Here’s The Crazy New Miss World Australia Costume


Today in your daily serving of cultural cringe completely unrelated to our nation’s stance on climate change: here is this year’s Miss World Australia costume! The annual cultural appropriation contest tasked with representing the unique cultural traditions of a nation while still appealing to modern ideals of elegance is an impossible task to fulfil. The two are clearly incompatible. Exhibit A is the newly unveiled costume in which our current Miss Australia, Courtney Thorpe, will smize until her face falls off at this year’s pageant in London next month. 
The outfit – the work of Melbourne designer Julie Sufi – was inspired by the utilitarian garb of the Australian Women’s Land Army, a resilient group of women assembled to help combat agricultural labour shortages during World War II. This brief – when tuned through the bedazzled prism of a high school Rock Eisteddfod – is rendered in a patriotic mishmash made up of a tiny person’s Akubra, gold satin jodhpurs (with matching cravat and bustier), knee high leather boots and a diaphanous green blouse with sequins on in. She looks like she’s about to perform in an off-Broadway Peter Pan musical. But maybe that’s just me. 
“Creating the Australian national costume is a tedious task, as the opinion of the general public needs to be taken into account when creating the piece,” Miss World Australia national director Nadasha Zhang told The Daily Telegraph. “We aimed to create something which has significance to the Australian culture, while at the same time produce something which is eye pleasing to the international stage at the Miss World pageant.”

Mission accomplished:

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