First Pageant Fashion Faux Pas
When I had my first pageant mom experience, I was green to everything. Even though I had what I thought to be massive amounts of 'pageant-ing' researching under my belt, it didn't prepare me enough for some of the things I encountered once we got there. Looking back at some of those old photos, I chuckle because I would NEVER choose any of the hair, make-up and wardrobe selections we went with at that first pageant in a million years!! I will admit, my pageant daughter looked somewhat of a hot mess. But at the time, we thought she looked flawless and everything was peachy. And it was. I guess we were blissfully ignorant. Here are some real, borderline embarrassing faux pas of my first pageant mom experience that looking back, I would advise anyone against.
Pageant Check-in. This is what she wore: A white tank--no it was a 'wife-beater', the kind that's fitted with the ribs. By itself. No jacket or anything. Washed out skinny jeans. Flip flops. Oh, and a cute purple scarf she tied around her waist for a splash of color. She wore matching eye shadow.
Even as we stepped into the line for check-in, my heart was so proud that she was even there, everyone else was oblivious to me. There was one contestant, though, that seemed to stand out. She had on a REALLY cute dress, hair, make-up, heels...she looked REALLY put together. I didn't know who this well put together girl was at the time, but by the end of pageant weekend everyone did because she won the state queen title. Go figure.
Lesson leaned: 'Casual' -in the pageant world- does not mean jeans and a T Shirt! You should always 'dress to impress' and stay in line with the image of the pageant system. If you want to be the queen, you have to look like one.
Rehearsals: There we are... at the formal wear rehearsal in a T-shirt and jogging pants- - behind the cutely dressed contestant in the beige dress and red flower in her hair. At the time I wondered why that contestant was so 'dressed up'. They said rehearsal was "CASUAL" for goodness sake! But once again, ignorance is bliss and hindsight is 20/20. The nicely dressed contestant on the stairwell? She placed top 10, I believe.
Lesson learned: Even off stage, the contestants are being observed--observed by the staff, directors, other contestants, and even parents. Also, when you look good, you tend to feel good. You exude an air of confidence when you look put together. It's kinda hard to exude a confident, best-version-of-yourself self, if you don't look that way.
Lesson learned. A talent costume should be a costume. Not something you throw together real quick. She only scored in the 5's. It was bad. Really bad. Not just because of the less than stellar wardrobe choice, but the choice of talent was mediocre at best-- something you'd gather the grown-ups around during a family function and force the kids to entertain everyone. It was not performance worthy. Live and learn.
Casual Wear and Top Model: We'd spent hours shopping for the perfect outfit and this is what we came up with. Not shown is a bright yellow cropped jacket and turquoise strappy heels. This is one of her Top Model Shoot poses.
Since we had spent hours upon hours of choosing an outfit and practicing poses, I believe it paid off. She ended up placing 4th runner up in casual wear and won top model!
Formal Wear. Formal wear was another rushed decision. We were at Dillard's one day and to our delight, they had their prom dresses on clearance! We snagged this one in a hurry, assured we had found "the one".
However, since we were new to this whole pageant thing, we had no eye for pageant attire. We just didn't know what to look for. We somehow thought that canvassing bare skin with glitter dust all over was a good idea. (sarcasm)
Interview. We put very little thought into her interview attire. She decided to go with a purple pallet on her face, complete with plum red, shimmer-pouted lipstick. Yea, no one told me that was a bad idea. Her outfit? It was another one of those "pull out of the closet crevices" decisions. At least her hair was cute.
She ended up scoring in the 6's on her interview. A somewhat mediocre score. Since we had spent more time languishing over what she'd wear for optionals the entire weekend, we had no time to think about the actual interview.
The next year we took some serious notes and applied our learning. We concentrated on interview and studied the image of the pageant system. With a re-thinking of wardrobe and a solid platform, she entered the pageant for a second time and won!
Overall lesson learned: Pay attention. Learn from your experiences. Be open to CHANGE! Never give up. And, of course, Envision Your Reign.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience! I really thought we were doing well going into my daughter's first time pageant NAM Pre-Teen. There were so many crimec moments on my end. I felt like I had completely let her down! She didn't make top 20, but she did win Spokesmodel! With that, we'll stick to our same plan for that optional as before, but we're definitely making changes for next go around!
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