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Beauty pageants in the UK have had a rebrand.
The stereotypical image of women parading around in bikinis, smiling until their cheeks hurt and answering some variation of ‘how would you achieve world peace?’ feels increasingly outdated.
Today, pageantry sells something different. Confidence. Advocacy. Charity. Entrepreneurship. Empowerment. Contestants have platforms, careers, and causes they genuinely care about.
And, having competed in one myself, I actually believe there is some truth to that.
In 2026, I became a Miss Great Britain London finalist. I was the only openly Muslim woman competing and entered as a British Bangladeshi, plus-size woman who would eventually walk onto the stage in a burkini and an abaya.
Safe to say, I was not exactly the beauty queen I grew up seeing on television during Miss Universe.
But what surprised me most was the diversity I found among the women around me.
Across 30 finalists were different careers, interests, cultures, personalities and life experiences.
That is important because our conversations around diversity can sometimes become painfully visual.
Representation isn’t just about lining up women of different skin tones for an Instagram post. It is also about disability, class, upbringing, religion, and the lived experiences that shape us.
British pageantry is beginning to show this.
Kirstie Haysman, for example, has brought visible disability representation into the Miss Great Britain space by competing with a walking aid. Charlotte Levy, Miss Northampton 2026, is a 24-year-old care leaver whose journey into pageantry has given visibility to an experience rarely associated with traditional beauty queens. Chanel Brown, Miss London 2025 was the first Bindian representation to the Miss London pageant stage.
I saw another version of this when I attended Miss Goa International in Hillingdon, London. Where Fay Fernandes was crowned. Watching a pageant where culture and heritage felt embedded within the celebration reminded me of what these competitions can be at their best.
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There is something genuinely powerful about seeing someone who shares an identity or experience with you occupy a space you were never sure was designed for you.
But being invited into the room and being celebrated once you’re there are two different things.
Who actually gets the crown?
At my Miss Great Britain London final, despite the diversity I saw across the wider group, I could not help noticing that the final five women were all white and had relatively similar builds.
This is not a criticism of those women. They earned their achievements, and increasing representation should never require diminishing somebody else’s.
But the pattern did make me think.
And it is not a question unique to my experience. Colourism and sizeism have long been part of the conversation surrounding beauty pageants, with former contestants speaking about feeling pressure to lose weight, change their appearance or fit a particular image of what a winner should look like.
If the room becomes more diverse but our image of the eventual ‘winner’ remains relatively unchanged, how much have our beauty standards really progressed?
That question feels particularly relevant when we’re talking about London.
This is the city of Notting Hill Carnival, born from Britain’s Caribbean communities and now one of the world’s largest street celebrations. It is the city that elected Diane Abbott as Britain’s first Black woman MP in 1987. It is the city of TFL, where tunnels were dug by indenture labour from South Asia and Ireland.
Walk through London for twenty minutes and you’ll probably hear multiple languages, pass five different cuisines and somehow still end up behind someone walking painfully slowly at a Tube barrier.
Diversity isn’t unusual here. It is London.
So when pageants carry the names of London, Northampton, Great Britain or any other part of our country, it is worth asking whether the beauty they celebrate actually resembles the people living there.
Beauty standards don’t stay on the stage
This matters because what society labels beautiful has consequences far beyond a sash and crown.
We already know what can happen when beauty industries broaden who they imagine as their consumer.
When Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty in 2017, its foundation arrived in 40 shades from the outset. Its success helped trigger what became known as the ‘Fenty Effect’, as competing brands expanded their own shade ranges and inclusivity became a new expectation rather than a nice bonus. Fenty’s range later expanded to 50 shades.
K-beauty offers an even more recent example. The industry has exploded globally, but complexion products have historically offered limited options for darker skin. TIRTIR’s viral Mask Fit Red Cushion began with just three shades. It now comes in 40.
That is not a small shift.
It demonstrates that when people with darker skin are recognised as consumers worthy of consideration, companies respond. When different faces become desirable, the market surrounding beauty changes with them.
But there is an uncomfortable contradiction here.
Gen Z may be growing up with some of the most diverse beauty campaigns we’ve ever seen, but we are also growing up in an era where practically every insecurity can be monetised.
Don’t like your skin? Twelve-step skincare routine.
Don’t like your face? There is a procedure for that.
Don’t like your body? There is probably a product, programme or TikTok Shop link promising to change it.
The globalisation of beauty culture means we have access to everything from Huda Beauty to Korean skincare within a few taps. That can be empowering when brands finally recognise consumers who were previously ignored. But it also means young people are constantly being encouraged to consume their way towards whatever version of beauty is currently trending.
Even after years of progress, shade inclusivity isn’t quite there. Darker-skinned consumers are still met with foundations that are too orange, too ashy or one lonely deep shade called something like ‘mocha’ or ‘cocoa’.
We are people, not a coffee menu. Representation has to mean more than simply putting a darker bottle on the shelf.
