Queen Sono: The new face of beauty

Curvaceous and dark-skinned beauty Tsakane Sono believes she is the fulfilment of her ancestors’ pride.

Sono, brought up in a family of women with beautiful curves and deep skin tones, says that being crowned Miss Soweto has afforded her opportunities that they could only have dreamt about.

“They lived in a time when they were not viewed as being enough. They had opportunities that they wanted to explore but were unable to achieve because of the way they looked,” she says.

“Even beyond beauty standards, the fact that I was able to pursue a degree was a big deal for my family, because they didn’t have those opportunities. Especially when I consider family members who have passed, they would be looking at me [and saying], ‘You are living our wildest dreams.’”

Hailing from Chiawelo, Soweto — the same section that President Cyril Ramaphosa and music legend Sello “Chicco” Twala once called home — the 24-year-old occupational therapist works at Mofolo Clinic.

Sono is a passionate advocate for mental illness awareness and works with Miss Soweto to shine a light on people with disabilities in the township.

“Even though we have had great conversations about mental wellness since the pandemic, there is still misinformation. I want to be part of addressing that, as well as focusing on people with disabilities in our communities, especially in Soweto,” she says.

“A person can have a disability and still be part of the community. Often, people are not interested in the issues of people with disabilities or mental illnesses until it hits home. It’s either them or their family member. We don’t need to get to that point to start exercising empathy.”

The Miss Soweto competition was an aspirational beauty pageant for the young Sono, like other young girls growing up in her community. Especially because it embraces every kind of beauty.

“Most people knew about it, perhaps because it’s one of the longest-existing pageants in our country. When it came to entering the competition, friends would send me links and encourage me to try to enter,” she says.

Enthralled by the beauty pageants featured on television and magazine pages from a young age, Sono never imagined that she would set a precedent to have her kind of beauty acknowledged. “I always had an interest in modelling, but because of the lack of representation I never saw myself in that space.”

Applauding beauty platforms such as Miss Soweto for being a pioneer of Black inclusivity, Sono is well aware of society’s blind spot when it comes to disseminating antiquated beauty standards.

“In the past, the pageant space was so restrictive about what it defined as beautiful. Especially [when it came to] women who are dark-skinned and fuller-figured. They [pageants] would favour women of a certain height, of a lighter skin complexion, and with a smaller body size,” she says.

“As much as our society is becoming more [accepting] of different body shapes and sizes, to a certain extent there is still a large part of our society that believes in one type of beauty.

“When it comes to those issues, I don’t let them ruffle my feathers.

“However, I have met and am deeply encouraged by so many incredible women in these spaces who continue to challenge those stereotypes — and I’ve found myself in a position where I also wanted to be part of that.”

Sono was brought up by confident, curvy, dark-skinned women who modelled what it meant to be beautiful.

Grateful to Miss Soweto for the opportunity to be the face of another kind of beauty, Sono’s standing ovation goes to her mother Claudia, whom she credits for her confidence and grit.

“My incredible mother built my confidence when it came to loving my dark skin and the way I look. She would share with me the painful experiences she went through because of her deep skin tone. Those experiences are what made her intentional about what she would say to me growing up about my beauty,” Sono says.

“She would often say, ‘Your dark skin is beautiful, so take good care of it and learn to love it.’ This made a difference to my confidence in a world where I was never enough — not pretty enough because I’m dark-skinned and not beautiful enough because I’m not skinny. Because of her I never felt less beautiful.”

Sono encourages young people to change the narrative in their communities by aligning their passions with community initiatives that uplift and empower people. But it all begins with love.

“As young people, we need to challenge the misconceptions about what it means to come from a township and be looked down upon. People don’t think that you can become someone great simply because of your background. But you can. It starts with giving back to your community the best way that you can.

"Find organisations in your community that align with what you are passionate about and move forward from there.”