Before you talk to people, they have already judged you based on your look.
She ran Miss Universe Japan for more than a decade and coached Riyo Mori to the 2007 title, Japan’s first since 1959. In August 2026 she was appointed to build and run the French selection.
I don’t teach women how to be looked at. I teach them how to command the room.She was born Agnès. At about twenty-five, working in Spain, she changed it to Inès, because Spanish speakers could not say Agnès. She had trained at Inter Beauté, a beauty school in Montpellier, and had opened her own salon at twenty-one.
When she bought the Miss Universe Japan licence in 1999 she set up a Tokyo company to run it, and gave it the same name as the school. Inter Beauté Group.
1995
Based in Hong Kong, representing the world’s supermodels to the Asian market.
1998
Handed a declining regional contest and asked to make it matter again.
1999
Acquired the Miss Universe Japan licence outright and founded the company that ran it.
2007
Japan’s second title, and its first since 1959. The Miss Universe Organization names Inès Ligron Best National Director.
2009
She put her delegate in a black leather kimono for the national costume round. It drew around two thousand complaints in Japan, kimono makers objected publicly, and a more conservative version was worn at the final. The costume was her decision and she has never said otherwise.
2009
One title among four placements at the final.
2010
Founded a beauty academy chain with Hiroko Mima, the delegate she had coached to the top fifteen in 2008.
2011
Moved to Singapore and became National Director of the Miss World Singapore Organization.
2014
Opened a styling and image studio in Singapore under her own name, in February.
2026
Appointed in August to build France’s Miss Universe selection from nothing, after the Miss France company withdrew from the competition. She ran a national casting, a residential camp in the south of France for eleven finalists, and designated Garance Authié in October.
2026
She takes coaching clients directly, advises in the modelling industry, and runs two houses of her own.
48
years between Japan’s first Miss Universe title and its second
Japan had won Miss Universe once, in 1959, and not again. Inès Ligron had been rebuilding the national programme for a decade: buying the licence, running a live-in school, refusing the register of smallness and restraint that Japanese delegates had been coached into for a generation.
In 2007 the argument was settled in public. Her delegate took the title, and the organisation named her the best national director in the world the same year.
Awarded by the Miss Universe Organization.
Delegates coached, and where they placed
2003
Miyako Miyazaki
Fourth runner-up
2006
Kurara Chibana
First runner-up
2007
Riyo Mori
Miss Universe
2008
Hiroko Mima
Top fifteen
Miss Universe Japan 2003, fourth runner-up at the final
“ファイナリスト時代にほぼすっぴんで、デニム&Tシャツにスニーカーでユニバースの事務局を訪れたときには、頭のてっぺんから爪先までじっと見つめられ「二度とその服を着ないで。いますぐ捨てなさい！」とため息まじりに言われました。”TranslationI turned up at the Universe office as a finalist with almost no makeup on, in denim and a T-shirt and trainers. She looked me over from head to toe and said, with a sigh, never wear those clothes again, throw them out right now.
Miss Universe Japan 2003
“心が整っていなければ身体も健康にはなれないということなど、「自分の在り方」についてきちんと考えることの大切さを学びました。”TranslationShe taught me that the body cannot be healthy unless the mind is in order, and that it matters to think seriously about how you carry yourself.
Miss Universe Japan 2008, top fifteen at the final. She bought the Japanese franchise in 2018 and has run the competition since, the first Japanese national director it has had.
“そういう意味では、イネス・リグロンという、私の人生に影響を与え、道標を作ってくれた師匠と出会ったことで、「彼女のようになりたい」と感じたことも大きかったですね。”TranslationMeeting Inès Ligron, a teacher who shaped my life and gave me a compass, and feeling that I wanted to become like her, was a large part of it.
She calls the method Inès Secret. She set it down in three books and an instructional DVD set, and the DVDs have sold more than 200,000 copies.
Roughly the top fifteen finalists moved in and trained with her for months. Each signed a six-month agreement handing her every decision about wardrobe, cosmetics and which brands she appeared beside.
How to stand, and how to cross a stage.
Her own line on it: everything lies in the eyes.
The competition runs in it. So did the training.
Answering a judge on live television, in a second language, with the lights on you.
She chose it. The six-month agreement is what let her.
The one she is known for.
“I have to liberate these women!”
“For me, it’s important that the girl is smart.”
“Real beauty for women comes from the inside. It’s a mental thing. It’s about sensuality and intelligence.”
“You have to hypnotize people with your presence on the stage and everything lies in the eyes.”
“I follow trends without being a fashion victim. I hate having the same thing as other people.”
“I don’t advertise anorexia. We don’t want skinny rabbits.”
“J’ai accepté, à une condition, que je fasse comme je veux.”TranslationI accepted on one condition. That I do it my way.
“These girls are like babies when they come to me. When I’m done, they have their college diplomas.”
“I had no chance to make an impact if I didn’t insert a bit of provocation and it worked.”
“At least Japan got noticed. Many other countries in Asia never get any attention because they blend in by staying safe.”
“I am brutally honest and I am not afraid to tell my opinions.”
Wardrobe, jewellery and automotive collaborations ran through the Miss Universe Japan programme. The campaigns are her own work, and the later ones postdate it.
Fashion and jewellery houses
Fashion and streetwear brands
Campaigns
Automotive partners
Twenty-five years of interviews across Japan, Asia and Europe.
The Making of the World’s Most Beautiful Woman
The Making of the World’s Most Beautiful Woman, Part Two
She runs both. Each has its own site.
Three kinds of work, taken selectively. Currently open to enquiries.
One to one work on presence, bearing and image, drawn from the programme she built for Miss Universe Japan. She takes beginners she has scouted herself, and coaches working professionals.
Advisory and management work inside the modelling industry, on three decades that began at IMG Models in 1995.
Interviews, panels and commentary on image, presence and the industry she spent thirty years inside.
Tell her who you are and what you are looking for.
EnquireFor coaching, advisory work, press and speaking.
MISS UNIVERSE FRANCE, SAS
SIREN 131 872 996