Y’all, I love beauty pageants. When I was a little girl, I used to stage elaborate versions of Miss America in which I would represent 10 or so different states (the number generally depended on the number of bathing suits I could find) and make my babysitters judge. I always rigged it so Hawaii or California would win, because I felt those were the most glamorous states.
Anyway, perhaps the most important beauty pageant is one I didn’t even know about at 7 years old: Miss Universe. I nearly missed it last night, but thanks to Cut Blog, I managed to catch about 2/3rds of the fabulousness.
Miss USA didn’t make it to the top 15, sadly. I am not really sure why, since a more-than-acceptable number of the top 15 looked dead behind their eyes and only a few were able to walk and smile at the same time. Miss Ukraine is odd looking and appeared lost and confused, yet she made it to the top 5. And (Miss USA) Rima Fakih is gorgeous AND able to smile while walking. What’s up, Billy Baldwin and Evan Lysacek?
Men and pageant-haters tend to focus on the swimsuits in such a contest, and there were definitely many girls in need of a french fry IV. I’m also almost positive sthat at least one fo them had some ribs removed. This swimsuit portion was particularly bouncy because the contestants who weren’t in the top 15 had to “dance” (why they didn’t put a few who could dance in the front is beyond me). But the really interesting part to me (besides the national costumes, which I missed, and the horrendousness that is Bret Michaels) is the evening gown competition.
And oh, there were some gowns. Miss Philippines, a crowd favorite, apparently chose to fashion her dress from hundreds of Hershey kiss wrappers (I guess she donated the chocolate, since she clearly didn’t eat it). Miss Albania wore what was basically a glorified strip of ugly lace (with extra skin-colored lining for the naughty bits). And one contestant (Miss Hungary, I believe) wore a fuchsia number with an enormous poofy skirt that even my 7-year-old self would have disapproved of. But my personal winner for worst dress was Miss Puerto Rico. It was a skin-tight mermaid-style gown in light pink lame, with the world’s largest bow on the rear end. It was like stripper Barbie-meets-80s bridesmaid. Yet apparently someone liked it. I was trying to find a photo of it, and came across this slideshow of “best and worst” evening gowns… they judged it a “best.” Let me know what you think.
In case you haven’t heard, the winner was Miss Mexico, Jimena Navarrete. And I would have been pretty annoyed if she didn’t win. She was the clear front-runner to me from the beginning: gorgeous, totally worked it in her swimsuit and had the best dress by far. And she even attempted to answer her question. Congratulations, Miss Mexico.
