The Road to Miss British Beauty Curve
Credit controller by day/plus-size model & blogger extra-ordinaire, by night.
In 16 more sleeps I will be competing in my very first pageant; Miss British Beauty Curve 2015. I am a mixed bag of emotions right now; nervous mostly but also excited and raring to go!
I thought I would take you through my experience so far in the hope of inspiring at least one of you beautiful ladies to follow your dreams.
The idea of being in a pageant is daunting and there was so much to organise. First things first – could I afford it? All pageants have fees and these could be raised thorough sponsorship. I had no idea how to approach companies at this stage, so I asked my family and friends. Within a few days I had made up my pageant fees through small donations from my nearest and dearest.
As I had already raised my sponsorship fees through my family and friends, I didn’t need any more financial support, but finding sponsors wasn’t easy. I approached many local businesses via direct email and Facebook and many people didn’t understand how they could help so initially refused to. I was so disheartened by the whole situation.
I reached out to an editor of my local paper and he ran a story about me in the County Border News, it was my first outing to the public. I was terrified, so many wayward thoughts; would they like me? Would they think that because it’s a Plus-Size pageant would I be promoting an unhealthy lifestyle or glorifying obesity? Will they grill me about my weight? My local area is not the most multi-cultural of places; how would they feel about me representing their county? My teenage daughter goes to school in the area, how would her class-mates react to me being in the paper? Meeting with Kevin (the editor) put all those fears to bed. He was welcoming and made me instantly feel at ease and talking to him was like a chat with an old friend and as a result I wasn’t nervous about how he was going to portray me in the paper. Despite the headline being a little cliché and the photo of me being taken from a rather unflattering angle (a plus girl’s worst nightmare) the story was very true to word and I couldn’t ask for anything more.
As a result of the story I was approached by Louise of “Louise Bunny Hop Dance & Fitness” and Susie of “Styled by Susie” who were interested in sponsoring me. Louise runs fitness/dance classes in my local area & Susie is a Personal Stylist. Louise related to my story and felt that I could help her promote the fact that all shapes and sizes were welcome at her classes. Having Susie on my team has been a godsend, she gave me clear instructions of what I should and should not wear for the pageant and all three of us even went pageant shopping on Oxford Street together. Together we make a force to be reckoned with; #TeamSurrey! Meeting these two women has been a fantastic experience, they have offered me support & guidance at every possible opportunity and I have supported them in return. I was lucky, I not only found sponsors, but I found friends.
Since I was given the title of Ms Surrey Curve 2015, I have made every effort to promote both the event and myself by engaging in public appearances at local events to fundraising for charity events. I attended a local charity fashion show in aid of St Catherine’s Hospice, I took part in the Tower of London Run for the British Heart Foundation, I helped raise money for SANDS & ARC at a Charity Pamper Day, I went to Dublin for the weekend to help out a charity called Barretstown who hold a camp for children with terminal illnesses, so they get the chance to have fun and just be children, despite being unwell. I appeared on my local radio station, I have been featured in the Daily Mail and other online magazines and many other things.
I pride myself on being the sort of person who likes to both motivate and elevate those around me. I also enjoy promoting other people within the industry who are fighting the good fight (so to speak). We are all striving for common goals; equality, diversity, opportunity and to ultimately change any negative public perception of the plus-size community and eradicate the “us & them” mentality. We are all human and deserve love and appreciation. I believe that compliments are not given enough and in turn are not well received. We spend far too much time picking fault or focusing on negativity, when really we could be spreading positivity instead.
The next 3 weeks are going to be a chaotic mess of haphazard organisation and last minute buys in an attempt to put together four outfits to “wow” the judges.
Check back next time when I will be talking all things pageant shopping and the dramas I faced finding “the dress”
You can find Kat through her blog and social media
Instagram: https://instagram.com/kat_v_henry/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/henryskat2014/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/henryskat2014
The final takes place on the 8th August at the Epsom Playhouse: To get tickets or to enter for 2016 go to http://www.missbritishbeautycurve.com/