Story by Patience Nyagato, Arts Reporter
THE country has been implored to address grooming and selection criteria for beauty pageants.
This comes after Zimbabwe failed to make an impact at the just-ended Miss Universe contest in El Salvador.
After more than two decades, Zimbabwe returned to the Miss Universe pageant whose finals were held in El Salvador at the weekend.
Miss Universe Zimbabwe, Brooke Jackson tried her best to compete with the likes of Miss Universe 2023 Shynnis Palacious of Nicaragua, who was in the Top 40 at the Miss World contest in 2022.
Her runner-up, Anntonia Porsild of Thailand, also has experience after she won Miss Supranational 2019.
Pageantry critic, Patience Lusengo said, “Brooke did well, I say congratulations to her but I think as a country we should introduce pageantry at a young age. Most of the girls who go to these international pageants have vast experiences. Most of the time we send our girls half-baked, so it won’t be fair for them.”
“For a country that had not participated at Miss Universe for 22 years, we did well but I guess there are things we didn’t get right. We actually had little time to prepare our queen. I mean we had our contest two months ago and they jumped her to the world stage,” said another pageantry critic, Farai Zembema.
Others zeroed in on the need to improve national costume designs and public support on online voting platforms.
Angeline Musasiwa, who was a runner-up at Miss World in 1994, might have set the bar too high as the country has never made it that far at the Miss World, Miss Universe, Miss International and Miss Earth.
