café society

Definitions

Especially from the late-19th century through the mid-20th century in Europe and America, a culture characterized by continual socializing in bistros, coffee shops, and nightclubs, sometimes extravagantly frivolous and sometimes intensely intellectual in nature but always high-spirited.

countable, uncountable

Examples

“Manhattan café society provokes a lot of writing, most of it about as enduring as a café socialite's hangover.”

“He was one of those who in the 1930's pioneered . . . candid shots of socialites and entertainers out-on-the-town and eager to be seen. . . . His photography became one of the elements on which café society thrived.”

“This was the moment […] when he realised that the free-wheeling café culture of the 1930s or the 1950s – when Jean-Paul Sartre held court in Montparnasse – had vanished. Overall, he concludes (rightly, I think⟳) that the French café is thriving but French café society is dead.”

“Iran's cafe society has been targeted as a fertile breeding ground for dissidents.”

CEFR level