Karen Powell, 33, from Johnstown, Co. Meath has won a national competition to find a new curvy fashion model to be the ‘Face of Tempted’, a leading plus-sized fashion chain.  Karen, who works with adults with disabilities and challenging behaviour in Stamullen, is getting married in August in Granada in Spain, so 2013 is going to be a very exciting year for her. 

The final entitled ‘A Night at The Movies’ was presented by Vicki Mooney, Ireland’s top curvy model and author on Sunday 12^th May in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Northwood in Santry and was contested by fourteen finalists from Cork, Dublin, Derry, Donegal, Tyrone, Waterford, Wicklow, Wexford, Louth and Meath.

The total Prize Package that Karen has won is worth €3,000 and includes €1,000 Curvy Cash to spend in store, a 2 night break in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Northwood, a fashion shoot with photographer Maria McGrail, Make-Up Course with The International Make Up Academy, a Teeth Whitening Voucher from The White House and a hair care hamper from Mane n’Tail. The Tempted competition winner will also model on Ireland AM, and take part in a fashion shoot for national media, and for the store’s online boutique.  

Tempted Boutique, which has outlets in Raheny in Dublin and Wexford is donating all of the proceeds from the Model Search Grand Final to the winners’ chosen charity. Karen has chosen Arc House Cork (a support group for families affected by cancer), as her charity in memory of her aunt who passed away in January. Her aunt did a lot of volunteer work there and Karen felt it would be a nice tribute to her.

The Tempted model search competition was designed to find a real woman, sized ‘16 plus’, to represent the majority of Irish women who don’t relate to the mainstream fashion trend of size 8, and smaller, models. 

Hundreds of Irish women from all walks of life entered the Tempted competition, which, the organisers hope, will help the finalists fulfil their ambitions to work as a model, or within the fashion and styling business.

Size 18 Karen says that women can be beautiful at any shape or size, and she believes that up-to-the-minute plus-size fashion allows women to embrace their shape and show off their gorgeous curves, confidently, and to maximum effect. 

“Being curvy and voluptuous, or being super slim, should not stop anyone from wearing whatever they want, as long as they feel good about themselves. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes!” the Tempted competition winner says.

Competition judges were the leading fashion stylist Cathy O'Connor, curvy model Vicki Mooney, photographer Maria McGrail, and Rosemary Kearns, owner of the Tempted fashion chain, who selected their 14 finalists from an entry of hundreds of ‘size 16 plus’ women.

According to celebrity stylist, Cathy O’Connor, the judges were overwhelmed by the number and quality of the girls who entered the competition. 

“Our only criteria were that the entrants must be a size 16 plus, over 18 years of age, and love clothes and fashion!  Entries came from all over the country, and selecting the winner was incredibly difficult, as the women were simply stunning”, Cathy O’Connor says.

Tempted Boutique is one of the few Irish stores selling top fashion in curvy sizes 16 to 28, and Rosemary Kearns launched her search for a real woman to model the stores’ 2013 summer collection, last March. 

Last year’s winner, twenty-seven year old Sinead O’ Brien from Patrickswell in Limerick, went on to be signed as a plus-size model with Andrea Roche’s Dublin modelling agency, and the classically trained soprano now combines modelling with her singing career.