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PNB interview:Brittany Evans | 
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Veronica Lake was a tiny temptress. Marilyn Monroe was short and sexy. But there's still a myth that only tall women can win at the beauty game. Swimsuit star Brittany Evans has disproved that myth, and she wants millions of other petite women to realize the opportunities that are open to them. But she doesn't pretend that everything is easy. She has known irrational fears and bitter disappointments as well as stunning successes. Patrick Nathaniel Bartholomew III sat down for a candid conversation with Ms. Evans at the end of September 2001, as she was finishing her year's reign as Ms. Venus Swimwear International. |
| PNB: Were you a model before winning the Ms. Venus Swimwear title? EVANS: Until I was about 20 years old, I never thought I could model because of my height. I’m 5 feet 2, and I had always been told that models had to be very tall. When I was 20 years year old, I broke up with a boyfriend, and he started dating another girl right away whom I did not like. He called me and told me that there was a swimsuit competition and that I should enter. I said to him, "Are you kidding me? I’m short. I’m pale. There’s no way." But he insisted that I enter, and he said that his new girlfriend was going to enter. So my competitive juices started flowing. |
| I thought to myself that I could beat her. She was short, too. I entered, and when she found out that I was entering, she backed out. I ended up winning at the local level. It gave me hope that maybe there was a little niche out there for me as a model. It had always been a dream of mine, but I never thought I’d be able to do it. So I started entering local swimsuit competitions, and I was winning most of them locally. At the international contests, I would normally place, but I never won. Then I got engaged. I got married, and my husband had a hard time with me traveling and being gone, so even though it saddened me a little bit, I gave it up since I was reaching for a greater dream. When things didn’t work out in my marriage, I was 24 years old, and my husband decided he no longer wanted to be married so we divorced. | 
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At that time, I thought I was too old to get started in modeling, but maybe I had a couple of years in me. So I decided to go for it. I didn’t want to feel like something had been taken from me. The one competition that I’d always wanted to do, but never had, was Venus. It was a big name. It was very well respected, and I was always a little afraid of it. I didn’t feel like I was polished enough. After my divorce, I moved to Phoenix where my parents lived. I decided to look up the Venus site on the Internet, and I found that the local competition was in two weeks. So I got on the treadmill (laughter) and cut out all my fast foods. I entered and I won. Then, I came to the Internationals in Daytona Beach. I had a great week. It was just what I needed. I had so little self-esteem after the divorce. I just decided to go for it full-speed ahead. I had nothing to lose. I didn’t have any pride to lose because when you go through a divorce, it humbles you. I decided that only one girl can win and that the odds are it’s not going to be me. I decided to have a great time. I was going to do the best that I could. I wasn’t going to prepare myself to lose. I knew that I would probably lose, but I wasn’t going to shoot myself in the foot before I started. It was really the first time that I had put my whole heart and soul into it. I was mainly trying to make new friends and interact with people. My goal was to make Top 12, and when that happened, I was so excited. Of course, then after I made Top 12, I thought I’d really be happy if I made the Top 5. That’s when things got a little crazy. I was called out from the Top 12 as the fourth runner-up. I was so thrilled. I got flowers. I got a trophy. My parents were there. This was the first competition that they had ever attended. I didn’t ask them to come, but I think they knew it was important to me. They were excited. They were clapping, smiling at me, giving me the thumbs up from the audience. |
| And then all heck broke loose. They took away the trophy. They took away the flowers. They told me there had been a mistake. They told me to stand back in line. Then they rewound the cameras to start it over. The MC called out the fourth runner-up again, and it was Annie Yang from Singapore. I thought, "Oh, oh," maybe the mistake was that I was the third runner-up, but I wasn’t. |
| So I thought OK, I made the Top 12. I can be happy with that. I was trying to maintain my composure on stage, and then I was going to have my little cry when I got offstage just because I thought I had won something, and then I hadn’t. I was trying not to look at my parents because I knew I’d cry if I looked at them. My chin was quivering. I was just trying to be noble and strong, and then they announced my name as the winner. I just lost it and started crying. Never in my wildest fantasies did I even let myself dream of actually winning. For me, it came after such a low point in my life. To win was just unreal. It probably took a good three months to sink in. PNB: How about this year? What opportunities have you had as the Venus winner? EVANS: I’ve met a lot of people who are involved in the modeling industry in several different areas, such as Lou Maggio (director of photography at Venus). Lou has put me in touch with other key people. He has been wonderful. I’ve had two major photo shoots with Venus, both in Florida, and I had a photo shoot in Puerto Rico as a result of this competition. I got some beautiful shots for my portfolio. Almost everything I’ve done in the past year has been as a result of the contacts that I’ve made from Venus Swimwear. I’ve also made some good friends with some of the Venus staff, people like Rich Atlas and Lou Maggio. I’ve really bonded with them. I even sent them cookies at Christmas. It’s been an unbelievable year. PNB: Why isn’t height much of a factor in this contest? EVANS: Swimwear looks best on a girl who is in proportion. Curves look great. A swimsuit flatters a girl with curves. She doesn’t have to be busty as long as she is in proportion. Tall and extremely slender girls are the rule for fashion modeling because people who design fashion wear want hangers to display their clothing on. A clean slate. A hanger. For swimsuits, it’s about the fantasy of what a girl wants to look like in a swimsuit. Swimsuits expose all. So it’s actually more about the girl who is in the swimsuit and what she looks like and what the swimsuit can do for your figure. It’s more important that the model is proportioned and well-balanced. In pictures, the camera doesn’t tell how tall you are. If your legs are long enough and if you are in proportion and with a good photographer, you will look taller than you really are. |
More talk with Brittany Evans ...
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