Miss world is one of the oldest existing international beauty pageant created from Uk Eric Morley in 1951.
Since his death in 2000, Morley’s widow, Julia Morley, has co-chaired the pageant with Miss universe, Miss international, and Miss Earth, it is one of the big four beauty pageant.
Startup of Miss World
In 1951, Eric Morley organised a Bikini contest as part of the Britain celebrations that he called the Festival Bikini Contest. The event was popular with the press, which dubbed it “Miss World”. The Swimsuit competition was intended as a promotion for the bikini which had only recently been introduced to the market and was still widely regarded as immodest.
When the 1951 Miss World pageant winner, Kerstin Hakansson from Sweden, was crowned in a bikini, it added to the controversy.
The pageant was originally planned as a Pageant for the Festival of Britain, but Morley decided to make the Miss World pageant annual. He registered the “Miss World” name as a trademark, and all future pageants were held under that name.
But because of the controversy arising from Håkansson’s crowning in a bikini, countries with religious traditions threatened not to send delegates to future events, and the bikini was condemned by Pope3q34 4 Objection to the bikini led to its replacement in all future pageants with more modest swimwear, and from 1976 swimsuits were replaced by everning growns for the crowning.Håkansson remains the only Miss World crowned in a bikini.
In Miss World 2013 all participants wore a onepiece swimsuit plus a traditional Salong below the waist as a compromise with local culture.
Morley announced the Miss World winners in the order No. 3, No. 2 and No. 1. This was intended to keep the tension up, and avoid the anticlimax if Nos. 2 and 3 are announced after the winner.
In 1959, the BBC began to broadcast the pageant. Its popularity grew with the advent of television. During the 1960s and 1970s, Miss World was among the most watched programs of the year on British television.
In 1970, the contest in London was disrupted by women’s liberation protesters armed with flour bombs, stink bombs, and water pistols loaded with ink.
The 1970 contest was also controversial when South Africa sent two contestants (one black and one white).
Henceforth, South Africa was banned from the contest until Apatheidwas abolished. More than 18 million people watched the pageant at its peak during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In the 1980s, the pageant repositioned itself with the Slogan “Beauty With a Purpose”, with added tests of Inteligence and Personality In 1984, BBC! controller Michael grade announced that the corporation would cease to broadcast beauty pageants the next January, after it had shown MIss great britain, saying, “I believe these contests no longer merit national air time.
” He added, “They are an anachronism in this day and age of equality and verging on the offensive.” thames Television broadcast Miss World between 1980 and 1988, when dropped it.
During the early 1990s, mainstream television broadcasts of the event declined in popularity after it became “increasingly unfashionable” in the late 1980s. The pageant returned on satellite channel sky one in 1997. before moving to channel for three years (1998–2000)
Eric Morley died in 2000, and his wife, Julia, succeeded him as chair of the Miss World organisation.
