By Nadine Kam

Nadine Kam photos
Emma Wo walks the bar at the Pearl dressed in Alexander McQueen during a pageant preview.

I’ve never been a fan of the pageant gown. In the right hands, they can be beautiful, but given the showtime quality of the beauty pageant, it’s no coincidence they often look one step removed from ice skaters’ ensembles. Two recent cases: Miss Universe 2008’s Miss Mexico and Miss Dominican Republic gowns, the latter looking like a cracked disco mirror ball.

It’s about time we see real fashion on the pageant runway, though from their perspective, they probably don’t want to distract audiences with a fashion show. Nevertheless, Emma Wo will be wearing Alexander McQueen when she hits the stage for the Miss Teen USA 2008 pageant taking place on Paradise Island in the Bahamas on Aug. 16.

Kristian Lei, with her husband Gavin Vinta, was one of the performers for the evening.
When she’s not singing, she’s preparing for October’s Women’s World Festival.

She gave well-wishers a glimpse of what she’ll be wearing during her send-off party at Pearl Sunday night. Designers Takeo and Eric Eugene Kamakahai’ai Chandler found the McQueen ready-to-wear gown at the Wynn in Las Vegas. Considering the pageant’s locale, they thought the combination of color, lightness and flow would be perfect. I agree. Bahamas weather is a lot like Hawaii’s and one would need to wear color to stand out amidst similar tropical foliage and pristine ocean.

Emma and her mom Kitty Wo.

Naturally, the crowd included a large number of Wos, Sullivans and beauty queens. Upon entering, guests were given an ice breaker sheet of paper with 16 blanks to fill in names of people who fit the categories, such as “Did you graduate in 2008?” “Do you own an iPod?” “Do you dance the hula?” All the answers applied to Emma but we had to get a different person’s name in each box before trading in our forms for a raffle ticket.

Given all the relatives in the house, it’s no surprise most of the winners turned out to be an aunt or niece of Emma’s!

Also showing support for Emma were Aureana Tseu, a former Miss Hawaii Teen USA, left, and Miss Hawaii USA 2008 Jonelle Layfield.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 12:56 pm and is filed under People, Parties. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.