A Bristol teenager has spoken out to tackle stereotypes about beauty pageants. Thirowshie Srijeyaram is the most recent winner of Bristol’s National Teen.
The 18-year-old student - born and bred in Bristol - is hoping to be successful later this year at the UK’s nation beauty pageant - UK’s National Miss - as well as a charity pageant Miss Crown UK.
And early next month, Thirowshie is holding her own charity fashion show event, looking at breaking down barriers and stereotypes in the pageant industry. She said: “I think, especially for pageant girls, there’s that stereotype that they have to be skinny, blonde hair, and have blue eyes, but pageants are changing.”
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Thirowshie, who is of Sri Lankan Tamil heritage, explains that while there is more diversity in the pageant world, there are still people who feel they don’t fit in, because they don’t fit the stereotype. Explaining how there is a stigma that lighter skin is deemed to be beautiful, especially within south Asian culture, she told me she has often heard 'you’re pretty for a dark-skinned girl'.
She added: “People are going to continue believing they’re not beautiful or good enough.” While younger girls may believe that the majority of what they see on social media is real, not everything can be taken at face value. Thirowshie explained that ‘none of it was real’ photoshoots are always photoshopped, a problem that has been around a long time, and social media is no different.
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“The reason I wanted to start doing pageants was to show younger people it’s not real. We have different skin types, different bodies and different colours, that’s what makes us different and diverse.”
Her first idea for a charity event was a fashion show. “I want to make people feel beautiful. I know they’re going to walk down that runway and feel beautiful, and we’re raising money for charity so it's a win-win situation.” The models taking part are a range of different ages, shapes, sizes and backgrounds, in keeping with her platform of ‘celebrating diversity and breaking beauty standards and stereotypes’.
She urged those who may want to get involved in the pageant world to do it. She said it's like ‘a community’, everyone was so nice and she’s met so many good friends by doing her first pageant and it’s given her the platform to go for her dreams of one day being in a Bollywood movie.
“It’s changed my life. It’s given me a title, it’s given me the opportunity to do amazing things. Now I’m raising so much money for charity, before I didn’t have the platform for it but the pageant has given me that platform to do it.”
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