Inside The Makeover for Miss World Pageant

By Sohini Dey February 16, 2024

The pageant returns to India after 28 years, highlighting talent, purpose, diversity and cultural exchange. Where is beauty in this pitch?

“We don’t want to be recognised just because we are beautiful. We have no control over that—that’s pure genetics. Thanks mom, thanks dad,” Vanessa Ponce de León, Miss World 2018, said at a press conference in Delhi, drawing laughter. Ponce, 31, the oldest contestant to have won the pageant (she was 26), was recalling her experience of entering the contest as a model with a reality TV win in Mexico’s Next Top Model. “I met doctors, and engineers and diplomats,” she added. “These women were not only beautiful. They had something more to bring to the table.”

Ponce has been in Delhi since last week (February 8) with a number of other Miss World winners, including the reigning title holder – Karolina Bielawska of Poland. For the press meet, they were joined by Indian actor Manushi Chhillar, Miss World 2017, all coming together to launch the 71st Miss World—which India is hosting, after 28 years. What has stood out about this edition is the pageant’s positioning—as a cultural event, not a beauty contest.

India is hosting the 71st edition of Miss World, after a gap of 28 years.

(L-R) Stephanie Del Valle, Miss World 2016; Karolina Bielawska, Miss World 2022; Julia Morley, co-founder of the pageant; Vanessa Ponce, Miss World 2018 and Toni-Ann Singh, Miss World 2019 at the pageant launch conference in Mumbai. Instagram/MissWorld

A ‘Festival’ for Cultural Exchange

This edition of Miss World is curated as a month-long festival, featuring 120 participants. An opening ceremony on February 20 in Delhi will be followed by various rounds, at venues like the Bharat Mandapam, ahead of the final evening on March 9, at Mumbai’s Jio World Convention Centre. Among other activities, the participants are slated to interact with members of the Indian police and armed forces. The opening will include a gala by the India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC), and organisers highlighted the event’s tourism potential; including the impact of participants posting about events and destinations on social media.

Julia Morley, co-founder of Miss World, shared an anecdote about Sanya, the resort destination in China which has hosted the pageant eight times; local authorities have credited the event for a tourism spike. Sanya was little known before hosting Miss World for the first time in 2003. In comparison, the India edition will take place across two of its biggest cities both of which have been sites of major global events, particularly last year—from the opening of NMACC and the Dior show in Mumbai to the G20 Summit in Delhi. Rather than blazing a trail, Miss World is riding this wave of global popularity. But in assembling 120 participants (and their entourage), there emerges some validity in the organisers’ claim that the contest is “bringing the world to India and India to the world.”

In this handout photo, Karolina Bielawska and Miss India World 2022 Sini Shetty (L) ride a boat in the Dal lake in Srinagar in 2023. Jammu and Kashmir Tourism Department/AFP

Miss World organisers spotlight its tourism potential.

Talent and Purpose First

The ‘India meets world’ promise echoes the pageant’s last India outing in 1996, when advertisements announced: “the time has come for the world to see…what real India is all about.” Ironically, the response to the event had been widespread protests for disrespecting Indian values and promoting vulgarity. The unrest was so severe that organisers shifted the edition’s swimsuit round to Seychelles. Across various pageants, swimsuit rounds have long been criticised for objectifying women and promoting harmful body standards. Miss World scrapped its ‘Beach Beauty’ round in 2015, significant for a contest whose first winner—Kiki Håkansson, Miss World 1951—was crowned while dressed in a bikini.

(L-R) Reita Faria, poses after being elected Miss World; Aishwarya Rai in the swimsuit parade during the finals for Miss World 1994. AFP

Swimsuit rounds have been criticised for objectifying women and promoting harmful body standards. Miss World scrapped its ‘Beach Beauty’ round in 2015.

Other events now take the spotlight—such as Sports Challenge (which will take place in Delhi this month) and Talent. Toni-Ann Singh, Miss World 2019 and the longest-reigning title holder, was spotlighted as a Talent round winner and spoke about how her win paved the way for a musical career.

The round given the most importance, is ‘Beauty With A Purpose’ in which contestants present a charity project they are undertaking in their countries. The round has existed since 1972, but has become a prominent part of the branding—contestants are now called, Beauty With A Purpose Ambassadors. Manushi Chhillar, whose project to make sanitary products accessible in India won her the round in 2016 and subsequently the main title, observed that this is the crux of the contest. “Miss World and what they stand for, is for a girl who will take their mission forward,” she said answering a question during the conference. “This has nothing to do with beauty standards…that will keep changing.”

A file photograph of Manushi Chhillar during a parade in New Delhi on December 3, 2017. AFP

Is Beauty Irrelevant?

At a time, when diversity and unconventional looks demands the attention of the global beauty industry, the Miss World Organisation too is emphasising on it. Right down to the curation of the winners for the press conference. The five winners included Puerto Rico’s Stephanie Del Valle, who won the title in 2016—when she won, Del Valle was a skinny 19 year old. Now, as a curve model represented by New York Model Management, she spoke about her initial insecurity and coming to terms with her body.

Singh, who is of part Indian descent (her paternal family moved to Jamaica from Kanpur), noted longstanding prejudices against people of colour. “I am so aware of the representation it is, to look like the way I look, to be able to wear the blue crown,” she added. “What I am very grateful for Miss World is that our focus is so much the purpose that that everything else is secondary.”

But, can there be purpose without beauty? For all their racial diversity and distinct personalities, the winners—and pageant contestants, overall—do not break the mould of beauty. They are groomed to look good, and it is part of what makes them aspirational. Talent and intent boost one’s chances of winning, but beauty is inherent to the framework. Repositioning strategies only go so far; for real, enduring cultural relevance, pageants must change, even challenge what it means to be beautiful. Beginning with the forthcoming edition, time will tell if Miss World is up to such radical disruptions.

Banner: Toni-Ann Singh, Manushi Chhillar, Karolina Bielawska, Stephanie Del Valle and Vanessa Ponce at the press conference in Delhi to launch the 71st edition of Miss World. Photograph: Rishabh Batra

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