Anger over Mexican beauty queen's bullet dress

Miss Mexico is redesigning her Miss Universe pageant dress - not because it is too slinky or low-cut, but because it is too violent.

The floor-length dress, belted by bullets and accented by sketches of hangings during Mexico's Roman Catholic uprising in the 1920s, outraged Mexicans who said it was in poor taste.

Critics said it glorified violence in a country where a battle between rival drug gangs has brought a wave of killings and beheadings.



Designers who helped select the dress for the beauty queen, Rosa Maria Ojeda, said they had wanted something representing the nation's culture and history, especially since Mexico City was hosting the pageant in May. "We wanted a dress that made you think of Mexico," Hector Terrones, told La Jornada newspaper.

But many Mexicans were not happy about the history it recalled especially at a time of debate about the Catholic Church's role in politics and its lobbying against a plan to legalise abortion.

The dress depicted scenes from the Cristero war, an uprising by Roman Catholic rebels against Mexico's secular government, which was imposing fiercely anti-clerical laws. Tens of thousands of people died.