Top Uma Lele with Rosie de Malmanche (sponsored by A Team Debt Consultants) at Farmers Lambton Quay. Above Miss Universe New Zealand 2009 Katie Taylor fields questions from this year’s entrants from the penthouse suite at the Museum Hotel.
The Miss Universe New Zealand 2010 contestants might not have stopped Parliament today (see the parliamentary video below—the fun part’s around the 3.45 mark), but they did stop some of the shoppers at Farmers Lambton Quay in Wellington.
The store kindly allowed the 13 contestants to spritz customers with various perfumes being sold.
As the Farmers team explained, they are successfully making the Lambton Quay store one of the more distinctive ones in the country, putting on fun events.
A representative from a rival department store came to investigate. All I can say is if they had acted as nicely as Farmers staff, including Herman, Suzanne and Patrick, plus Iain, the head of security, they might have been in the running.
The Napoleon Perdis counter was busy as the team there, which will be working on Saturday providing make-up for the contestants, showed off some of the Australian brand’s latest offerings.
Although I had originally planned not to pop by, I made it along with Lucire head designer Tanya Sooksombatisatian to see how they would react to someone who wasn’t judging, but who worked with me.
My fellow judge Samantha Hannah also joined us and observed how our 13 interacted with customers and each other at Farmers.
We had to break for lunch by mid-afternoon—in particular, I was tired, having got up early to drive four contestants to two radio stations.
I joined Lena Walsh (Miss Nelson) and Caren Freeman (Miss Auckland) as they were interviewed by Dean Conland at Groove 107·7 FM this morning. In fact, Dean has two tickets to give away, so tune in and see if you can win the prize.
Matt McLean and his camera operator came to film by mid-morning, with the segment, I imagine, appearing on Friday morning during TV One’s Breakfast.
By the evening, Miss Universe New Zealand 2009 Katie Taylor had arrived, fielding questions from this year’s hopefuls back at the Museum Hotel.
Meanwhile, at Mishmosh, a bar on Courtenay Place, they could let their hair down a little from 6.30 p.m. onwards.
Evidently, Mishmosh’s Facebook update worked as quite a few patrons were aware of the bar’s special guests tonight. The contestants interacted with customers, raising extra funds for Look Good Feel Better.
At Mishmosh, we joined Miss Universe New Zealand 2008 Samantha Powell, who will MC with McLean on Saturday night.
Miss Wanganui 2008, Michelle Kleinsmith, also popped by to visit everyone.
Given it was a particularly long day, most of the contestants had retired by 10 p.m., ready for a day of rehearsals and the gruelling interview session on Friday.
I’ll be in my Simon Cowell mode—Katie has been telling this year’s entrants a few stories about my questioning. But they can count themselves lucky: they have between five and twenty minutes with the entire judging panel. At Miss Israel, it’s 20 minutes per judge.
I expect fewer Tweets on Friday. There won’t be time to do any from inside the judging room, but in case there is, watch out for the #missnz hashtag.
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