Aoife Considine-
It’s half seven on a Tuesday evening. I’m sitting in Starbucks on Dawson Street, wasting time as usual. An American man approaches me, early thirties, tells me he couldn’t leave the coffee shop without introducing himself and enquires as to whether I’m Eastern European. I grunt some snide retort at him, feigning interest, and return to my Metro Herald spread across the table in front of me. Not getting the hint, he asks if he could join me for a few minutes. I glare at him from behind dark, false eyelashed eyes, my face framed by unfamiliar cascading blonde curls. It’s now pushing a quarter to seven and I’m going to be late. I politely decline his offer, holding my steely glare that he seems to barely notice and up and leave.
I arrive at the Grafton Lounge just after a quarter to seven, nicely on time. Already girls are starting to congregate for the evening’s activities organized by afterdark.ie. Dresses are hung up, make-up is touched up, we do the whole; “Hi I’m Mary and I’m in 2nd year BESS,” and we sit around a table waiting to be told what to do next. Some girls are running late so the organiser tells us to sit tight while he makes a few phone calls. He seems nice, pretty genuine, nothing sleazy like you’d expect, my friend from Starbucks could learn a thing or two from him. We get the news that three girls have dropped out and that there’d be only twelve of us competing. I begin to wish I’d followed suit and opted out when I still had the chance, but my perseverance got the better of me and so, I was stuck. What was I thinking? I’m not a beauty queen, I know that world peace isn’t logistically or socially viable, I don’t have the perfect smile and I’m most certainly not 6 feet tall. However, these are things that aren’t necessary to be classed as beautiful. Having the perfect smile might boost your confidence though, which might be why so many people seem to be getting zoom teeth whitening. This sometimes changes a smile completely, maybe I should think of getting that done for the contest to perfect my smile.
Aofie Considine in her ski-suit
I don’t quite know what I was expecting; a group of super skinny, intangibly unintelligent, buxom blondes maybe? Cat fights? Tantrums and Tiaras? Clouds of fake tan and hairspray? I must admit, I had to swallow my pride. The girls were all painfully normal. One was doing zoology, had a short blonde bob and not a scrap of fake tan marred her perfect skin. A first year occupational therapist introduced herself to me from behind a blunt cut brunette fringe, no extensions, nothing false, she was even rivaling me in the height stakes. I felt a little silly almost, sitting there with my naturally snow white skin donning a glowing orangey colour and make-up so thick I in fact wore it to bed and then to a whole day of college the next day. So what had made these girls enter a beauty pageant? A contest renowned for diminishing women and objectifying them? A contest that had been banned this year in UCD for just that! And most of all, what had made me enter?
Ellen Andrews in her sportswear
As I’ve said, I’m no beauty queen and I was never how you’d say “in it to win it.” All that said though, I in no way wanted to make a mockery of the competition. I of course was going to slightly take the piss out of the ‘sportswear’ (euphemism for swimwear) category. Not a chance you’d get me strutting round some nightclub in my unmentionables thank you very much, my big brothers’d lynch me! Not to mention my poor boyfriend. This was the part of the competition that sort of made me enter though I guess, I wanted to make an impression. You see, the competition itself involved three rounds; Formal Wear (ball/debs dress), Sports Wear (Football, hockey, swim, basketball etc) and Night Club Wear (What the contestant would wear on a night out) and each girl had to walk down the ramp once in each category and after that the winner would be selected by the judging panel that included representatives from Assets Modeling agency and last year’s Miss. Trinity, Julie Somerville. Maybe it’s just me, but parading in front of a judging panel in a bikini doesn’t bode well with my morals and so, I opted for the other end of the spectrum, taking my own interpretation of “sportswear” and pulling out my vintage, red, onsie ski suit for the occasion, paired with heels of course (didn’t want to be making a complete fool of myself now did I?) The rest of the contestants were split roughly down the middle when it came to this section, about half wore bikinis, while the other half, like me, wore a more conventional, or not so conventional (American football gear), sports attire. It was pretty obvious before the competition started who the bikini wearers would be and I suppose fair dues to them. It’s just the principle of the thing though. I feel I proved my point pretty well by unzipping my ski suit to a modest sternum level during my catwalk to reveal the inkling of a bikini top underneath before laughing and zipping it back up. I have no problem with showing off my body when I so wish and my friends will be testament to that, with their daily traunches of abuse aimed at my outfit choices, but being the person I am, when there’s a chance to stick it to the man, I’ll take it with open arms, or closed ski suit as the case may be.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t crowned Miss. Trinity on Wednesday night (insert fake smile of sincerity and forced applause as I resentfully accept defeat.) The crown instead went to the much deserving Ailish Smyth and I wish her all the best in the final on Thursday the 14th of April in Dandelion Club & Lounge. It’s strange though, even though I entered on a whim, wasn’t taking myself or the contest too seriously, and knew I had about as much chance as a Mannix Flynn of winning, as I stood there with all my fellow contestants awaiting the results, I was a bit excited. I had gotten caught up in the thing and had actually had one of the most enjoyable nights in a long time. I still didn’t want to win, but I was glad I’d entered and I was even gladder that my preconceived stereotypes of beauty contest girls had been quashed. These girls weren’t divas, no thirty people in their entourage in case their ego needed a quick massage, and no extra make-up for any extra face, just common people, like me.
