Turkey’s First Beauty Contest

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 821, 15 November 1929, Page 13

Turkey’s First Beauty Contest

WINNER WILL RE ACTRESS RIVAL'S SECRET MARRIAGE America. Constant inoplc has it- Mis> Turkey. She Feriha Tcvlik Hanoum. eliosen queen of beauty this week in the first competition of its kind ever held in the county The l contest was sponsored by - Ha Kepublique.” one of the leading newspapers. 1 The judges were fifty representatives of the arts, theatre. Press, medical pro l'ession and the municipality, says a i correspondent at. Constantinople. >. Anita Boos's classic declaration that . •gentlemen prefer blondes” was again l substantiated, for tin* winner has ; light fluffy hair of a slightly chestnut tinge that clustered about her : head in debutante curls. Semi no I Hanoum. winner of second place, and G Mile. Araxie. third choice, have long , hair. A fourth contestant with long tresses, Hidjran Hanoum, was a close ; runner-up for the crown, but a few , days before the judging it was found ; ' she had secretly married and was thus disqualified. Feriha Tevfik Hanoum is ambitious . to have a movie career. She has a lead- [ j uig role in the Turkish film. ”The | Fugitives,” being made here by Tpekdji . j Brothers. "I’d rather work in the .: movies than get married.” she told L 1 reporters. Miss Turkey is the daughter of a . former director of the fish market. . Semi ne Hanoum, brunette, is the . daughter of a bank inspector, and . j Mile. Araxie, brunette, is the daughter of a tobacco merchant. The first two | are Turkish and the last is Armenian. Although only one journal sponsored the beauty contest, editorial ‘ writers of the other papers were loud in there praise of the enterprise, and those who served on the jury said they ! had enjoyed a rare opportunity. ! A generation ago George Ado. ! writing the “Slim Princess,” and | Pierre Loti, describing the lonely, j pathetic veiled maidens in “Disen- - i chanted,” could never have foreseen a : j genuine beauty contest in Turkey with ‘ I perfection of limb rating above fat I I and fetching evening gowns exhibitL | ing charms that no traditional ' j draperies of the harem would have ’ revealed. Only three or four years ago 1 one of the judges, an actress, Bedia - Muvahid Hanoum, was being cen- ? sured because she, a Turkish woman, ’ dared appear on the stage. Today’s - queen of beauty will have her photo- | graph emblazoned in papers of every i nation. j Next year the contest is to lie 1 repeated and Miss Turkey will compete ■ | in the international beauty race. ; In this day of Turkish beauty queens, the Women’s Union is busy I with other matters. Last week the | prefecture declined to permit women ■ to receive instruction at the school for ! police agents. Now comes Lutfie i Bekir Hanoum. president of the union, with a protest. “The Governor,” she maintains, “is not opposed to employing women in i the police department. AVe have been asked by the Chief of Police of London what is the opinion of our government regarding police-women and we have announced our intention of going ahead. We have not retreated from our stand. Employment of women in the police, we would be very useful for the country.” It is almost inconceivable that the few years since the revolution have made such a vast difference in the status of women in this country. A Turkish journalist tells of discovering in Stamboul a few days ago a workman repairing window grilles on an old house. “Poor man.” he remarked, “doesn’t your employer know that he is out of harmony with the times and that j he ought to put something else in place of those emblems of another i age? Sunshine would be better mediI cine in that house. It is better that j our dwellings have a normal aspect, as though inhabited by human beings j instead of creatures of mystery.” • Grilled windows, behind which the ! women of the harem might conceal | thetnselves, he points out. are in a j class with veils. “I was going to take a ferry boat I at the Galata bridge a few days ago.” (

lie continues. * wlieu I saw some tourists staring after a woman. She was enveloped in a charshaf.. with a small veil over her lace, a sombre, dull looking figure. She was out «*: place' What a sight in a civilised city like Constantinople, where all th world wears a hat and dresses m European style! She must have been sick with tin* heat in clothes like that * \■.