Miss South Africa, Ndavi Nokeri, left the audience in awe as she strutted her stuff on the Miss Universe stage at the preliminary competition in New Orleans, Louisiana, before the Sunday finale.
The preliminary competition took place early on Thursday morning. During the show, more than 80 beauty queens displayed their evening gowns, swimwear, and national costumes.
Ndavi wore a specially made cape bearing the voices of South African women, titled “Perfectly Imperfect.” Together with graphic designer Ashlyn Atkinson from iDesign South Africa and painter Sinead Fletcher, she worked on the cape that represented the “voice” of South African women.
Ndavi said, ” For me, the design represents liberation to be free from other people’s expectations of what I, or any woman should look like in order to be considered beautiful. Beauty has no definition, it has no skin tone, it has no size, and it is definitely not perfect.”
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Graphic artist, Ashlyn said she hoped the design emphasised that all women were beautiful in their own “uniquely imperfect way”. She added that the “one thing” that genuinely made women beautiful was their “shared womanhood, our cellulite, our stretch marks, our scars, our curves, our different sized breasts, our different hair and our voices”.
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As part of her stunning evening gowns, Nokeri also revealed a dress by Juan William Aria. It was influenced by the Gabaza village and the dunes of Limpopo where she was born and bred.
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The Miss Universe finale will take place on Sunday, 15 January and will be broadcast live on 1Magic (DStv 103) from 03:00 on Monday, 16 January due to the time difference.
Also see: A look inside Miss SA’s looks in preperation for Miss Universe
