More than just a beautiful body

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 11

More than just a beautiful body

NZPA-Reuter Panama City Barbara Palacios Teyde, the Venezuelan who defeated 76 other young women to win the “Miss Universe” title, in Panama, on Tuesday said yesterday that she wanted her beauty to be seen as more than just physical. "It’s very strange that I should be saying this because what people are

seeing, of course, is a body and a face ... It’s a beauty contest and they evaluate you as you are physically. But I think the idea of what being beautiful has to change. “A person who has the opportunity to become ‘Miss Universe’ is a person who can have internal beauty, and reflect it and cultivate it.” Miss Palacios did not

explain exactly what she meant by “internal beauty’,” but as “Miss Universe,” she said, she hoped to project a “message of friendship” to a world where “what we most need is love, companionship and solidarity.” Her mother said the “Miss Universe” pageant was “the contest summa cum laude of frivolity.”

“One has to see how thev can overcome that frivolity.” Miss Palacios appeared determined to try. She said in answer to a journalist’s a.uestion, “Frivolity is just inside you,” that it did not have to be let out. Miss Palacios is the third Venezuelan to win the title since 1979, a remarkable average,

given the number of countries competing in the event. “Of course, if I say so, it looks bad, but the women in Venezuela are very pretty.” A brunette with light brown eyes, Miss Palacios won the “Miss Venezuela” title in May. She went on to win the “Miss South America” title a month later. Miss Palacios, an ac-

count executive in a Venezuelan advertising agency, has said that her life-time ambition is to run her own agency some day. “A lot of things in my life may change this year,” she said. “There may be new directions ... It’s very difficult to see the future right now.”