UAE gets its first Miss Universe: Meet the beauty queen, mum of 3 who will represent the country
In a historic move, the UAE has been able to secure a spot on the Miss Universe platform. The UAE’s representative will be model mother-of-three, Emilia Dobreva who was crowned Miss Universe UAE in a privately conducted closed session in the October of this year.
“She was the best candidate for Miss Universe UAE,” said Poppy Capella, who was made the country’s national director by Miss Universe Organisation last September. “She is quite familiar with the UAE considering that she has been married to an Emirati for over ten years, she is fluent in Arabic, she is an accomplished smart and beautiful woman, it is obvious that she is perfect.”
In Mexico City, on November 16, during the Grand Finale of Miss Universe, Emilia will walk the runway among contestants from different countries. Poppy is of the opinion that Emilia’s national costume round will consist of abayas, which will be a remarkable tribute to the Nat United Arab Emirates.
This sand will be collected from the soil of the nation and placed on the bottom of her abaya to symbolize this nation. “The gown will represent what the UAE has become; a nation which started off with sand and has now become modernized.”
In the past, women who were aged between 18 to 28 amongst whom the unmarried models wore the single’s sash wore the least amount of clothing, held the Miss Universe sash.
Yet in 2023, all of the limitations regarding age, height, weight and even marital status were abolished as there was a shift from the format and concept of precisely a beauty pageant. Besides the UAE, there are nine other countries that will debut in the event including the first hijabi contestant of the competition – Miss Somalia.
No open audition
Poppy, who has previously served as Miss Universe Indonesia and Miss Universe Malaysia, stated that the parent company contacted her in August requesting her to lead the UAE's debut representation at the international level.
“I have been residing in the UAE for two years now, and I must say that it remains one of the safest countries in the world, more so for women,” said her. “What I have also loved about the country is its commitment to women empowerment. I really feel at home here.”
With her know-how, Poppy was upbeat about coordinating such a high profile event at short notice. ‘The Miss Universe Organisation trusted us because of our previous experience and they understand our worth,’ said the Poppy. “But since the call was made too late to organize an open audition, we needed to conduct this behind the scenes. We tried to be extremely professional about this.”
She in fact highlighted the need to preserve the UAE culture. “So, that is why we did not have a swimwear round when we had the competition here,” she said. “Besides, Emilia would wear the burqini in the swimwear round at the international competition. It’s quite modest, which is also appropriate for the local culture.”
More than 1,000 entries
Poppy indicated that there were more than 1,000 applications submitted for the title, both from the Emiratis and the expatriates plus the fact that the team later on set out to reduce this number to 16 candidates. Although, she added, this was also the first point in the competition where we in fact agreed that it should be possible for both Emiratis and expatriates to enter the competition during the challenge. From our perspective, expatriate workers were a resource that contributed greatly in the development of the nation, and we wished to include them in this first ever opportunity to represent the UAE in a global women empowerment platform of Miss Universe.
An Emirati contestant - Fatima Bahman Nowroozi - was voted the golden winner in the change in voice category.
Poppy explains that all the finalists who reached the final round were provided with boot camp training where everyone received instructions on public speaking and catwalk. For instance, In the case of Emma, she received intensive training on a daily basis the day she got selected to represent the UAE overseas. I have also received a lot of support on social media and I am very optimistic about her being in at least the top five spots.
The biggest Miss Universe UAE event was the crown popularized as the Palm of Inclusion crown estimated to be worth over Dh15 million which has been designed specifically for the event by famous jeweler Mouwad. Poppy further said that her organization has also collaborated with clothing line Belionel and charity organization MSF to manufacture T-shirts, the entire proceeds from its sales will be used to support MSF UAE. She went on to state that she intends to out do this year’s edition the next time around again.
Miss Universe UAE has entered into a partnership with BrightFlixx Entertainment, a local streaming platform for classical niche and modern content, to develop a reality television programme which would highlight the beauty of UAE.
Per the words of Anham Shaheen from BrightFlixx Entertainment, “the episodes will also look at the customs and culture of the land. It is one way to try and let the world see the true beauty of UAE.” - Triana, a contestant from Indonesia who is being sent to Miss Universe 73 as a representative of the grandmother of all pageants in the UAE.
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