10 posts tagged “competition”

This is amazing (found via Petrolheed on Twitter). Forget Susan Boyle, Ukraine’s Got Talent in the form of Kseniya Simonova.

Lina Hahne, Fröken Sverige 2007

7 comments

[Cross-posted from Lucire] The search for the next Miss Sweden has begun.
   My own affiliation with this pageant—Fröken Sverige to use its name in its native language—began six years ago, and I am happy to say this year I will be far more involved. I will let the publicity machine talk about my role in due course. (I will remain a judge at Miss New Zealand.)
   But for now, let me announce that the pageant is open and accepting entrants. The winner will go on to Miss Universe 2009 at Atlantis Paradise Island, Nassau, in late August.
   After protests grounded the pageant in Sweden some years ago, it was retooled to reflect modern women, though during the past year, Miss Sweden was, according to the organization, a ‘dormant project.’
   It continues, ‘The Board of Directors have spent this time evaluating and collecting impressions and inspiration from around the world—all in order to further develop the concept.
   ‘During this time intensive pressure from various channels and interests have shown that Miss Sweden is missed and more and more people have raised their voices asking that the pageant continue. Just now, when in these somewhat darker times, it is more important than ever to brighten up the world with hope, engagement and all the positives that Miss Sweden represents. We think it is important that we once again place in focus sound role models who create faith in the future and trust in one’s own abilities.’
   The role-model angle is important and it is one I have always borne in mind, ever since I began judging beauty pageants in 2007.
   I have always said to entrants that the interview is ‘80 per cent’. While the points don’t add up that way, judges place a great deal more on the entrant’s intelligence and initiative far more than we are given credit for.
   It may be fairer to say that after an interview, I can usually pick who could win with 80 per cent certainty.
   In New Zealand, interviews can last 20 minutes with each candidate. After speaking with a former Miss Israel, Gal Gadot, who is in the new Fast and Furious film, I understand that she was subjected to eight to ten minutes per judge—and there were eight to ten of them.
   Sweden, too, has a very involved procedure when it comes to interviews—if it didn’t, I doubt that the first winner of the retooled pageant, Josephine Alhanko, would be a young woman with two masters’ degrees with an ambition to get a doctorate.
   For those who wish to be a part of one of pageantry’s most successful competitions, Miss Sweden is now accepting applicants at www.frokensverige.se.
   In the words of my friend, Panos Papadopoulos, the initiator of the pageant and the man behind Panos Emporio, ‘For those who are interested in participating the recruitment of the New Miss Sweden is an adventure that proves that one can conquer the world with the right attitude. New Miss Sweden gives endless possibilities for talented young women to realize their dreams. One year of important and inspirational work awaits. Everyone else can take joy from this fairy-tale of success and be a part of the festivities that surround it.’

This is from the Historian’s Vox blog: oil consumption has been dropping since 2004.

   By the typeface, I would guess this is from The Economist.
   So if oil consumption is going down, and the law of supply and demand holds, why are prices at an all-time high? The Historian gives some decent horse sense on this—and it should remind us that the oil companies have a vested interest (and the MSM are too dumb) to keep the panic going.
   According to this graph, which I haven’t looked further into: global demand on oil is decreasing. The US dollar is weak, so prices are high relative to that dollar—but high oil prices should have less of an effect on other countries who are converting their own currencies to US dollars to purchase crude. Let’s also not forget that OPEC is a cartel that sets its own prices, and the oil companies are setting their own prices, too, raking in multi-billion-dollar profits per annum.
   He also points out there is speculation—which means the bubble will burst at some stage.

[Cross-posted] Lucire editor Laura Ming-Wong, Miss New Zealand 2007 Laural Barrett and I will be among the judges of the StarNow 2008 Australian Model Search. 
   Each time I judge a competition, I get asked what I am looking for.
   The requirements of a fashion magazine for models include talent that can look different each time. We don’t want a Derek Zoolander with a Blue Steel look. We want a model who, depending on angle, poses, mood and just her “look” can convey anything from cool to sultry, playful to dramatic.
   I don’t think conventional beauty always works with models, either. This idea has been helped by shows such as America’s Next Top Model: all the girls on that are stunning but very quickly, Tyra and her judges whittle the contestants down, often starting with the least flexible and most conventional of them.
   When judging the Cadbury Dream Model Search last year, I really liked how my fellow judges were conscious of family and education commitments, as I was. This is important, too: the maturity of the entrant and whether she has the focus that will enable her to succeed both in her education and in her career.
   Modelling, despite the mischief Kate Moss might get up to, is not fun and games. This is work, and usually very hard work. Discipline is key to the job.
   We look forward to seeing what entrants are signing up the competition and if it sounds like you, surf to www.starnow.com.au/modelsearch.

[Cross-posted] Some readers will notice the Levi’s 501 Design Challenge graphic on the Lucire home page today, which is tied to the Project Runway competition on TV. The challenge: to create iconic looks based on pairs of Levi’s 501 jeans and the trucker jacket.
   But now, you can join in the fun. On the Design Challenge page at the Levi’s US site, you can now create your own designs. Use the 501 jeans and the trucker jacket as raw materials, you can design your own masterpiece, with the important criterion being to capture the originality and spirit of Levi’s.
   Your deadline is February 6, 2008.
   You’ll need to register first, and the online Project 501 community will vote. You can even sign up as a judge.
   After the voting, if your design has been chosen, it will be produced and sold via levi.com. So get your friends to register and rate—the more five-rivet ratings you get, the more likely you’ll make it into the top 20.
   We hope folks will check out Levi’s special section on the 501 Design Challenge!

