Before I worked in fashion, I discovered beauty pageants. Truthfully, without beauty pageants, I probably wouldn’t be where I am today. From my beginnings in pageantry, I started doing photoshoots, which led to modelling, which ultimately led to my career as a fashion writer.
Discovering pageants must have been fate because they aren’t popular in Australia at all. But on one quiet morning in 2018, in my tiny run-down Sydney apartment, I happened to be on Instagram when I came across what was to be my first beauty pageant.
It completely changed my life.
I’m such a big advocate for beauty pageants (as you can tell), for the empowerment that they give to women of all ages. But also because of the unexpected things we can learn from pageantry and the opportunity for growth in many areas of our lives in ways that we might not initially expect.
So, here are 3 unexpected lessons I’ve learnt - so far - from beauty pageants:
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Building Confidence
My first ever pageant came at a pretty rocky time in my life. I was in a failing relationship, I was struggling with my postgraduate studies, and I was trying to navigate my way through the early stages of my career.
Self confidence was difficult to come by on the best of days.
But during that first pageant, I won a side award for my social media efforts in the lead up to nationals. I didn’t place in that pageant at all, but I walked away with something much more valuable to me than a national title that year - I’d been recognised and supported.
I’d also found people who were similar to me, that I’m actually still friends with today, many years on. And, after coming off stage, one of the judges told me I had “a bright future in pageantry.”
That was all I needed to hear. After an experience like that, it’s no wonder that I got a confidence boost!
I had also met a photographer through the pageant who, a few weeks later, asked me to fill in for a model that had cancelled for a photoshoot at the last minute. I figured: “I just did a national pageant. If I can do that, then I can do a photoshoot!”
Afterwards, I posted the photoshoot pictures on Instagram, and that’s where my modelling career began.
Without that initial experience in pageants, would I have had the confidence to do that photoshoot? Maybe. But the decision to do a photoshoot in the first place likely wouldn’t have happened so quickly, and maybe you wouldn’t be reading this blog post today.
Self Improvement
After my great first experience with a pageant, of course I wanted to do another one! A few months later, I entered the Australian national final for Miss Grand - one of the most prestigious pageant systems in the world.
Not that I really understood that at the time.
I met and spent time with the other girls who had entered, saw the way they dressed, spoke and presented themselves. In the few days I spent at the national final, we did workshops, rehearsed together, and did photoshoots. I learnt a lot about modelling, working with sponsors, and presenting myself. It was basically a (fun) bootcamp.
I didn’t place in the national final that time, either. I wasn’t upset about it. But I saw what it meant to be polished, practised and well presented. These are all lessons that I took with me beyond pageantry that ultimately helped to improve my modelling, presentation skills, professional knowledge, and personal branding.
Career Skills
I spoke earlier about how my pageantry snowballed into a modelling career, which then eventually became a writing career. But pageants offered more than just an open door to new opportunities, they also gave me interview skills which have served me very well ever since.
Pageants require an interview section, where you speak to the judges. It’s one of the most important aspects of beauty pageants. Learning how to speak to judges about who you are, what you do, and what you stand for has given me the ultimate training in how to do a good interview, which is a very important skill for career building.
Before pageants, I used to find it so hard to talk about myself. As women, a lot of the time we’re told to “not boast” or big note ourselves. In pageantry, we get the opportunity to practise how to talk about ourselves, what we do, and what’s important to us. These are skills that transfer directly into our careers, especially in job interviews.
Pageants were the very beginning of some of my greatest adventures, and in a huge moment, I finally placed as 4th runner up in the Ms. Division at Miss Galaxy Australia 2023.
It was one of the most full-circle events I have experienced in my life, especially returning to pageants after a few years of pursuing my career in fashion.
In 2024, I’ll definitely be learning more unexpected lessons from pageantry - I’ve returned as a National Finalist for Ms. Galaxy Australia for the second year running. So I hope you’ll join me in my journey to empower others to follow their dreams, too, no matter how unexpected the path.
Follow me on Instagram for pageant updates and tips on modelling and fashion.
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