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5:32pm Thursday 5th July 2007
An 18-year-old from Aldenham, crowned as Miss Hertfordshire in June, has come fifth in the Miss England Final.
Samantha Freedman was fast-tracked into the final 30 after receiving the title of Miss California Tan, a prize for the model who makes the best use of fake tan. Miss Freedman won a year's supply of the product. She said: "I love fake tan, I use it all the time."
Models were also required to perform a talent. "I did kickboxing," said Miss Freedman. "We had to send in DVDs of our talent, and then 30 of us were chosen to perform. I was chosen because kickboxing is original. A lot of the models were singing."
After reaching the final, Miss Freedman was picked for the last 15, and then the last seven. The results were announced on Saturday, and Miss Freedman was confirmed in fifth place. She said: "It happened so quickly I wasn't really thinking about it, but then it hit me."
Janet, says...
5:06pm Sun 15 Jul 07
Natalie Smethwick, Oxfrod says...
12:49am Sat 21 Jul 07
Tanya, London says...
1:16am Sun 22 Jul 07
Becky Chapman, Cornwall says...
3:55pm Wed 1 Aug 07
Natalie Smethwick, Oxford says...
6:19pm Tue 14 Aug 07
Sharon, England says...
8:39pm Tue 12 Feb 08
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Natalie Smethwick, Oxford says...
12:31am Fri 13 Jul 07
For many years now the old fashioned style beauty contests, fondly remembered by many, with bathing beauties parading around a swimming pool in bikinis and high heels has long been a thing of the past. The PC brigade and womens' lib movement soon put an end to what they saw as the exploitation of women and the promotion of the female form as a sex object. In many ways this was a huge mistake as beauty contests went on almost unnoticed by the public and media, driven underground to take place in seedy nightclubs, hotels and the occasional village hall or community centre. In this country we only saw the occasional glimpse of a Miss World winner presenting an award, disgraced wannabe wags on mind numbing reality TV shows, or on a chat show if she just happened to be Chris de Burghs daughter. This has unfortunately left this so called industry very much to its own devices.
In the old days we thought of the exploitation of beauty queens in the simplest forms. Pretty but no brains, men ogling at their beauty and their curvaceous figures, and being used as marketing tools for whichever contest organiser/promoter they had chosen to enter.
Sadly today the exploitation is much more subtle and sinister and not only involves the girl herself but her family, friends, colleagues and possibly even the residents of the town/city where the girl happens to live.
It works like this - the national organiser will sell an area franchise to a local heat organiser. They in turn will pay a license fee to enable their winner to go through to the national final, usually in the region of £1000 - £2000. Nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately after the local heat organiser has paid their license fee they can pretty much run their heat as they see fit. They can charge whatever entry fee to contestants they like. This is often dressed up in the form of finding a sponsor, i.e. a local business in the area that the possible contestant resides. Sadly that is often not the case, and if a girl is desperate enough to enter her family will usually pay the so called sponsorship fee, anything from £50 - £1500. Once the sponsorship fee has been paid, then surprise surprise the entrant is then offered a fantastic FREE photo shoot of a lifetime. I am not going to say that the photographer doesn't do a good job; usually the photographer does a fabulous job, making what are very often quite plain girls with high aspirations into real beauties. But then it is in their interest to do so, as although the actual sitting is free, they will charge large sums for photographs/portfoli
os sold to the girls, and then pay commission to the local and national organisers. Sadly this scam is well known to work best with the girls who are not the best looking and stand less chance of actually being very successful in the modelling/contest circuit. They will nearly always buy the most pictures as they are not used to seeing themselves look so glamorous. Most of the real contenders already have large portfolios and often receive professional pictures free in exchange for the photographer to use the pictures for his/her own promotion.
Then the next big money earner, on both local and national levels, there is nearly always a text vote involved. The poor contestant is supposed to raise her profile in the local media, get as much support as possible so that she will get her supporters to vote her. Texts votes cost in the region of 60p-£1.00 per text, so it would have to be a very loyal town /city supporter to actually bother to vote. Again it is the poor old contestants family, friends and work/university colleagues who have to foot the bill, making it not a beauty, intelligence, or talent contest as the organisers would have you believe, but at best a local popularity contest, and at worst the girl with the wealthiest family wins. Many girls families run up huge bills in the hope that they will be able to fast track their daughter through to the next round of the contest, I was told of one girls mother running up a bill of over £500, in the sad delusion that if her daughter then won the text vote competition she would automatically get through to the national final. Sadly the organisers forgot to mention that the text vote (at this stage) only picks the final five. The organisers will still choose their favourite girl from that final five. If you challenge any of the organisers on this matter, they will always say the same sort of rubbish.
1/ All the girls knew that a text vote was part of the competition.
Not true. Most contestants would not be made aware of this until after they had paid their entry fee/sponsorship money which as a rule is non-refundable, so they dont really have a lot of choice.
2/ If its good enough for X Factor, Big Brother, etc etc. Then its good enough for us.
All the organisers seem to selectively forget that programs such as these have massive national media coverage. Meaning that any demographic bias would be inconsequential. Where as their contests are lucky to get even local newspaper coverage, so the starting point is not quite the same.
Let us also remember, that although these text votes are not actually run by the organisers themselves, as with all competitions of this nature, as we have seen in many cases recently, this way of so called public voting is open to abuse and rest assured as the vast majority of these organisers are in it purely for the money, they dont have any reputation to up hold, they are not going to ask for an independent audit as that would cut into their profit.
