From Winter 2008
How do you find the 10 most beautiful women in a city full of beautiful women? Well, for one, you ask for help. (If it were up to us, we might have just gone downstairs and selected 10 of our sales reps.) So we solicited nominations through our web site and received hundreds of questionnaires—some filled out by adoring husbands and boyfriends, some from moms, others from students who wanted to nominate their favorite teachers. We weren’t just looking for pretty faces, although that was a given. We wanted women who were—forgive the cliché—beautiful on the inside. We sought those who were smart, self-sufficient, and charitable. We wanted girls who loved Dallas and who gave back to their communities. We looked for diversity in backgrounds, ethnicities, and ages.
In the first round we narrowed down the pool to 25 semifinalists. Each of them came to our office to meet the D Beauty editors and answer a few questions. It was hardly grueling; it felt more like a bunch of girlfriends gabbing than a formal interview. Our semifinalists were charming, chatty, witty, and spirited. After two days of interviews, we were nearly stumped. We had met some seriously amazing people. It was tough, but we pared down the list to 20 finalists and posted their pictures and bios online. Then, we turned it over to you, our readers, to choose the 10 Most Beautiful Women in Dallas.
The voting period lasted for three weeks. Each week, we narrowed down the list of contestants based on the number of votes each woman received. By the end, more than 26,000 votes had been cast (and congratulations to Mandy Hamilton, who received 6,500 of them). Those left standing exemplify inner beauty with their compassion, charisma, intelligence, and respect for others. They are admirable for their gumption and entrepreneurial spirit. And their outer beauty? Well, see for yourself.
