They can be pricey, but there is NO substitute because you get to see what the judges saw, up close and personal. If you can spring for the whole enchilada, do so. If not, do get at least the finale. Trust me when I say you will want it later! My biggest regret is not purchasing the DVD from our first year at NAM. We barely could afford the pageant, so the extra $80 was too much. 8 years later I’m still upset about it.
Now that you’ve got your videos, it’s time for rewatching. Time and distance are great teachers here. It’s always best to leave some time between the event and the “debriefing”. That’s one of the reasons why it takes so long to get the DVDs in the mail, I think. One of the years we rewatched was one we all had no memory of who was there or what happened on stage. It was a blank. So that was good for us to be able to critique and say “THAT was why the result was the way it was!” The main thing with a rewatch is to be honest with yourself about how well you or your daughter did the day of.
Things I noticed on rewatch…
Ladies, if you are wearing an off the rack dress with a slit, make sure that you remove the garment tags from the inside where they are visible. Those white tags look ginormous up close!
If you are wearing a dress with those narrow satin ribbon things to help keep your dress on a hanger, CUT THEM OFF. I saw ones hanging out of dresses and ones that weren’t the same color as the dress SHINING through the lining. If I’m watching it on my TV from the POV of the camera man in the back of the ballroom and can see them, you bet your bippy the judges can see them, too!
Make sure you can walk in your dress on the surface you’re going to be walking on the day of. If the stage is a hard surface, test your dress on a hard surface. If it’s carpeted, test on carpet. You’ll thank me for this later.
If your dress is SO LONG that you have to hold it up nearly to your waist to walk, it’s TOO LONG. PLEASE get your dresses altered! Yes, it changes the resale value. No, you won’t get nearly what you paid for the dress anyways, so just make the dress the right length. Yes, I know it’s expensive, but real talk, if you’re dropping hundreds on entry fees, you should also make sure you’re putting your best foot forward or why spend the money?
If you are a preteen and wearing a strapless dress, just don’t. Put some straps on it. You’re 10. And I don’t care if you’re a 13 year old in the preteen division. If your face has to be bare, your shoulders shouldn’t be. It reads WAY too mature. You’ve got enough years left in you to wear a strapless dress. If your cups runneth over, put some straps on it. Your dress should NOT gape away from your body at the top regardless of how amply endowed you are. While we’re on the topic, if you have really bare/sheer areas and are in a younger division, please fill in with fabric. In the below example we filled in the sides/back with fabric taken from the length when we hemmed it. The dress had about 8″+ removed from the length of the dress and she’s wearing 6″ heels here.
If you need some kind of petticoat to hold your dress up, step away from the hoop skirt. Historically hoop skirts had many layers of petticoats on top to keep them from bobbing up and down. Unless you’re going full Scarlett O’Hara and adding multiple petticoats too, just use a crinoline.
Just because there is no rule saying a ballgown/pageant dress is required, doesn’t mean that Dillard’s/Burlington/Macy’s/Ross/TJ Maxx dress is going to do you any favors in formal wear. And if you’re going to go with a “short” dress, PLEASE make sure it’s not so short we’re all worried about wardrobe malfunctions. The judges are seated below you. No one wants to see London or France in Formal wear.
In any case, make sure your dress isn’t wrinkled like it’s been stuffed in a pillowcase for 6 months before you walk on stage. Take the time to steam it/press it before wearing it. Don’t leave it in a garment bag with the hem all smooshed until right before you wear it. And don’t use a plastic bag for storage either. For storage you want a bag that breathes in white only so that colors don’t transfer to the dress. I know someone who competed at Miss United states and her gown had been stored in a zebra print bag and the print transferred to her hot pink jersey dress. It was tragic. Long term storage in plastic can harm the fibers and leave a nasty smell over time. Also, we have a dress we’ve dubbed “Cat Pee Dress” because our cat fell in love with the not-airtight plastic bag it was in and she peed on it and we had no idea until we were actually at a pageant. We ended up borrowing someone else’s backup dress.
Wear shoes you can actually walk in and that flatter you and the outfit. Especially since so many girls are choosing to wear shorter dresses, this is very important. Unless you’ve been wearing heels forever and you are graceful as a swan in them, please don’t wear them for the first time on pageant day. It’s OK to wear ballet flats, I swear!
And if you insist on wearing heels, please wear shoes that FIT YOU and are of an appropriate height. If you look and feel like you could tip forward at any moment and crash and burn, they are TOO HIGH regardless of age division. Think gazelle instead of giraffe.
There’s actually a science behind how high you should/can wear your heels. There’s no shame in not being able to wear them! Also, please do not wear shoes that pull the attention to your feet. You want the attention on your face.
When it comes to trying on shoes, I like to think I’m a bit of an expert since I’ve owned (way too many, think in the multiple hundreds of pairs) a LOT of shoes. Try on the shoes at the end of the day when your feet are as big as they will ever be. Wear them up and down the aisles of the shoe department. Stand, pose, glide, walk, practice your turns, etc. Take your time!!! This is something you do NOT want to rush. If at ANY time during this process your feet complain even the least little bit, DO NOT buy them. You’ll regret the purchase later.
Your best bet for shoes is something that is a neutral color. That’s why so many women wear nude tippy tops at Miss America/Miss USA/Miss Universe. Nude is ALWAYS the right choice. You want to elongate the leg, not shorten it. Glittery shoes draw attention away from the face, likewise shoes that aren’t appropriate for the dress. Wearing casual wedge sandals in an obtrusive color with a formal gown wouldn’t be terrible as long as the shoes never showed. If they show, it’s going to draw the attention from the face.
One of my favorite pairs of shoes was on a girl wearing a fun high-low (which normally I depise with the fire of 10,000 burning suns) but she paired it with cool Chuck Taylors that fit the vibe of the dress and the age group. It would’ve been perfect for Casual Wear (not so much for formal, sadly, even though I did love the whole look and the girl was well put together overall).
Finally… Natural doesn’t mean “no product or styling”. It means no obvious extensions/wigs. Or what I like to call the “poodle on the head”. You can and should style the hair and use product of some kind so that it stays where it should and looks neatly groomed. Production number bows do not belong on your head after the production number. Distracting things on your head/in your hair in general are better avoided. This includes distracting hairstyles that draw attention away from the face.
This next part is personal preference, but I’ve been at this a while and have judged more than a few pageants, so… The topknot style where hair is partly up in a bun and partly down is really distracting. It’s rarely done well and often detracts from the girl’s natural beauty. I’m not a fan of buns for pageants in general unless it’s for talent and you’re dancing. Yes, I know they are easier. But if you’re a tiny girl in a BIG dress and your hair is scraped back into a bun on the back of your head it looks awkward and out of proportion. Also, if your hair is pulled so tight to the scalp, if you get crowned, there’s nowhere for the crown clips to go, so there’s that. The last thing you want is for your newly minted hardware to hit the stage and break when you take your first steps as the new Miss [Title].
If you, mama, can’t do a pageant hairstyle, it’s ok to reach out for help. There’s so much preparation that goes into an event like NAM, that if you need to engage a hair person or even find a pageant friend that can help with hair and you help them wit something like steaming their dress in exchange you may find yourself so much less stressed! For instance, I can’t do hair (as evidenced by the photo). When I do, it is bad. But I can do quick alterations by hand on the fly.
