Fresh report from the Miss England Final 2012

We’ve just about recovered from a phenomenal night on Tuesday this week (26^th July) at the grand finale of this years’ prestigious Miss England competition, held at the Athena in Leicester.  Having judged the semi-finals just a couple of weeks back we have been looking forward to this night for a while.  The competition itself has been, as always, exciting, interesting, lots of fun and we’ve been privileged to be involved.  We’ve met some great personalities along the way. 

After a delicious three course meal in the gold VIP area we were ready to watch the show, and it really is a show.  All the finalists came out in either red or white matching dresses to represent the colours of the English flag.  During the second round, Andy Abraham who was the X Factor 2005 runner up, performed a medley of songs whilst the girls came out in their evening wear and for the sportswear round, Streetdance Crew showed off what they’re made of!

Charlotte Holmes beat 59 other amazing finalists to take the crown.  Charlotte, who is just 23 years old, has been an old friend of Fresh for a long while now and we’ve welcomed her through our doors many times. We have always backed Charlotte, and this was the third time she entered Miss England to finally win. Charlotte is no stranger to publicity; she came fourth in Britain’s Top Model in 2010 as well. We are over the moon that she will be representing England in the Miss World competition, not only is she beautiful, she’s intelligent, gracious and we always enjoy having her at our fashion studios.

Charlotte was always one of the favourites to win the competition, along with another one of our clients, and our friend, Amy Willerton who won Katy Price’s television show Signed recently.

Representing Miss Devon, Charlotte, who now lives in London said “I am so proud and privileged to win the crown, and my ambition during my reign is to show young people that they can achieve if they put their mind and soul into their ambition.”  Charlotte had our vote, looking especially breath-taking in a thigh-high split blue sparkly dress, every inch the superstar! The catwalk included an eco-catwalk show where the finalists had to showcase their own eco-friendly “number”, this replaced the outdated bikini round a few years back

Following her win, as part of her prize, she’ll be jet setting to Mauritius today for 9 days where she’ll also be promoting a campaign for Fiesta.  Incredibly, Charlotte’s grandmother was from Mauritius so the trip will hold special meaning to her as she has never visited the country. 

The Miss World finals will be held in Inner Mongolia later this year, and we feel confident that Charlotte will be the best ambassador for our country and could go on to win the Miss World title.  We’ll certainly be backing her.

Of course, we must give a big mention to the the two gorgeous runner’s up, Miss North Yorkshire Anastasia Smith came second and coming in third was Tamzin Cummings, Miss Sunderland.  We have to say that we are particularly pleased for Anastasia Smith who also won Fresh Modelesque and we presented her with a stunning wall canvas as her prize.

Charlotte takes over from last year’s Miss England, Alize Mounter.

.

Fresh report from the Miss England Semi-Finals

Fresh Academy was privileged to be judging at the Miss England Semi-Finals.  They took place on 30^th May at the gorgeous Champney’s Springs Leicestershire and what an amazing event it was!  We always love these competitions; it’s not every day that we get to meet so many fantastic people in such beautiful surroundings.  Plus the buzz and the atmosphere are always electric.  It’s a busy day as well, with lots to get through.  In fact there were 56 beautiful girls all competing for a place in the final and with only 14 getting through, it’s very competitive. The final is to be held on 26^th June at the Athena Hotel in Leicester – we’ll be there too, can’t wait!  Just the day after the final, the winner will be flying to exotic Mauritius to promote the Mauritius Shopping Fiesta taking place on 29^th June.  In August there is the month long trip to China where the winner will participate in Miss World with a top prize of $100,000.  Sounds amazing…!

The day was split into four different rounds the morning “bootcamp” – which concentrated on the girls’ fitness (the winner of this round automatically received a place in the grand final) and an interview process which was held throughout the day.  Later on, the girls dressed up for an impressive fashion show which was set in a grand marquee.  There were two sections of the fashion show, an Eco round where the girls needed to use their innovation and come up with a truly throw away (!) outfit and then there was the famous evening wear round – where the girls chose a really special dress to showcase their figures.

Our favourite, The Eco round was originally started in 2007 at the Miss England finals. The aim was to encourage the contestants to re-use and recycle.  The eco round is a really key component, it’s a great incentive for contestants to use their creative skills.  They put together their outfits from clothing that has been handed down from family members or made from recycled materials.  The outfits are then worn during the Miss England competition.  The best part? They also help to raise money for the Beauty with Purpose charity helping disadvantaged children.

