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Summary: GLAMOUR, GLITZ, AND YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!
Review: Keith Lovegrove, author of "Airline: Identity, Design and Culture" and founder of a London based design consultancy firm, opens his take on the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the preposterous in beauty contests with "The beauty contest in all its forms, whether it be a competition to find the most beautiful woman in the world or to find the man - or woman - with perfectly formed pectorals, must be the most blatant display of peacockesque attention-seeking, unmatched in its glamour, glitz and sheer exhibitionism."This lavishly illustrated volume (150 color and 100 black and white illustrations) proves the above to be almost an understatement, whether the author is focusing on the Miss Illinois contestants who happily pay $1,000 for the privilege of competing or the eye popping Miss Nude UK contest. (Don't worry, we haven't been outdone by the Brits - as the author notes in the U.S. The Ponderosa Sunclub in Indiana has sponsored the Nudes-A-Poppin pageant for some three decades). Lovegrove divides his book into three parts. "Foundation," the opening segment is a history of the beauty pageant; "Parade" features the variety (and sometimes the oddities) in contests; and the closing section, "Close-Up" takes a look at the author's up-close-and-personal experiences with three disparate contests. From The Sausage Queen adorned with jewelry fashioned of sausages and frankfurters to the Alternative Miss World to Miss America, they're all here for your enjoyment and incredulity. - Gail Cooke
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