By Simran Sukhnani

Copyright timesnownews

On December 12, 1972, the Château de Ferrières, a lavish French estate owned by the powerful and wealthy Rothschild family, became the stage for one of the most bizarre and decadent parties of the century: The Rothschild Surrealist Ball of 1972. If your family has the largest fortune in history, it is only fair to hold a grand party at the most lavish chateau in France with costumes that are designed by Salvador Dalí with Audrey Hepburn in a birdcage hat and an interactive maze filled with butlers pretending to be cats. If you find this bizarre, this is not even the beginning and you are surely in for a treat. This ball was unlike any other social gathering that anyone had ever seen. And no, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a wealth of display. But the idea of the ball was to give the attendees an experience of a lifetime, something that reached heights beyond money could touch. The Rothschild Ball of 1972 was an unsettling collision of art, surrealist fantasy and excess that blurred any lines between dreams and nightmares and made one question the existence of everything. Guests were dressed in elaborate surrealist costumes and special invitations printed backwards to be read in a mirror with cryptic code “black tie, long dresses & surrealist heads.” As guests arrived for the ball, the front of the chateau was floodlit as if it was on fire. It also featured shattered mirrors, surreal decor and mannequins to create an eerie dreamlike vibe. Along the main staircase, the footmen and servants were dressed as cats and pawed at each other while they pretended to be asleep. Guests stepped into an atmosphere drenched in Salvador Dalí-inspired imagery, with disorienting lights and labyrinthine rooms designed to make one question reality itself. The entry was anything but normal. The guests were led into a maze laid as an immersive theatrical experience in a forest of cobweb ribbons that was full of surprises every step of the way. Should you at any point feel like you are lost at a point of no return, you’d call a ‘cat’ to ‘help’ you. And as the cat-butler showed you through the dinner, the menu was served with fur. The plates were covered with animal hair and tables decorated with taxidermied tortoises. The food arrived on a mannequin corpse on a bed of roses. At the dining table, every little detail was made especially eerie and ghastly. Forks were replaced with dead fish. Omnilingual cannibalistic puns littered the menu, ‘sir-loin’ here, ‘extra-lucid’ soup and goat’s cheese roasted in ‘post-coital sadness.’ Read More: Nepal Gen Z Protests: Shivana Shrestha, the Singer Caught in the #NepoKids Firestorm The most grisly part was that the animals involved appeared to be half alive and the desserts were sculpted into grotesque shapes. As guests munched away at the dinner table, lights flickered, shadows were made to play tricks and they found themselves to be in the middle of a living artwork or movie scene that was equal parts enchanting and disturbing. The event has since fueled conspiracy theories due to its secretive guest list, strange symbolism, and the Rothschild name, though no evidence supports any sinister claims. Photographs of haunting masks and bizarre outfits keep the story alive. And if that wasn’t enough to send chills down one’s spine, the costumes pushed boundaries. Some guests wore masks that made them look headless while others showed up in bizarre animal-inspired creations dripping with jewels and feathers. Marie-Hélène herself wore a stag’s head mask which appeared to be crying sparkling tears and it was later revealed that the tears were real diamonds. Audrey Hepburn sported a relatively innocent cage filled with birds. Salvador Dalí designed several of the costumes, but didn’t wear one himself. Perfumer Hélène Rochas wore a gramophone on her head. Art references were two a penny. One guest wore an apple in front of her face, a nod to Magritte’s The Son of Man; another wore a chopped up collage of Mona Lisa’s. After more than fifty years, the Rothschild Surrealist Ball is still a topic of conversation but resists any explanation. Semi-curated by the founder of surrealism and played out by the leading ladies of the day, was it a homage to a self-satirising social labyrinth, a power statement of access, a glimpse into the private world of the ultra-elite where reality bends itself or an endless immersive theatre of sorts? Not many would have the answer but thank god someone took the camera so we get to witness the remains of a surreal tableau that continues to disturb, fascinate, unsettle and inspire many of us to this day. Read More: Who Is Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s Wife Who Vowed To Carry Forward His Mission After His Tragic Death?