Miss SA Marilyn Ramos leaves our shores for Miss World on Tuesday (3 September). The competition's happening in Jakarta, Indonesia this year - on Saturday, 28 September - so Marilyn's off to Jakarta to spend the month doing the things she needs to do in the build-up to the competition.
That's
if the competition happens. There's been all sorts of controversy surrounding the event with an Indonesian politician and protesters calling for it to be cancelled for religious reasons.
On Thursday (29 August) Indonesia's religious affairs minister called for the event to be canned, saying that: "It doesn't fit with Islamic teachings that say Muslim women should cover immodest parts of their bodies."
The bikini component of the competition's already been scrapped "to avoid causing offence" so it's anyone's guess as to what will happen next. From the sounds of it the organisers are determined to go ahead and those against it are determined to protest. For more about the scandal see this article:
Indonesian minister wants cancellation of Miss World.
No matter what happens, Marilyn's outfits are sewn and sorted. Miss SA organisers Sun International gave Marilyn an official send-off at a shindig in Sandton last week where she got very emo' and wiped her tears with French-manicured fingers ...
She also showed off some of the outfits she'll be competing in ... the costume she'll wearing for the Dances of the World competition:
And her evening gown:
Her evening gown's been designed by Michael Bezuidenhout who says it was inspired by the Miss World crown:
Current Miss World in the crown: Miss China Wenxia YU.
The gems on Marilyn's gown are Swarovski crystals - I didn't have a clue what they were last year but now I do. I've even been into their store to investigate so I know what they are up close, ha!
Marilyn's Dances of the World costume and her Designer Competition Gown's been designed by Biji Couture who used the African sun as the inspiration for the Designer competition gown. I couldn't get my clutches on a pic of it but apparently it's a chiffon number that reflects a sunset through yellow, gold, orange and red that plunge through the gown ending indigo.
Marilyn's also taking a Miss World gift with her - all entrants take a gift from their country. She's taking a rhino collectible to raise awareness about the plight of our rhinos and the atrocities being committed against them.
She's very involved with saving the rhinos so she'll be promoting the cause through Miss World and she's also planning on climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to raise funds for hurt rhinos - all very cool I thought.
Former Miss South Africa and current Miss SA ambassador Melinda Bam gives Marilyn an adios.
While Marilyn does her thang at Miss World, the Miss South Africa crowd will be in the process of sifting through the entrants for the new Miss South Africa. As mentioned
here, the competition's gone through lots of changes and the new Miss SA will be crowned in March next year.
Applications for it closed on Saturday so the next stage of the selection process begins soon.
Miss World's scheduled to air live on SABC3, starting with a pre-show build-up at 14h00, followed by the ceremony at 14h30.