So here’s a list of the stunning finalists who will compete to become Miss England on 26^th June:

Miss Northampton Nadina Knight

Oxfordshire runner-up Sarah O’Reilly

From Fresh Photo Heat 2, Charlie Cockbain

Miss Plymouth, Leanne Ward

Everymodel Runner Up, Jodie Duckworth

Miss Northumberland Laura Hickey

Miss Sunderland Tamzin Cummins

Miss Fresh Teen Lauren Peters

From Fresh Photo Heat 9, Rikaya Tagoe

Bedfordshire Runner Up Coral Beary

Worcestershire Runner Up Rachael Foster

Miss Rutland Sorcha Newby who was chosen as Miss Champney’s

Miss Popularity Liz Turner who won the Sportswoman Award

Miss Popularity Kitty Williams who raised over £3300 and became the Beauty with a Purpose Winner

Miss LMA Charlotte Davis who became the Semi-Final public vote winner

Good luck to everyone – we’ll report back after the 26^th June, can’t wait!

Face of the Hair Group – another great year, another sensational winner!

As you probably know, we’ve been rushed off our feet lately searching for the next winner of Face of the Hair Group for 2011.  The last few weeks has seen a flurry of activity at the Fresh Academy preparing for the grand finale, getting the entire judging panel together and organising the 22 chosen beauties to come in with everything they need for the big day.

Our search began late August last Summer when we started publicising through social media channels Facebook and Twitter and then launched the Face of the Hair Group website, www.faceofthehairgroup.co.uk.  Those who wanted to enter uploaded their photograph and filled out the entry form on the site which then appeared on our computer screens at Fresh Academy and so started the grand competition! The Hair Group representatives selected the entrants for the competition from the thousands of forms and everyone was notified.  Following this, each entrant to get through this first round was invited to the Fresh Academy’s state of the art 8000 square foot studio to have their entry shots taken by our professionals, and the Hair Group team then painstakingly went through all of these photographs to select the final 22.  That was hard work, believe us we had some superb entries.

In 2011, Parris Reid was crowned with the 2010 title and has enjoyed a year long reign fronting the Hair Group’s national promotions in well-known newspapers and magazines.  As well as this, she won a modelling contract with Models Plus and has started her modelling career which no doubt will be very successful.  As well as the aforementioned, Parris also received a host of goodies from Make-Up Guru’s Barry M AND a promotional campaign with them as well – the prize list was extremely well received for the 2011 competition too!

With thousands of entrants whittled down to the final 22, the date for the final was set for Friday 8^th June 2012.  Fresh Academy always loves these competitions, the day is so enjoyable, lots of interesting personalities come through the door and there is a really buzzing electric atmosphere.

Joining Fresh Academy for the big day to judge was Stevie Walters, the MD of Models Plus, our very own Charlie Kaufman, the MD of the Hair Group and Fresh Academy, stunning Parris Reid, last year’s terrific winner, and TV presenter Anna Watts (you may remember Anna was the previous Miss London and a Face of the Hair Group top 10 contestant, plus a star of Shipwrecked on Channel 4…quite a list!)

So, how did the day work?  The finalists arrived at the Studio to register and begin their rehearsals with Lisa Powell, a well-respected choreographer.  All the girls had done their own hair and make-up (we have to say we were impressed with how great they looked!)  The Studio was packed, and we mean PACKED with 22 beautiful girls.  Then, from the middle of the afternoon, the finalists’ guests arrived, mainly mums and dads and the competition started hotting up!  The day was split into three rounds, a jeans and black vest round, the bikini round and then a top ten announced.  The top ten girls paraded in cocktail gowns before the winners were announced.   Our judges huddled together to deliberate and made their final decisions. It’s a tough job as they say, but someone’s got to do it and it really was a tough job this year.  Maybe harder than other years!

Drum roll please!  The winners in reverse order…

In 3^rd place, Mia Champion

In 2^nd place, Joanna Cox

Finally, the winner of the Face of the Hair group competition 2011 was crowned…Charlie Cockbain from Liverpool – we know we’ll be seeing a lot more of Charlie throughout the next year and wish her many congratulations.

For more information about Face of the Hair Group, look out for our next competition which should be online from the end of this summer or email hollie@freshacademy.com.   You could also check www.faceofthehairgroup.co.uk for the procedure and information on previous winners.