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Diary of a Swimsuit Model
One of the finalists in
the recent Swimsuit International World Finals - Judy Slancik provides a very personal account of her experience. Click on pics for bigger images.
Breakfast with Tiffanies
7 a.m. Tuesday, February 29, 2000.
Hotel dining solarium. Our first morning in beautiful St.Croix began with a breakfast orientation where we met the pageant director, choreographer,
photographers and videographers. Each took turns speaking about their roles in the pageant as we grazed on fresh fruit and oatmeal. I longed for Canadian maple smoked back bacon and eggs.
All of us were in full makeup. We checked each other out as we listened. Among the usual jargon about being on time for shoots, one piece of advice
to the models really stuck out,
Don't do topless unless you've decided up front.
Because once you've done it you cant take it back if you've signed the release," explained Lynn Hernandez - the pageant organizer. Lynn was the main director of the pageant and our daddy away from home. He kept a watchful eye on us at all times. Regardless of his hectic schedule he always made time for our questions and concerns.
I had decided up front that topless and nudes weren't my thing.
But, had they been, photographers and representatives from reputable magazines including Playboy and on-line magazine Mystique were on hand.
Lucky for me, I got to shoot with Sam T'ang for Swimsuit International Magazine. The girls called him Sammy from Miami, (where he resides.)
A soft-spoken freelance photographer with over seven years experience in the bikini biz, Sam turned out to be a real gentleman.
During a photo shoot with him, I took off my panties so that lines wouldn't show through my skirt. I posed sitting against a pastel sandstone
wall, knees up. Check it out on the left. Not letting caution (and other things) go to the wind, Sam made me put my panties back on.
"Comfort in front of the camera shows and you don't look comfortable," he said.
I ducked behind a wall and put them back on, a little embarrassed, but not more than if someone would have seen.
Preliminary Competition Day
3:54 p.m., Friday, March 3, 2000.
Hotel room, Ultimate Swimsuit Model competition in St. Croix. Katia bounced nude on the bed. She used it as a trampoline to whip her hips into
sleek shape for Saturday nights world swimsuit competition. She did this exercise daily, watching her muscles tighten in a mirror across from the bed we shared.
"Swing your hips more," she coached, between hops.
"How's this?" I asked catwalking back and forth in front of the bed in my preliminary competition bikini. Yellow my winning
color, I hoped.
"My toes kill," I confessed, trying to master the bikini model strut with only an hour to spare for hair and makeup. We had to do
our own. My feet were all cut up from traveling to St. Croix from Toronto, Canada in open toe heels. (Feet swell at 30,000 feet. Who knew? As I later found out, all 29 of the other swimsuit models I was to
compete against did.)
It was my first time traveling alone. I was scared. I was no professional model. I was a journalism student. For me, being in St. Croix was a sheer fluke. For fun, I
had entered a bikini contest at my hometown bar, where I worked on weekends, and won. Short of contestants, the bar manager asked if I would do him a favor, I had agreed.
Walking backstage and counting myself among fitness magazine and Playboy models, I never expected actually winning. A world class pageant, contender, who would have thought?
With the helpful coaching of two-year bikini model and fellow Canadian roommate, Katia, I learned how to walk and pose just in time for SIs
prelims. Katia has gone from Miss CHIN 99 to Sunshine Calendar girl to one of Playboys "girls of Canada." If I placed in Friday nights preliminaries, Katia and I would be going bust to bust for the
title of Swimsuit Internationals "Ultimate" World Swimsuit Model on Saturday, and Saturday came fast.
"Judy describes herself as fun, friendly and fearless. She says her most prized possession is her big, fat, sexy brain?" said
the announcer, sounding puzzled as I executed "the strut" Katia had taught me, for the seven judges below the stage.
"Funny Judy, I cant quite see your brain in that bikini," joked the announcer in his Miss America voice.
At center stage, I turned my back to the audience and gave a "mmph" playing it up. I was having fun. I turned one last time, smiled, (cheeks twitching from over exertion), waved and exited the stage. I could hear the audience laughing. They were laughing with me, I hoped.
According to Katia, who was sitting with the judges that night, they did. Said Katia "The crowd loved that cutesy stuff-it showed personality,
they were dying laughing. But, I don't think the judges did." And she was right. The Canadian title went to my one prelim competitor, Lisa Houser of Kitchener.
Well deserved I might add.
The End of the Worlds
11:16 p.m. Saturday, March 4, 2000.
Hitching a ride back to the hotel with roommate, Katia. "I don't think I'll be able to pack all these hair products," said Katia, looking
down at her stash of pageant prizes. She had placed first runner-up in the Swimsuit International World Finals, to Lisa Gleave of Surfers Paradise, Australia.
Sitting on her lap in the passenger seat, I looked down, couldn't see my feet, and agreed. The back seat was filled with one of the judges and
a couple of photographers. The Toronto Sun journalist assigned to cover the pageant, Allan Findley, drove. "Oh my god, I just figured out why we couldn't get my corset on the other day," I suddenly
burst out. Allan Findley took his eyes off the road and shot them at me.
"What?" Katia laughed.
"The corset I wore for my preliminary evening wear outfit," I explained.
For some reason the corset wouldn't fit. Katia had jumped off her makeshift trampoline to help me put it on.
I had taken off my bikini and needed to get dressed for the prelims. Katia struggled to get the eye hooks to clip together up the back of the corset, there were ten.
"It was like her boobs all of a sudden grew," she told Allan, as he kept looking over at us listening to the story. The men in
the back seat leaned forward.
"I had her bent over a chair trying to put this thing on, for almost half an hour" Katia continued. Behind me on her tipi
toes, Katia had fussed with the corset. I was nude from waist down bent over the chair in front of the dresser. At one point, simultaneously, we looked ahead into the mirror. "Can you imagine if the cleaning
lady walked in right now?" squealed Katia.
She fell forward onto my lower back laughing. We were in hysterics. The car pulled into the hotel parking lot and stopped. "Don't tell me
it was upside down," inquired Katia, already knowing the answer. I nodded. We got out of the car and doubled over laughing.
Katia and I excused ourselves, (for the outburst and for the night) grabbed our bags and declined post pageant party offers.
Back in our room Katia slipped off her pageant stilettos and complained of aching feet.
"I know what you mean," I said.
THE END
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