On March 9, 2024, the Miss World 2023 pageant was held to choose a beauty queen once again. The crown went to Krystyna Pyszková of the Czech Republic. To honor this event, we decided to take a look at the history of the contest and find out how the jury’s approach to assessing women’s beauty has changed over the decades.
1950s: it all started with a scandal.
Kiki Håkansson (Sweden), Miss World 1951
In 1951, as part of the Festival of Britain, the Festival Bikini Contest was held, which journalists later named Miss World. This event became a scandal because in those days a bikini was considered indecent.
Swedish beauty Kikki Håkansson became the winner of this first pageant. And to this day, she remains the only winner to have received her crown while wearing a bikini. Later, the finalists would wear a one-piece swimsuit or evening gown to the awards ceremony.
Denise Perrier (France), Miss World 1953, and Marita Lindahl (Finland), Miss World 1957
Despite the 1951 bikini scandal, the contest founder Eric Morley was pleased with the public attention and decided to hold the pageant annually. His requirements for potential participants were as follows: single women without children aged 17 to 27.
Corine Rottschäfer (Netherlands), Miss World 1959
In 1959, a major British television channel agreed to broadcast the pageant, thus making it even more popular. Corine Rottschäfer found herself in a delicate situation before the awarding ceremony when she discovered that her evening gown had holes in it. Another contestant lent Corine the dress and eventually finished third, while Corine became the winner.
1960s: Miss World is gaining momentum.
Katharina Lodders (Netherlands), Miss World 1962
In the 1960s, the Miss World pageant became one of the most watched television shows. The cash prize for the winner was increased from £500 to £2,500. In 1961, the requirements for contestants were also changed: the upper age limit was now 25 years old.
Katharina Lodders, who was crowned in 1962, addressed these criteria in her own way. On collecting the award, she said out loud, «I don’t think I’m the most beautiful girl in the world — I am the most beautiful girl here.»
Ann Sidney (Great Britain), Miss World 1964
In 1964, the winner was Ann Sidney, who later made a career in the movie industry. By the way, Morley introduced a new rule that same year: he forbade the mothers of contestants to accompany their daughters. The reason why was because the mother of one of the girls caused a lot of inconvenience to the organizers, getting involved in their work.
Reita Faria (India), Miss World 1966
In the late 1960s, the contest became even bigger. In 1966, Morley sent invitations to more than 70 countries, 66 of which were happy to respond. And in 1968, for the first time in the history of the event, a married girl was allowed to participate. In the 1970s, however, a strict criterion for the marital status of contestants was reintroduced: single only, period.
1970s: feminists change the essence of the pageant.
Jennifer Hosten (Grenada), Miss World 1970
The beginning of the decade was marked by a new scandal. In 1970, a week before the pageant, British feminists claimed that Miss World objectified women and threatened to interrupt the show. And they did it. When the event was in full swing, some female guests rose from their seats and began to blow whistles, jingle rattles and shout slogans. Later, the movie Misbehaviour starring Keira Knightley was based on these events.
In 1970, Jennifer Hosten won the crown. She became the first black woman to win it.
Marie Stävin (Sweden), Miss World 1977, and Silvana Suárez (Argentina), Miss World 1978
The conflict with feminists forced the organizers to think about the message the pageant was sending to the world. And in 1972, Eric Morley and his wife announced that the event would now be held under the slogan «Beauty With a Purpose.» The contestants were also required to present their charity projects to the jury.
1980s: «Beauty With a Purpose»
Mariasela Álvarez (Dominican Republic), Miss World 1982
In the 1980s, the slogan «Beauty With a Purpose» got another meaning: new tests of intelligence and personality were added to the contest program. In the eyes of the judges, the contestants’ personal qualities became as important as their looks.
Giselle Laronde (Trinidad and Tobago), Miss World 1986
In the second half of the decade, the contest became criticized again. The public in different countries didn’t like the fact that girls were judged only by representatives of Western countries. And in 1986, Morley decided to hold the preliminaries of the contest in Macau and give the Eastern judges the opportunity to select the contestants. The winner that year was Giselle Laronde from Trinidad and Tobago. This was the first time a representative of this country won the crown.
Ulla Weigerstorfer (Austria), Miss World 1987
And in 1987, the organizers ignored their own rule that allowed to participate girls aged only 17 to 25 and let a 26-year-old beauty to compete for the crown. Later, the upper age limit would be made 27 again.
1990s: crisis
Aishwarya Rai (India), Miss World 1994
In the early 1990s, the popularity of the contest began to decline, and major TV channels stopped broadcasting it. But Morley wasn’t going to give up and managed to find ways to organize the contest at a lower cost.
