The road to the Brighton Girl Awards

By Pippa Moyle, CEO and Founder of City Girl Network.

Nine-and-a-half years ago, I took a walk that changed my life.

I’d moved to Brighton eight months previously as a graduate, dreaming of a life full of lunch breaks on the beach, gossip over lattes, a book club family, meandering around markets, and home making through thrift stores.

I had a great life on paper: my first marketing job working in a small office above an estate agents on Church Road, a lovely flat opposite St Ann’s Well Gardens and a housemate-turned-boyfriend relationship, just to add the extra sparkle to my new grown-up Brighton life.

But behind the facade of my Brighton Girl life, I didn’t feel like a Brighton Girl at all. I couldn’t find the friends to gossip with, let alone the best places to meet them, or the book clubs, markets, or hidden thrifty gems. I thought of all this as I walked along Hove promenade on that fateful early evening: the loneliness, the disconnect, the lack of belonging.

I stopped to look at the sea at the bottom of Brunswick Square, as I often did, and saw a girl who looked just like me. Tall, brunette, alone. I wondered if she felt like I did; and how I could ever know. It was in those thoughts that I came up with an idea that would see me change the course of my life.

I took out my phone, snapped a picture of her, and then wrote a mission statement. “Brighton has the power to be all encompassing, often drawing you to venture to the pebbled beach alone. Some days you’ll look out to sea celebrating how far you’ve come, some days you’ll be searching for guidance. In that sea-gazing moment of establishing what’s lost and found, let someone else be your clarity, your Champagne glass and your shoulder to cry on. Let Brighton Girl be your guide.”

Five months later, the first Brighton Girl Coffee Meet Up was born, and a year from then the City Girl Network Limited got its company number, with four communities under its belt. By the time you read this, we’ll be in 25 places across the UK – but that’s a story for another time.

This story is all about Brighton Girl, and, more specifically still, the Brighton Girl Awards.

The City Girl Network has a very specific mission: helping women and femmes to belong where they are. We host events, manage social forums, signpost services, elevate great businesses, and create guides to support them through all aspects of their lives. Our currency is experiences and recommendations, so entering into the awards market was a logical next step.

We tested the awards on our Brighton and Bristol communities in December 2023 with three categories: Brighton Girl won by Jade Hylton, Business won by Afrori Books and Community won by Women of Colour Brighton. It was clear that we were onto something, so we went away, developed the vision and came back on a bigger, more structured scale in January 2025 with a focus on Brighton. Bristol will follow later this year.

We created 20 categories, highlighting the core aspects of Brighton Girl life: from the property service helping her find a place to live, to the retailer helping her make it a home. The campaign began with a nomination stage, with Brighton Girls nominating as many places as they’d like. Followed by a month of the voting stage, where the Top 10 most nominated asked the whole Brighton and Hove community to vote.

The votes closed on the 6th March with 50,003 votes, and the Top 5 Finalists – announced on International Women’s Day – were moved into the judging stage, which is where we are at the time of writing. The winners will be announced on Thursday 27th March at PLATF9RM Hove in a ceremony that will be full of Bolney sparkling wine, disco balls and vibrant frocks.

The strapline for the awards is “celebrating those who make Brighton a great place to belong”, but they became so much more than that. They were a free marketing tool for local businesses, a networking ecosystem for businesses, and a platform for sponsors to creatively advertise to the community.

Harbour Hotel, who sponsored Restaurant of the Year, brought the Top 10 Restaurant owners together for a three course dinner in their beautiful banquet room, for example. And I’m very excited for you to see what Sam Thomas does with Different Hats, sponsoring the Creative Agency Category.

I wanted the awards to be fuelled with creativity, community and collaboration, encompassing my own mantra of “people before profit; profit fuelled by people”. No cost to enter, no tables to buy, just hundreds of businesses sharing their stories and thousands of Brighton Girls discovering the very best ways to belong.

To get involved in the Brighton Girl Awards 2026, or the Bristol Girl Awards taking place later in the year, reach out at hello@citygirlnetwork.com.