EXCLUSIVE: Inside the world of child pageants

With make-up freshly applied, she’s now ready to clack down the catwalk to pout and pose in a bid to be crowned a beauty queen.

“Sexy, sexy”, declares giggling Beau, whose name means beautiful in French.

While one hand frames her face in her trademark coquettish manner, the other refuses to let go of a pack of playing cards with cartoon elephants pictured on them.

It’s not surprising because Beau, who has been a child beauty queen for nearly a year, is just THREE.

“She just loves the stage, it’s part of her, just as it was for me”, coos Beau’s mum Anita Moss.

Once confined to the USA the image-obsessed industry of children’s beauty pageants has arrived in Southampton – thanks to Anita, 27, and her sister Roxy, 25.

Five years ago there were no children’s beauty pageants in the UK.

But today there are dozens each year open to children aged from just months old.

And the sisters, who tour the UK with Beau and Roxy’s six-year-old twins Stellar and Starr, have launched a company called Starr’s Through the Looking Glass. Now they are hosting Teenie Miss and Mr contests along the south coast where around 40 child contestants compete in four rounds including a talent, swimwear, fashion and glitz heat to be in with a chance of walking away with a £500 cash prize.

That cash was handed out in a Southampton hotel just weeks ago to a four-year-old sporting make-up, diamante false eyelashes and a fake tan.

Moments earlier disco lights had lit up a stage and The Only Way Is Essex star Jess Wright’s club music blasted out from a sound system.

As the MC announced “she likes dollies and dressing up like a princess and she dislikes broccoli”, Beau took to the stage.

Wearing a glitzy Union flag dress not dissimilar to Spice Girl Geri Halliwell’s infamous Brit Awards outfit, Beau sashayed down the catwalk, hand on her hip sucking a lollipop, her shoulder risen up to meet her cheek.

For mum Anita it’s all about the look.

She said: “I do consider us to have the best costumes, we put the time in and I’ve been to pageants where it has been very bitchy.”

“The mums and dads of course take it seriously”, Roxy added.

“They all want to win the supreme, it’s a competition at the end of the day.

“Every mum wants their child to do well, and then the pressure is on to out-do each other.

“I must admit I do get annoyed when they don’t come home with anything.”

It is clear that preparing for a beauty pageant isn’t just about the time devoted to it.

It’s about hard cash too. The sisters, who both work for their father’s marine company in Southampton reveal one outfit can cost as much as £2,000.

Anita has spent at least £7,000 on pageants in just one year.

Roxy has no idea how much she has spent, but said all her wages go on the gear, which is specially shipped in from the USA.

“It’s like an addiction”, Roxy explains as she describes how her loft is filled with dresses, wigs, shoes and props for Stellar and Starr, known on the circuit as the “twinkle twins.”

“It takes up most of my life. I wish I was wearing it! When the postman first drops the box off it’s so exciting.

“It’s more exciting for the mother than it is for the child”, Roxy laughs.

“But it’s worth it. When Stellar was crowned Mini Miss World I was so proud, I couldn’t believe it. My other one came second.”

Although relatively new, catwalks in the UK already echo those across the Atlantic. It’s hardly surprising given the popularity of controversial American reality show Toddlers and Tiaras which features children wearing false teeth known as flippers, full wigs, eyelashes, acrylic nails and wearing thick make-up, which inspired Anita and Roxy to take up the hobby.

In fact, within months of watching the programme the women had jetted off to Pennsylvania in America to witness the pageants first hand.

“Over there it is more extreme”, Roxy, whose twins also have a modelling contract, said.

“It’s all about the looks, about how good looking the kid is. It’s not good to be honest because it does put a bad perception on pageants.

“Here it is more natural. They all have these types of dresses, but make-up is more optional.”

But Anita and Roxy’s views on the controversial American beauty shows are somewhat contradictory.

They both agree it is “ridiculous” and “over the top” for children to be made to look like mini-adults.

But the sisters, whose younger brother Nicholas who has Down’s syndrome have found new confidence since competing in pageants, both say the confidence and intelligence of the girls who take part in the pageants is inspiring.

And they both agree that if the extreme American pageants became the norm in the UK they would still take part – although they would never use flippers, and would use gel fake tan rather than a spray tan But Roxy admits if she went to the USA with the twins, she would enter them into a competition.

To their critics, such beauty pageants are exploitative, pressurising children to adopt semi-sexualised adult mannerisms that they do not fully understand and enforcing the message that physical appearance is all-important.

But the mums say the pageants are safe, boost confidence levels and raise money for charities.

Anita, said: “People have too much to say about it. They criticise for the sake of criticising. At the end of the day it’s no different to a gymnastics or ballet competition.

