I believe, even the person who never laid eyes on pageantry before, should somehow and somewhat heard of Miss Universe at least once. It's one of the biggest and most successful pageants. After the preliminary, I decided to make my own poll and do a prediction for the semi-final and the final round of who's gonna make it and I'm very eager to see if it's gonna be as I expected or not. For this year they announced that they were going to select 20 people then 10 and only 5 for the question round.
Disclaimer: All SOURCES; the photos and some of the information are from
MU's official website >> https://www.missuniverse.com/
MU's official Facebook Page >> https://www.facebook.com/MissUniverse
Getty Image Websites >> https://www.gettyimages.com/
Now let's see who's on my list. I tried my best to find the photos from many rounds like swimwear, evening gown, and national costume, since these are the things that I put into consideration to think who should be on the Semi Final List. I'll start from 20 and down to 10 randomly let's see if the candidate from your country made it.
20. Dominican Republic (Mariana Downing)
I really enjoyed her swimsuit performance. It was bright, lovely, and full of confidence. Her eyes were focused. Unfortunately, The evening gown was no doubt screaming pageant, but it's too normal for me and we saw this kind of gown too often, so I think that it doesn't help bring much of her personality. If the dress were to be more exciting, she would definitely stand out more.
19. Myanmar (Amara Bo)
Amara Bo did a good job in both the swimsuit and evening gown. I like how she has her hair straight like this. She looks beautiful and confident. You can tell that she can control her body movement really well. I can see she shook a little, probably out of stage fright but overall it was good.
Also, I had to compliment her on the national costume that she had to carry all the way and still manage to look like it's not heavy. Great job!
18. Costa Rica (Lisbeth Valverde Brenes)
No doubt that her face looks unbelievably gorgeous. In Thai, we would call the face like this a god-given face, because it is so pretty and it was so captivating as she walked on the runway. She picked the right color of swimsuit that compliment her skin and her evening gown was very princess-like. I'm sure she's gonna be in the top 20 at least.
Personally, I think the dress makes her a little short, and I hope in the final round, we could see an even better complimenting gown for her. For her national costume, she did a nice job too, but to me wasn't as outstanding as I hoped from Costa Rica.
17. Venezuela (Diana Silva)
As pageant fans would know, Venezuela has been such a strong contestant throughout the years and years. And this year is also no doubt about that. The way she carried herself in preliminary is two thumbs up. You can see from the right picture how straight she kept her legs while walking and it was always so. What impresses me is the national costume. In a way it something similar to what I saw on My TOP 10 National Costumes from Miss Grand International 2023. Still her performance was good and even Venezuela is the last country in order, I like that her performance can keep me entertained.
16. Vietnam (Bùi Quýnh Hoa)
Vietnam has been a stronger and stronger contestant every year since H'Hen Niê in 2018. Vietnam is keeping up the game to level up in training the contestants. This year Bùi Quýnh Hoa didn't let the bar down. She did really well in her swimsuit, evening gown, and national costume. She wore it both elegantly and costumy, which is something I adore.
15. Cambodia (John Sotima)
I put Cambodia on the list because she's one contestant who has a wow factor and really surprised me. Even though she's kinda small, her performance and her face knocked it out at the park.
Although, I wish her national costume could have been a little bit more glamorous. This one to me is something you can rent out from a store, not as much as Universe I'd say.
14. Honduras (Zuheilyn Clemente)
Zuheilyn's performance in a swimsuit wasn't as striking to me, but her evening gown is sooooo well made and fit her so well. The way she walked it out and presented it was as pageant as I hoped it to be. Shout out to the makeup and hairdo everything fit so well together.
And for the national costume, was so big that she struggled a bit walking on the runway, but luckily after that, it was all smooth sailing. I love the bright color and her facial expression of having fun and joy in this.
13. Peru (Camila Escribens)
Instantly I fell in love with Peru's national costume. I like how "much" it shows but it wasn't chaotic or busy with the colors that would distract the audience from the contestant. Camila wore it with pride and beauty. That's obviously so. But for the swimming suit and the evening gown is nothing special about them. I hope to see more in the final round.
12. Germany (Helena Bleicher)
Talking about the country that really surprised me is definitely Germany. Normally, European countries look like they're not as "in" or spending as much time in pageantry as we Asians or Latinas do. So, their performance wouldn't be as "spicy" or fun as the other countries would be. But this year, Germany has shown me that.
With her height of that ridiculously (in a good way) long legs, she walked out with confidence and grace both in a swimsuit and evening gown. I love that she knows that her color is red and she kept it. Though, I hope we see something new in the final.
The national costume, she was being Rapunzel that obviously dressed likely to the Disney version of it. I think it gives me the diversity of apart seeing Helena as a queen in red but also a princess in pink and purple. Cute!
11. Nepal (Jane Dipika Garrett)
I felt like if I didn't get to talk to this contestant, my list wouldn't be complete. This year Jane is the first plus-size contestant, who came to prove to us that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. For the evening gown and national costume, she kept the red-wine dress that looks authentically Nepal, combined with the message of stopping the war. The national costume, I wish they'd made it more glam and less science project to make it more serious and really send a message.
As I watched her on the stage, it was nothing more than an inspiration with beauty that everybody needed to hear. I admired her so much for putting herself out there and to know that there would be unkind comments toward her since this is not yet controversial. Still, I'm happy to see a great start from a big platform like this.
And that's my TOP 20 for now guys! Tomorrow I'll share with you my top 10 which maybe gonna include the top 5. I wanted to post all my predictions and then on the 20th, we can all see if my assumption collided with the judges or not.
Thank you for stopping by. I know that pageantry is something that's not really common here on Hive (yet) and I hope to find more pageantry fans to join me and enjoy these shows later on.
Khob khun kaa,
Nomnomnoodle 🍜