Miss World 1951 be competing at international beauty pageants: 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.
Miss World on to become a semi-finalist in both the Miss World and Miss Universe contest), while others such as Costa Rica were instructed by their national governments and parliaments not to attend the contest. Among the other boycotting nations were Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, Panama, Belgium and Kenya. There was further controversy over the possibly suspended participation of France and South Africa, which may or may not have been due to the boycott. For her part, Lawal asked that contestants not suspend their participation in the contest, saying that it was for the good of her country and that they could, as