[Cross-posted] Here’s one of two modelling contests that I want to let folks in on—the first is the Napoleon Perdis Model Search that my friends at StarNow are running. And Napoleon is one of the community of internationally minded Greek entrepreneurs that I seem to be in contact with regularly. So there are two groups of friends here that I want to help—and maybe those who want to be the face of Napoleon Perdis might be able to help themselves.
   According to the site, this is what the winner can get.

You could win a photo shoot for Napoleon Perdis—starts August 27!!
  And there’s more! The winner will also receive:
• Return travel and accommodation in Sydney for four days
• An AUS$500 Napoleon Perdis Product voucher
• Napoleon Perdis Paparazzi Ready Personal Makeup Skills One Day workshop (valued at AUS$195.00)
• Complimentary makeover and photo shoot for Napoleon Perdis
• Your photos on the Napoleon Perdis Advertising Database for one year
• One year complimentary subscription to StarNow.com
• A collection of branded StarNow.com clothing
• Featured interviews and information about you on StarNow.com

If you sign up now and say that you heard about this through Lucire, you will be able to get the StarNow membership for free.
   They want someone confident and creative, over 18, and a resident of Australia or New Zealand.
   Entries close Monday noon, Sydney time. Let Shona McGregor at StarNow.com know (email convention there is firstname.surname@starnow.com) if you want to join up.

The following films by Rob Hickling star my friend Ian O’Briain, who had to gain weight for his role of Charlie in a minute-long film of the same name. The first film was entered in the International Film Minute Contest and placed fourth. Now, they’ve got a sequel, Broken Trees. Please do let them know what you think at the YouTube pages. I think they’re rather clever.

[Cross-posted] Ironical that I can’t get C4 very clearly here and that I will probably be out, but yours truly will appear next on a TV documentary about the Cadbury Dream Model Search ’07 on Saturday 7 p.m. in New Zealand. And thank goodness it is in line with some of what I do, in this case publishing Lucire.
   I already have the first pic from the fashion shoot with Elle Gibson, the winner, here—Hannah Richards’ photography and Barry Betham’s styling are beautiful. But before all that happened, there was a lot of deliberation with the judges.
   I don’t know how the editing went, but I am betting that Duane Gazi from Trump Model Management, one of the more fluent and authoritative voices in modelling, will and should get a lot of coverage. And I hope to see Caroline Barley of Nova in the programme heaps—without her, there would be no competition.
   For those looking for controversy and bitchiness, you might not see much with us. We had very collegial judging sessions and from what the girls tell me, things went very well with the competition itself. But I am certain this will be watchable, especially among those who like reality TV, since it is, well, real. The backstage pressures, the need to deliver a verdict—that’s still there. What we didn’t have were phoney-baloney moments that could be cobbled together to make one person look bad.
   What the girls got up to, I don’t know: they were separate from us and chaperoned, and undoubtedly there will be moments there, since they are the real focus and were followed around by two TV crews for days. However, there has been no fallout from contestants moaning on blogs—unlike the many anonymous comments after Miss New Zealand that can be traced back to certain young “ladies”—as I think most of the final 12 I met realized that they were already winners, having been selected from 900 nationally.
   Elle has already had a great start and I am willing to bet that the others are already prospects for the agencies.

We should have some confidence in the MG TF under Nanjing—principally because its competition is worried. The closest rival, the Mazda MX-5 Mk III, in pretty much every respect the better car, has spawned a limited edition in the UK to coincide with the relaunch of the TF at Longbridge last week.
   Limited editions and the British go together like Morecambe and Wise, but this quotation in Motortorque was telling:

“Since the demise of the MG TF and Toyota MR2, there is no longer a defined ‘roadster’ segment within the non-premium sports car market,” commented Mazda UK´s Managing Director Rob Lindley.

   Mazda gently reminded people that the previous MG had died and there were dangers about buying the resurrected car. It’s very subtle, but I am sure that the MD’s statement was geared to do that.
   However, it just shows that Mazda is concerned that a relaunched TF will snap sales up, and there’ll be Brits holding off buying an MX-5 because of the developments at Longbridge.
   I think NAC MG has been very kind to Mazda given that it could bring up the war … oops, did I just write that? Whatever you do, don’t mention the war.
   I mentioned it just then, but I think I got away with it.
   ‘You started it. You invaded Manchuria.’
   Speculation in the British media is about the MG TF’s price, which by most accounts needs to be lower than it was when MG Rover collapsed in 2005.
   Meanwhile, Paul Stowe, NAC MG’s own blogger and the company’s quality boss, is rightly upset about the negative tone some in the British media have taken. He points out two alternatives in his blog, in some way reinforcing my own points that NAC didn’t have to reopen Longbridge, and that its boss, Yu Jiang Wei, should be applauded for pushing through its restart last week.

PS.: To those who do not know me, I should point out that no malice is intended toward the people of Japan in this post. Most of my Japanese friends know my sense of humour and how I use World War II as part of my humour.—JY

[Cross-posted] One of the first agencies I worked with in the 1980s was Ogilvy—and I was glad to hear from its Budapest CD, Dalbir. He’s launching a new site called Ad of Da Month, where everyday netizens can submit an ad, and a jury of 10 leading professionals judge the best one at the end of each month.
   It seems like a good idea. Perhaps Dalbir will add a people’s choice section, and we can see if the public and the professionals will go for the same ad, as an experiment?

Dalbir, le directeur créatif chez Ogilvy à Budapest, a lancé un nouveau site web pour les publicités.