Miss World 1951 Miss World 1951 Miss World 1951, the first Miss World pageant, was held on 29 July 1951 at the Lyceum Ballroom in London, United Kingdom. The contest was originally intended to be a one-off event connected with the Festival of Britain. A total of 26 contestants competed for the inaugural Miss World title; while the names of 16 contestants are archived, there is no information on the remaining 10 contestants who represented Britain. The winner was Kiki Håkansson from Sweden. She wore a bikini when being crowned, the only winner to ever do so. Contestants who previously competed or will
Miss World was issued in Nigeria, but was declared null and void by the relevant Saudi Arabian authorities. Upon the pageant's return to England, many of the boycotting contestants chose to attend, including Miss Norway, Kathrine Sørland, who was ironically tipped in the last few days as the number one favourite for the crown she had previously boycotted. The eventual winner of the pageant was Azra Akın of Turkey, the first predominantly Muslim country to hold the title since Egypt in 1954. In Miss World 2013, protests by Islamic groups began a few weeks before the contest began, resulting in the pageant's