New South Wales Showgirl

 Once again, country show societies are gearing up for the annual New South Wales Showgirl competition. In 2008, 500 young women entered the pageant at a local level, representing 120 show societies, with the Sydney Royal Easter Show finals. The 2011 Camden Showgirl has attracted seven young local women – four of the seven are university students, two business owners and one business manager.

The competition has come a long way since its beginnings in 1962 which started as Miss Showgirl and changed in 1979 to the Showgirl competition. It has seen off a variety of other pageants and successfully competes with several others. In these days of television celebrity fashion competitions, the Showgirl competition is a bit of an anachronism.  Rather quaint, yet with an underlying strength that is endearing to supporters.

Paradoxes and contradictions

The Showgirl competition is a complex mix of paradoxes and apparent contradictions, just like other aspects of rural life: it is very traditional while accommodating the aspirations of young women; it is staid yet has had an underlying strand of the commodification of young women as objects of display; it is conservative yet encourages sexualisation of young women through good times at balls and the like; it avoids the stereotypes of other beauty pageants, yet it promotes a version of a stereotypical young rural woman;  it is part of the town and country divide yet brings the country to the city; and more.

The showgirl competition is a relic of a time when rural women were confined by home and family. The foundation sponsor was the racy tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which commodified womanhood images on page three. Later competition sponsors, The Daily Telegraph and then The Women’s Weekly, used different representations of womanhood, and today, The Land newspaper takes a newsworthy approach to rural affairs.

The values expressed in the Royal Agricultural Society Guide for Showgirl entrants prepared by 2009 Camden Showgirl Lauren Elkins are slightly old-fashioned. The guide stresses etiquette, grooming, manners, dress sense, presentation and socialising skills – a solid list of skills for any aspiring job applicant. The competition even offers deportment lessons for entrants – An echo from the past.

While the aims of the competition have not changed, part of its resilience has been its ability to cope with changes in the representation of rural life and women themselves. It expresses the agency of the young women who enter, whether university students or shop assistants and provides personal development opportunities.  

Notions of rurality

Showtime, the Show Ball and the Showgirl competition are representatives of notions of rurality. Camden Showgirl is part of the invocation of rural nostalgia.  People use the competition as a lens through which they can view the past, including the young women who enter it.   In 2009, Camden Showgirl Lauren Elkins ‘was keen’, she said, ‘to get into the thick of promoting the town and its rural heritage’.  

Organising committees select entrants who have a sense of belonging to and identifying with the local area. According to Suzie Sherwood, a 2004 Camden organising committee member, the winning showgirl projects the values and traditions of the local community.

In a historical analysis by Kate Darian-Smith and Sara Wills (2001), they see the current response to Miss Showgirl as ‘an embodiment of meaningful and rural belonging’. Miss Showgirl entrants indeed embrace parochialism and the interests of local show societies as part of the competition. These forces have long shaped the rural identity and its response to city-based decision-making.

Rural New South Wales faces constant challenges, and the showgirl’s success is a rural showcase in the ‘big smoke’. The competition embraces the experience of showtime in Sydney when the country comes to town, and there are social engagements, cocktail parties and pictures on the social pages.  The showgirl competition draws on rural traditions surrounding debutante balls, bachelor and spinster balls and similar community gatherings that express a sense of place. The essence of localism.

Glamour and style

Glamour and style are back, and Showgirl has an element of ‘fashions on the field’. Young women have an opportunity to ‘frock up’. Something authentic. It harks back to the days of the country race meeting and the local polo match. The exclusivity that was once the rural gentry’s domain when deference and paternalism ruled the bush. Press photographs of ‘glammed up’ Showgirls sashing 1st place in the dairy cow section recall days of the ‘Lady of the Manor’ and the English village fair. 

Miss Showgirl competitions have not been without their critics. The competition has survived in New South Wales and Queensland while not in Victoria. Understandably, entrants passionately defend the competition.

None of these issues has been a problem for 2011 Camden Showgirl winner Hilary Scott, a 22-year-old horse-loving university student from The Oaks.  She appeared on the front page of The District Reporter, all glammed up in the paddock, under the banner headline ‘Showgirl Hilary supports agriculture’. Hilary is a confident young rural woman who projects Miss Showgirl’s contemporary vibrancy and complexities.

Camden Showgirl Winners

Miss Showgirl 1962-1978, Camden Showgirl 1979-2020

These women have come from diverse backgrounds and acted as a rural ambassador for the Camden Show.

The Land Sydney Royal Show Girl Competition for 2022 website states:

The Competition aims to find a young female Ambassador for rural NSW and the agricultural show movement.

The Showgirl Competition is definitely not a beauty pageant. Entrants must have a genuine interest in, and knowledge of, rural NSW. The Competition encourages the participation and awareness of issues faced by women in rural NSW.

https://www.camdenshow.com/members/itemlist/category/133-show-ball

Updated 20 October 2023. Originally posted 3 October 2011 as ‘The enduring appeal of a rural pageant’.