Yukta Mookhey (India), Miss World 1999
In the second half of the decade, the organizers decided to gather a jury of representatives of different professions from all over the world in order to increase the interest of the audience. So, now beauties were judged by actors and actresses, athletes, magazine editors, and top models from different countries.
2000s: a woman takes the reins.
Agbani Darego (Nigeria), Miss World 2001
In 2000, Eric Morley passed away, so his wife Julia took on her husband’s work and decided to make some adjustments. For example, she called the pageant «stupid and horrible» and promised to make it «more positive» for women. She condemned the part of the show where girls had to first parade around in swimsuits and then give interviews about their life ambitions. «Not because I thought there was something wrong, horrible, and unnatural about swimsuits, but I thought you generally don’t feel comfortable if someone is interviewing you in a tux, and you are in a bathing suit,» Julia said.
Rosanna Davison (Ireland), Miss World 2003, and Kaiane Aldorino (Gibraltar), Miss World 2009
In 2004, Julia Morley surpassed her spouse by managing to gather a then record number of participating countries — 107 girls took part in the competition.
2010s: no swimsuits
Megan Young (Philippines), Miss World 2013
In 2013, the contestants traveled to Bali. It was the first time the event was held in Southeast Asia. Also, for the first time in the history of the contest, a girl from the Philippines, Megan Young, won the crown.
Manushi Chhillar (India), Miss World 2017
Julia Morley, who had previously voiced her discontent with overly revealing costumes of contestants,
decided to remove the swimsuit competition from the pageant in 2015. She said, «We are really not looking at her bottom. We are really listening to her speak.»
2020s: what’s next?
Karolina Bielawska (Poland), Miss World 2021
The first event of the new decade wasn’t really big. In 2022, the number of countries participating in the contest was the smallest since 2003 — only 97. The winner was Karolina Bielawska from Poland. Next time, the Miss World jury gathered in 2024 and crowned Krystyna Pyszková from the Czech Republic.
Krystyna Pyszková (Czech Republic), Miss World 2023
Since modern trends criticize various beauty standards, there is a possibility that the Miss World organizers will choose to stop using any selection criteria for future contestants, following the example of Miss Universe. In 2023, the latter removed the upper age limit for contestants. And since Julia Morley suggests that it is personality that should be evaluated, we are sure that changes in the contest are not long to wait.
Speaking about Miss Universe. Here’s what 16 Miss Universe winners look like now.
Preview photo credit Harry Pot / Nationaal Archief / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 NL DEED, Historia de la belleza / Wikimedia Commons, EAST NEWS, Rajanish Kakade / Associated Press / East News
Joan Collins Turns 91: Photos of Her Transforming Appearance through the Years
Her childhood was unconventional as she grew up during the Blitz period. Years later, Joan thought it would be great to do a film about growing up with her sister during this era but her dream hasn’t come to fruition.
Even so, the actress said that as the war continued, she was just a child, unaware of the bombings. She would collect fragments of debris from the streets and store them in her cigar box each evening.
She narrated, “We would draw silly pictures of Hitler. We were evacuated 10 or 12 times. We would be in the tube stations, and people would be playing their harmonicas and singing.”
Despite the chaos, Joan Collins, who deeply loved her Anglican Briton mother, realized that she did not want to live the same life her mom lived. “Mummy was the 1950s housewife, very sweet and very docile,” she explained.
The actress had previously said that her mom, who died at the age of 52, died very young because she never spoke back to her husband.
oan also shared that “My father never held back. I saw him as a figure to look up to more than my mother. I loved her to death but I considered her to be weak and I hated all the clothes she wore.”
The actress’s mother consistently wore girdles, suspenders, stockings, tight bras, underpinnings, and corsets, which Joan disliked.
Joan, who took great care in her appearance, was voted the most beautiful girl in England by a photographers’ association when she was 18. The newspapers asked her dad what he thought about her daughter’s position, he replied, “I’m amazed. She’s a nice-enough-looking girl. Nothing special.”
At this point, Joan had departed from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), developed a passion for French existentialism, admired the singer Juliette Gréco, and dreamed of becoming a celebrated stage actress.
The focus on her appearance was even more as her film career progressed. Joan disclosed that in Hollywood, she faced daily verbal abuse.
She recounted how the makeup department gave her cruel nicknames, such as “Moonface” due to her baby fat and “Scrawny Legs” because of her thin legs. She remembered the department as a large group of women who were particularly harsh and unkind to her.
