A lot goes wrong during Miss competitions, like sexual misconduct and financial abuse. Flore Pensaert from Lokeren, Belgium had a brilliant idea to draw attention to these issues. She created a calender with 16 former participants of these competitions. The beauty pageants on this calendar all got catchy names like Miss Communication, Miss Verstand (misunderstanding) and Miss Behave.
Flore says: "The contracts often contain clauses that stipulate that as a participant you are not allowed to say anything negative to the press. If you do, you risk a fine of up to 5,000 euros. This ensures that participants cannot protect each other."
Personally I think that models should be able to warn each other about competitions and/or photographers. No secrets about what happens during a shoot. And pushing models to go further than previously agreed is definitly a no-go. This is why a website like Purpleport works so well for finding collaborations.
The calendar will be presented at the end of the year. I will update this post when I know if the calendar will be available for sale.
Initiative: Flore Pensaert
Photo: Paul Van Landeghem
Source: VRT.be
