Miss World

History of Miss World: The year was 1951. The competition was the first Miss World pageant, introduced as part of the Festival of Britain celebrations, and it was the audience it attracted who guaranteed its success.

Thanks to founder Eric Morley’s PR expertise, the first Miss World pageant welcomed a global audience greater than international events like the World Cup and the Olympic Games. The BBC televised Miss World from 1959 to 1979 and Thames Television picked up the contract from 1980 to 1988. At its peak, the show claimed an audience of 27.5 million in Britain alone a figure comparable to that of a royal wedding Fifty years on from the first pageant, Miss World still pulls in the crowds and can boast an annual audience of over a billion.

The press went to town - the world’s most beautiful women, 26 in all, gathered together in one place and happy to smile at the battery of photographers.

The first Miss World, Sweden's Kiki Haakonson, was the first and last winner to be actually crowned in a two-piece swimsuit.
During the first decade of the pageant’s success, the outfits of contestants continued to raise eyebrows and grab headlines. In 1959, Loretta Powell of the United States arrived at the House of Commons in London clad in a Stetson, ruffled shirt and cowboy trousers. She may have got away with wearing what at the time was considered a tad outrageous, but she didn’t get away with her ‘guns’. The two stern-faced coppers in charge demanded she hand over her ‘firearms’ - even copies are not allowed in the British Parliament. ( Read more... )

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