If a girl is actually successful and wins a local heat, she will then more than likely have to go through all this again, only on a national level. If she didnt fall for the photo shoot scam the first time, pressure will be put on her again as her current pictures wont be good enough for the national program/website etc.
Another misdemeanour of this whole farce is that the organisers will always be involved with a charitable organisation of some kind. This is used purely to promote their contest and give it some credibility. Dont get me wrong, usually the charity concerned does receive a donation from the contest, sometimes quite sizeable, so you cant blame the charities for lending their good names to these types of contests. But all this money will have been raised by the contestants themselves, in their fight to become Miss Charity, and again be fast tracked into the final, as a rule no money will come from the actual organiser themselves, and some have in the past deliberately mislead the contestants and the general public into believing that the contest as a whole is being run solely in aid of their designated charity. I have only ever known this to be the case once.
The next big money earner for these organisers is the actual show final. Tickets for these events range greatly in price anything from £20 to £250, and even though there would be no show without them, certainly at national level, there are no complimentary or discounted tickets made available for the contestants family and friends. Once again they have to dig deep to support their daughter. When organisers are questioned about this, they blame the show overheads. Whilst it can be very costly to stage such an event, chances are for many items i.e. venue, sound and lighting, stage set, choreographer etc, some sort of sponsorship deal will have been done, in an attempt to ensure that they will actually pay for as little as possible.
Sadly on most occasions that a girl completes an entry form for one of these contests, she is often regarded as 'the goose that laid the golden egg'. A carrot will be dangled in front of her offering the possibility of success, fame and fortune, but she may have to jump through many expensive hoops, to get to that end. In deed it is worth remembering that the vast majority of these contests, other than the prize package they advertise, have no modelling contracts or work set up for their winners, it is purely on the luck of what the actual winner is like as to whether she will make any money from winning.
It is unfortunate that we live in a celebrity driven age, unprecedented amounts of people becoming famous for absolutely nothing, and it is sad that the likes of Paris Hilton, Abi Titmuss, and Jordan have become some of our young girls role models.
It is through the dream that such celebrities promote, that these types of contests seem to becoming increasingly popular. I am not going to say that they are all bad. In fairness to them they do promote a much healthier body image, than the worlds catwalks, Victoria Beckham and her ilk. I am also not opposed to any woman being able to use her natural assets to her advantage, and if it opens doors for her, then why not. But surely we do have to safeguard the young and impressionable from unscrupulous business men and women who are selling a dream. The sad fact is that for every girl who does make a success in this industry, thousands and thousands will have had a costly failure. To end here are a few tips on how not to be one of those failures.
1/ BE REALISTIC - If you want to take part for a bit of fun and the experience then fine. But if you are serious about trying to make this a career, then you or your poor old family have to be brutally honest.
Firstly, as we have seen with the size zero debate, few beauty queens make it into high fashion modelling, rightly or wrongly they are just too large.
Secondly, whilst the organisers will tell you there are no height or weight restrictions, (remember they will say that as they want as many entrants as possible), the truth is few girls over a size 10-12, and under 58 will be successful.
Finally, take a long hard look at previous winners, and compare yourself to them. No ones saying that theyre better than you; they just look a certain way and fit particular criteria, could you?
2/ DONT PART WITH ANY MONEY UNTIL YOU KNOW ALL FACTS - There are still some organisers who are not after every last penny they can get out of you, so do your homework! Contact them directly and ask what format their contest takes.
Is there an entry fee and what do you get for that fee?
Is a text vote part of the competition at any stage?
If you are successful, will you have to find your own sponsor?
In all honesty if they are asking for any more than £50, say no thank you.
I would always advise NOT to take part in any text vote competition. If you really feel you must, then be aware it is a gamble, and like all gambles only lose what you can afford to lose, because lose will be the most likely outcome.
3/ PICTURES - You will at some stage need to invest in some decent pictures. So if you are offered a complimentary photo shoot by all means take it, but dont feel pressured into buying the pictures, and only buy if you are really happy with them. Dont believe that by buying the most pictures or buttering up the photographer will give you more of a chance in the competition, it wont. Also dont just use any local photographer without doing your research. Most will specialise in weddings, and will have little or no experience in fashion photography, so check their websites if they have one, or ask to see samples of their work.
It might be worth contacting a university or college in your area, to see if they have photography as part their syllabus. If they do they may sometimes require models for shoots, and you may get some innovative and artistic pictures for a fraction of the normal fees. As with everything - BE CAREFUL. This area of the industry is notorious for certain photographers to try and snare young girls into glamour work, or even ****, with the promise of fame and fortune as the bait. DO NOT do anything that you are not happy to do, and if possible always take a friend or relative with you to any shoot.
5/ COSTS - As with everything nowadays there will be legitimate costs involved. You will need outfits, make-up, hairdressing, travel and possibly pictures. If you get through to a national final, you will have a whole wardrobe structured around the show to find. So be prepared, and have a budget ready.
4/ MODELLING As previously stated very few beauty queens make it into fashion modelling. If that is your dream, and you are the right shape, height and have the right look, you are far more likely to be discovered at somewhere like The Clothes Show than at any beauty contest. Again do not sign up for any agency that asks you for a fee. If an agency really thinks you have what it takes, they will want you on their books and you will make money together. If in doubt contact the top agencies directly. Agencies like Storm, are always looking for new talent and will give you a sometimes brutally honest assessment of your chances, but at least you will know the truth.