BEAUTY SHOW IN LONDON.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LVI, Issue LVI, 29 January 1909, Page 2

BEAUTY SHOW IN LONDON.

CHIEFLY CHEERFULNESS AND

STATELY DIGNITY.

A really beautiful "beauty show," large, varied, representative, admirably arranged, and with a decision "broad-based upon the public will" was that which opened on 9th December at the Empress Hall, Earl's Court, London, reports the Chronicle. Among the several hundred competitors in this genuinely "international" show were previous prize-winners from Newcastle, Huddersfield, Folkestone, and Sunderland, not to mention beauties from Paris, Berlin, and other Continental cities— and even from India. Of these Qver fifty sought the suffrages of a huge audience, numbering several thousand.

The actual "showing" was done in a monster picture 'frame, within which the beauties posed four at a time, standing shoulder to shoulder in the full glare of concentrated limelights. Before the actual ordeal, the whole bevy marched in slow and imposing procession round the great hall. It was a true "beauty parade," and its variety was quite inspiriting, for absolute freedom had been allowed as to "style." Mincing little "flappers" in fur toques; tall, stately queens of the ballroom in evening dress ; piquante coquettes in summer blouses ; rosy, dimpled country hoydens, and pale-browed aesthetics with a sad .sweet smile — all marched two by two with rivalling grace, while the band played a stately melody, afterwards merging more jovially, and amidst rousing cheers, into "Put me among the girls."

TRESSES OP THE MATRONLY

It may be noted, by the way, as a little touch of feminine pathos, that it was for the most part the more matronly among the beauties who had seen fit to appear in flowing tresses. As it turned out the voting itself was uneventful. The audience judged with keen attention, though the number which each fair one bore at her breast would find itself hailed now and then by some sudden and possibly unknown admirer, whereupon a gleam of unconcealable delight would shine upon the face above.

Among many noticeable charms it may bo remarked that the tallest beauty of all came from Balham. She is only 18, and carries her six-foot-one with the most winning grace. One may mention also that two of the most delightfully chubby, lively, thoroughly "English-looking" beauties in the whole galaxy were, as a matter of fact, a pair of American girl students, who had come from far-away Utah, on the verge of the Rocky Mountains, to spend a merry Christmas in London.

It was common knowledge during the evening that at the head of the twenty ladies elected out of the first round was Miss Mewse, a bright-eyed, dainty little dressmaker of 18, who had come all the way from her native Newcastle to enter the competition. High up upon the list, too, came one of the Utab sisters, and a really bonnie girl from Blackheath. In the main cheerfulness, chubbiness and sheer health scored everywhere against chiselled feature and sad brow.