where I have to watch my own actions and have my actions be watched by others.”
Today’s Le Bal, or Crillon Ball, is a diverse affair, a microcosm of the shifting tides of the global elite. Of the 19 debutantes of 2018, there were young ladies from India and America, Europeans from Portugal, France, Belgium and Germany, as well as Hong Kong’s Angel Lee, Kayla Uytengsu from the Philippines and China’s Yao.
