Miss Arkansas Named Miss America

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ – SEPTEMBER 11: Miss America 2017 Savvy Shields appears onstage during the 2017 Miss America Competition at Boardwalk Hall Arena on September 11, 2016 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. (Photo by Donald Kravitz/Getty Images for dcp)

How did you end your September 11th yesterday? For one slice of the country, it was with the traditional pageant of Miss America, broadcast live from the ruins of Atlantic City, NJ.

The pageant, for all that you might sneer, is still trying to keep up with modernity, despite the throwback roots to a far more sexist era. Erin O’Flaherty (Miss Missouri), for instance, was boasted as “the first openly gay contestant.” (Djuan Trent, Miss Kentucky in 2011, was also a lesbian, but she did not come out until several years later.) She did not make the Top 15 though, which means she was ushered from the stage early, and only returned for the endless dress and bikini parade segments.

The “talent” portion was also thankfully free of any bizarre choices, like last year’s Miss New York playing the solo cup, like she was starring in her own live version of Pitch Perfect III: Miss America! and the rest of us merely extras. Not that the talent portion didn’t rely heavily on modern entertainment. Savvy Shields, Miss Arkasas and the eventual winner of the night, performed a number from that network show we all loved to hate, Smash!

But enough about the rest of it. Let’s talk about what we really came here for. The dresses! Though this is not red carpet material, and these women are not A-lister stars, this parade of gowns is interesting as a document of what our culture considers the height of fashion in 2016, and should be considered a historical snapshot of evening gown chic in the mid twenty-teens.

(Please note: Not all states evening gown walks were available via Getty. We apologize if your state was overlooked.)

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