IT WAS a fashion show to celebrate local plus-sized women.

Yet, in the front row of the audience were a bevy of slender beauty queens.

The irony wasn’t lost on the crowd at the Far East Plaza atrium on Saturday for the contestants from the Miss & Ms Amazing pageant work the runway.

The finals, which will be held next month, has 40 finalists and is Singapore’s first beauty pageant for plus-sized women.

Contestants have to be at least 80 kg to enter the competition.

There are two categories – below and above 30 years old.

But even as the contestants were celebrating their size in sexy Lavender Closet-sponsored apparel, the contrast couldn’t be more evident.

In the front row of the seated audience was a group of slim women, all dolled up and donning beauty queen sashes and tiaras.

A spokesman for the organiser, Tks N Sons, which also organises other beauty pageants such as Elite Mrs Singapore Earth and Miss Teen Singapore Galaxy, said the winners from these other pageants had been invited to watch Saturday’s show.

Said the spokesman: “They are special guests and thus they were sitting in front.
We invited them so that they could root for the girls in the show.

“Our plus-sized contestants are very confident of themselves. They would never have a problem with that.”

But passer-by Wendy Kok, a 42-year-old housewife, found it odd.

She said: “I didn’t expect to see all the slim beauty contest winners sitting there with their sashes and crowns. If I were one of the plus-sized contestants, I don’t think I would feel comfortable seeing all these small-sized women in the front row.”

Mr Eric Chew, a 36-year-old businessman, said he was at first distracted by the slender beauty queens.

His girlfriend, who is also plus-sized, had urged him to stay for the show to support of the girls on stage.

The couple had been shopping at the mall when they saw the event.

Said Mr Chew: “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having other beauty contest winners at the show. But I think that some people will find it slightly insensitive as the whole point of it was to tell everyone that big is beautiful.

“Maybe seating the pageant queens in the middle rows would have been better.”
Mr Chew’s girlfriend, who declined to be named, said she thought the contestants
on stage would invariably feel “judged” by the slender beauty contest winners.

But the plus-sized girls on the catwalk were unfazed.

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