In 1955, when Joan was 22, she was cast in the biopic about Evelyn Nesbit “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing.” Evelyn was considered the most beautiful girl in New York and Joan was to play her.
So, one day, Joan who was still in the Juliette Gréco character and thus had no makeup and was in jeans with scruffy hair, ran into her director Richard Fleischer. Richard told her, “Oh my God, I cannot look at you – you are so ugly. You cannot go around like that – put some makeup on, get your hair done, get a proper dress.”
Just like her career, Joan’s personal life also had its ups and downs. When she was 17, still a virgin, the actress went on a date with actor Maxwell Reed, aged 31. He spiked her rum and coke and raped her.
“I was 17, but I was the equivalent mentally of 12. We did not have sex education,” she noted. Shockingly, Maxwell became the actress’s first husband. When asked why she chose to marry her rapist, she answered, “Because I come from a generation where if you’re going to have sex, you get married.”
However, when Joan learned that Maxwell wanted to give her to older men for $12,710 a night as long as he could watch, she stood up for herself. After four years of marriage, the two divorced.
In her 20s, Joan lived with several men, including Sydney Chaplin and Arthur Loew Jr. She also had an affair with a married man who was eight years her senior. As much as the man was handsome, witty, and fascinating, Joan said the affair was utter hell and she never engaged in one again.
Hollywood men, including directors, also went after Joan. In her autobiography, “Behind the Shoulder Pads,” the actress revealed that she was offered the role of Cleopatra in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s film on the condition that she got along well with Buddy Adler, the head of Fox, and the chairman of the board.
Joan, who was disgusted by how directors and producers, who were old men, took advantage of young actresses said no as she never wanted to be a part of that. The Cleopatra role was given to Elizabeth Taylor.
In the memoir, Joan also wrote about having an abortion when she got pregnant at 26 with her fiancé, Beatty, a 23-year-old aspiring actor. Beatty convinced Joan to abort the baby because it would derail their career. Years later, she agreed with him, noting that if he had a baby, she would have had to say goodbye to her acting career.
Joan went on to have three kids. She had her first two, Tara and Alexander with her second husband, Anthony Newley. Her last child, Katyana, is with her second husband Ron Kass.
The actress’s third husband was Peter Holm and she is now married to Percy Gibson. Joan announced that she was engaged to Percy in December 2001 and then the pair got married in 2002 at Claridge’s Hotel in London, in front of 175 guests.
The lovebirds, who have been together for over two decades, met when Joan was featured in a touring production of the play “Love Letters” in the US. The Peruvian-born theatre manager also helped Joan edit her novel “Star Quality.”
Many people talked when Joan and Percy Gibson got married because he is 32 years younger than her. Joan was asked to comment on their age difference and she said, “Well, if he dies, he dies.”
In 2023, Joan gushed about her marriage saying that she had found the right man in her current husband, “Oh yes, Percy and I have been married for 21 years and it’s just marvelous.”
Now, Joan is in her 90s but she still has the youthful charm and grace in her presence. When asked if she has had cosmetic procedures done, the actress simply said with a shrug, “If people want to think I’ve had surgery, then…”
Joan added, “You can tell [I haven’t] because I have lines and jowls. When I see women around my age I think: ‘Oh, really? My gosh, I look quite a bit…’ I think I look pretty good!”
The movie star is also needle-phobic and just couldn’t bring herself to have cosmetic work done on her. She attributes her good look, perfect complexion, and youthfulness to staying out of the sun.
She added that her mom taught her to moisturize her skin and use night cream, something she also taught her daughters. Joan’s lovely appearance still amazes her fans.
In April 2024, Joan enjoyed a fun photoshoot for the New York Times Fashion and Style section. She looked radiant in a white cardigan paired with an off-white cap and black trousers.
A fan, amazed by her look, said, “You are simply iconic, dear one, and stunning ♥️♥️.” Another admirer commented, “You always look so beautiful♥️.”
When she turned 90 in 2023, a fan shared a picture of Joan taken on the streets. The actress was in a modest flower dress styled with a white coat, a sun hat, and sunglasses. The fan captioned the post, “Happiest of birthdays to Dame Joan Collins, who turns 90 but easily looks at least 20 years younger.”
At 91, Joan Collins is content with both her personal and professional life. Retirement isn’t on her agenda, as she plans to continue working because of her passion for it.
She acknowledged that performing her one-woman show and staying in a different hotel each night was exhausting, but the enthusiastic audiences and her love for her work made it a rewarding experience.
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