Miss Horowhenua, Samantha Powell, takes Miss Universe New Zealand
Paraparaumu-born Samantha Powell, 20, representing Horowhenua, is the newly crowned Miss Universe New Zealand 2008 in a ceremony at the Novotel Ellerslie, near Auckland City.
Hannah Matthews of Auckland, Miss Masport, is runner-up, followed by Rhonda Grant, Miss TR Designs of Palmerston North.
Miss Powell says, ‘It’s a real privilege and I’ll do this country proud.’
She is a team leader at ASB Bank Wellington and returns to the capital for work “as normal” right after the pageant.
An auction to benefit Look Good Feel Better, the charity which helps women with cancer, raised $3,000 at the function.
Jack Yan, publisher of Lucire, who judged alongside Look Good Feel Better general manager Yvonne Brownlie, interior designer May Davis, and fashion designers Minh Ta and Patrick Steel, says this year’s judging was far tougher than 2007’s.
‘We spent six hours on interviews in 2007. We spent the same amount of time this year with fewer contestants,’ he says.
‘We really had to get in to what makes these young women tick.’
The judges found it was harder to pick a winner as the majority were ‘cosmopolitan and globally minded,’ says Mr Yan.
Sylvia Laurenson (Miss Bettjemans) and Rebecca Connor (Miss Establishment Bar Wellington) rounded off the top five.
Last year’s winner, Laural Barrett, performed a song at the event, as did singing duo Anthony & Edward.
Miss Powell represents New Zealand at Miss Universe at Nha Trang, Vietnam, on June 17.
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Jack, who gives a fuck? Why don’t you write about things that mean something to humanity? Like dude, you’re actually smarter than this.
Comment by Paul Earl — June 13, 2008 @ 18.58
Paul, I guess you don’t know that this is the official publicity blog for the pageant as we are a sponsor—or that this is a fashion magazine website, where, to answer your first question, there is an audience that gives a f***. My posts have my name on them if you hunt around, but I’ll still stand by this one as the publisher. Of all people, I’m sure you know that my work blog is elsewhere—I had expected you to be more knowledgeable about their different audiences.
Comment by Jack Yan — June 14, 2008 @ 0.07
Hi Jack… while I accept that this particular article may not have been penned by you, I applaud your willingness to accept ownership. Although, having protested your innocence here, the irony is not lost on me (after hunting around as you suggested) that you went “Cruising to Waiheke with the Miss New Zealand ’08 contestants” on April 24th – and you were apparently one of the judges of the contest as well. That’s some endorsement!
Let me re-phrase for clarity… “I was somewhat surprised to see an otherwise forward-thinking publication such as yours glorifying the undeniably antiquated practice of portraying (almost certainly intelligent) women as vacuous objects”. Let’s face it, it’s hardly a modern, trend-setting idea to stand women in a line and judge them by how they look, is it? Oh, that’s right… they’re asked questions as well, right?
Whether you expect it or not, I don’t need to be knowledgeable about the needs of your different audiences – you do! I’m also of the very firm belief that “fashion” should be about ‘leading the way forwards’, being innovative, futuristic, visionary… giving your audience something unexpected… as opposed to spoon-feeding them what you think they want. I’d confidently hazard to guess that, be it the audience who read your blog or the somehow ‘different audience’ who read your magazine, they would be very interested in *new* ideas on fashion…
If I was to be very cheeky (heaven forbid), I’d ask… “after she’s finished ‘being kind to children and horses’, would you expect her to have dinner waiting on the table when you got home from work?”
Comment by Paul Earl — July 21, 2008 @ 11.25
Well, it seems you aren’t the same Paul Earl to whom I thought I was addressing my first comment. Hence my expectation was misplaced—I was addressing your namesake whom I have known for some years. Evidently you are not him and I ask you to re-examine my response in that light.
Needless to say I’m flattered by your attention, and interested in your thoughts. Your rephrasing is helpful. Thank you.
As those who regularly follow this blog know, I have been a pageant judge for two years, and have been involved in pageantry for about six. That’s no secret. Every now and then I’ll add my thoughts—since this blog does cover the odds and ends we see and what we (often I) get up to. It has trivia. Sometimes it has that celebrity junk that I like about as much as you seem to like beauty pageants. Like it or not, it gets read—by a lot more than an in-depth piece on the origin of jeans or anything I would class as real journalism. (Most of it does not wind up in the printed editions.) And I know there are people who are interested in the pageant side of things—even if that must signal the full downfall of civilization.