“And it’s worse taking your child in a bikini to the local park where there are hundreds of people you don’t know. This is in a controlled environment and I’m with my child the whole time, so no I don’t have a problem with my child dressing up and wearing make up. She doesn’t leave my sight.”

Roxy added: “People say child beauty pageants sexualise children but that’s rubbish.

All little girls love wearing make-up and dressing up, they love to look like their mummy, that’s the way girls grow up. What’s wrong with that? Yes they do some suggestive poses, but then all children watch TV, they watch music videos and they learn routines.

When they have their time on stage, they run up and say can we do it again. It’s their hobby and they like doing it. I’m not going to take that away from them.”

Back in the living room at Anita’s Hedge End home the sisters press play on the Toddlers and Tiaras show.

“Starr has that dress”, Roxy, from nearby Horton Heath, squeals.

Meanwhile the girls rummage through a gigantic box of costumes, which could be mistaken for any little girl’s dressing up box. But these outfits including a spangly silver leotard as part of a Statue of Liberty ensemble and a showgirl outfit with elaborate feathers cost thousands of pounds.

It’s not long before certain items are put away for fear the crystals might fall off. After all, Beau has to wear these in the ten pageants she has lined up before June.

They insist the girls love wearing the dresses demonstrated by Stellar and Starr, who might only be six, but put the likes of Beyonce to shame with their posing.

“How about you do a kiss, like this”, Roxy suggests as she demonstrates how to pout.

But what about Beau – aged just three?

“I just want to do cuddles. I want my mummy.”, she says with a scrunched up face before slumping in a heap on the floor.

“Stand up please then we can take your dress off in a minute.

“One smile Beau and we can take it off”, Anita reasons.

Does Anita not fear Beau is too young to compete in pageants?

“Is there a rule book? Are there instructions on how you bring your kid up?

No-one is perfect.

“They are allowed to be children the whole week, so it’s not all about pageants.

“It’s not judged on beauty here, it’s not judged on how the kid looks. In America it is but here it’s more fun.

“Beau's getting better. She used to have proper tantrums but if she didn't want to do it, she wouldn't do it.

“If it was a bad thing, I wouldn’t be entering my child into it at the end of the day.”

PAGEANTS: Are they harmful?

CLAUDE Knights, director of children’s charity Kidscape, said: “It is a disturbing trend, these children seem to be getting younger and younger.

“There is a ‘Lolita’ issue of little girls being sexualised, dressing as mini-adults and not being aware of the sort of feelings this can provoke in others.

“One of the concerns is the lack of regulation. Anyone can set up a pageant without having to adhere to guidelines, putting children at risk of exploitation.

“It’s impossible for these kids to be giving their consent to wearing swimwear and pseudo-evening dresses as well as fake eyelashes and spray tans.

“They look assertive, they look confident, but how deep does that really go if it’s built on such an ephemeral notion? Aesthetic, external attributes have a place, but they should not be the sole means by which a child should measure themselves.

“It can give these young girls the impression that only external beauty is important in life.

There needs to be a balance that takes account of internal factors as well as skills and qualities.

“Some of the consequences are not known to parents.

“These children could grow up to believe beauty is everything. With their parents spending thousands of pounds on all sorts of paraphernalia, it is also focused on commercial gain.

“We owe it to our children to be aware of certain dangers. Parents taking their children to pageants really must ask themselves who they are doing it for and at what price?

“We should not be compromising the sanctity of our children’s early years.”

PAGEANTS: An American obsession

IT IS a multi-million dollar industry which is entrenched in American culture.

On any given weekend toddlers take the stage in the USA wearing make-up, spray tans and fake hair to be judged on beauty, personality and costumes.

The modern child beauty pageant emerged in the late 1960s in Miami, Florida. Since then the industry has grown to include about 25,000 pageants.

And the controversial reality TV show Toddlers and Tiaras, which was first aired in 2009, reveals the lengths parents go to in order to perfect their child’s pageant look and performance to prove their child is beautiful.

For some parents on the quest for sparkly crowns and big titles, winning prizes worth thousands of dollars, replaces a full-time job, not to mention the millions children can make if they land celebrity status as a result of the TV exposure.

Some mums begin searching for the best sparkling pageant gowns as soon as they find out they are pregnant with a little girl.

And there are specialist pageant schools and judges schools charging hundreds of dollars.

But the show, and industry, isn’t without criticism. One mother on the show was criticised for padding her daughter’s chest to resemble Dolly Parton’s and another was criticised for asking her daughter to smoke fake cigarettes on stage.

The industry has been overshadowed for years by the murder of six-year-old child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, who was found sexually abused and garrotted in the basement of her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado, on Boxing Day 1996.

The case, which is still unresolved, turned public spotlight onto the pageants with critics questioning the ethics of the contests.