Trumped: Venezuela's Beauty Queen Factory Is Also Victim Of The Recession

As Venezuela gears up to crown its new Miss Venezuela pageant winner this Thursday, the country's unrelentingly successful beauty queen factory is feeling a pinch from the economic downturn. Last week, the Miss Venezuela organization announced that it would cut the number of national pageant participants from 30 to 20 young women.  But wipe those tears, kitten. Osmel Sousa, the man from whose bronzed head are born pageant winners, assures that the cutting back of contestants will not mean less dresses or less plastic surgery. (Seriously. He wants to make sure you know that the plastic surgery isn't going anywhere.)  So why is the organization that has successfully produced more Miss Universe winners testing the limits of their waterproof mascara than any other nation struggling? Why is a country consumed with applauding the carefully practiced strutting of young women with carefully crafted noses having to scrimp in order to maintain what could very well be considered its national sport?  Could not a generous benefactor - let's say, for the sake of carving out a pretty story, that he's tall, with hair that sprouts from his freckled bird's egg of a scalp like so many flames, or a toupee - lend Venezuela's Beauty Industrial Complex a few extra thousand dollars so that they can continue to raise winners?  Indeed, the beauty pageant industry rakes in a lot of money for Venezuela and any attempt to chip away at the industry would be a loss. In Venezuela, potential beauty queens are groomed from a young age - as in age 6 or 7 - to learn how to walk in heels, apply makeup, tuck back, etc. And then there's the plastic surgery: Breasts that defy both gravity and reason, meticulously broken and mended noses turned up ever so slightly at the first runner up, cheeks that smile even when lips don't want to. This also forms an integral and lucrative part of Venezuela's beauty pageant industry.  It remains to be soon what the long-term impact of the recession will be on the standard of beauty in Venezuela. But, for now, rest assured that your idols and their implants aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Even Miss Venezuela can't escape economic crisis [Reuters]