Whenever we have opened up our forum to story ideas (the posts are gone now due to hacking—you must think that is too convenient), readers are usually silent. We sometimes want to be a title driven by stories people want, even for the awful capitalist reason of extra sales. Hence we ask. But what if the people aren’t forthcoming?
You are, cheeky or not, the exception to the usual silence. I applaud that. I applaud a contrary view, which would not happen if I were airy-fairy, spin-doctoring my posts and taking no position.
So if I were spoonfeeding, dare I permit contrary comments to stand on this page? Or permit comments at all, let alone respond?
I agree fashion is about leading the way, and that my role in the media is to set an example. Perhaps you have not read much of our printed work where I am proud to rock the boat. That is fair enough: we aren’t nearly as well known as Vogue and one could not be criticized for basing a judgement on what one sees online.
I am happy to say that we brought plenty of young designers to the fore without demanding they buy an advert, pushed green fashion into the mainstream while people wondered what carbon neutral meant, or went on about unhealthy skinny models before they began dropping dead. When the fashion weeks failed to ban them, we acted: we prevented photographs of the worst offenders being run for years.
We may not be the best written magazine in the world, but we do more than our duty in being forward-thinking.
Ah, you say, doesn’t that go against the whole pageant side of things?
The reality is that to make any change you must play the game.
A cynic might say that presenting models in the latest clothes—the stock in trade of this world—surely is not that far away from your charge of standing women in a line. And we seldom get to talk to the catwalk models who are ogled by more male photographers than any beauty queen I know.
We both know that to get positive messages across we put them into a form that people are used to and will want to purchase. At the simplest level, more people will read an illustrated magazine than one without pictorials.
The anti-skinny-model agenda have been pushed by me gradually since the beginning of this century and it has been the same with green fashion. The technique, as I am sure you appreciate, is to get into the structure and make a change from within. I have practised this for a long time. It works for me. It might not be your way, and on that we can disagree.
If this publication were repositioned overnight as a green title or as a plus-size title then we marginalize ourselves and we begin preaching solely to the choir.
It has taken a while but since we are watched by the industry I like to think the social responsibility and environmental angle was successfully forwarded by us in 2002–3. Now everyone seems to do some sort of “green fashion” section or special. More than a few designers went from obscurity to fame because we had the guts to champion them based on merit, making them palatable for the competition.
We also do plenty of little things that nudge the industry in a more positive direction.
Your complaint is not uncommon and it is not without merit. It surrounds, obviously, the objectification of women. I would be lying if I said I agreed with that. I also do not believe I could get away with objectifying women at a title largely staffed by women, many of whom find the idea of watching a beauty pageant monstrous.
I take my judging role seriously so I think it a suitable endorsement: as a publisher and as someone who witnesses what actually goes on within pageants.
So, Paul, how shall we change the world of pageantry? To ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist, or to put things right where there is an opportunity?
I realize there is some appeal to the former but then they’d simply get another judge—someone who might have fewer scruples. Of course I know the type. I get enough nudges and winks from men telling me how lucky I am to be around beauty contestants. These unscrupulous folk are there, and there are even a few quite willing to step in with a sponsorship offer if I did not hold this place as a media partner.
I know this for a fact. These are the misogynists you are targeting. And they have no place in beauty pageants. And we have no business sending a well endowed girl to Miss Universe whose only qualification is looking sexually available.
I see Miss Universe New Zealand as chance to favour a potential winner who is not, believe it or not, judged principally by her looks.
With the greatest respect to Samantha Powell, who is attractive, there were women there who could have taken the title from her on looks alone.
And yes, how did you guess? They are asked questions.
The interview and meet-and-greet went from 7 to 11 p.m. with 12 contestants this year; to midnight last year. It is not a three-minute Q&A as they do at Miss Universe.
The cruise is an opportunity to see how they interact, to see who is genuine.
Allan Parker, pageant director Val Lott’s husband, and I are in loco parentis and through the year Val and I are there as advisers much in the lawyer–client way. Last year’s winner has attested publicly to the support I gave her through her reign.
It would not be unfair to say that 80 per cent of the pageant is judged on the questions—at least when it comes to me. And I am happy to report that that seems to be the prevailing thinking behind the other judges.
That means points off for obviously surgically enhanced candidates and the fakers with rehearsed answers. That also means points off for the catty types. Vacuous girls? They’d never make it past the interview night.
Now, if you’ll excuse me as it is rather late, I am heading to the ranch to see if my girlfriend, who has just done a goodwill visit to the local kindergarten, has prepared us dinner. (In the interests of clarity, I was being facetious in the last paragraph.)
Comment by Jack Yan — July 21, 2008 @ 14.38