Eighteen young women took to the catwalk to strut their stuff at the inaugural Face of Africa beauty pageant in Dublin last week. Catherine Reilly reports.
AN INVASION of black beauties has infiltrated the Crown Plaza Hotel in Blanchardstown. They are elegantly loitering in the foyer; they are preening themselves in ladies’ rooms; they are outside having a smoke; they are filling the hotel’s banquet hall. And later, a select few will strut their stuff down a catwalk to whoops from a largely African audience.
Eighteen young African women from across Ireland are contesting for the inaugural Face of Africa title, a lipstick-red battle of looks, poise and personality whose winner will be deemed Ireland’s African face (the female version, at least).
The African beauty contest scene is certainly a rolling stone gathering gloss, if you will. Several communities have initiated their own galas, and tonight a number of tiara-crowned women float around: Miss Zimbabwe Ireland comes wafting by, sash and crown glimmering, on her way to chat to Miss Kenya Ireland at their table.
“I was crowned on 29 August 2009,” Jennifer Dsane, Miss Ghana Ireland, proudly informs Metro Éireann.
Judged by a Ghanaian-Irish-Nigerian panel, Dsane recalls the challenges set on the night. “Oh my God, we had to do a lot of things,” she says smiling. “We had ‘talent’, we had ‘traditional wear’, and the most important part was ‘Why you think you deserve to be crowned Miss Ghana Ireland?’”
Sensibly, and somewhat predictably, Dsane – a Leaving Cert student at Coláiste Mhuire in Ennis, who’s lived in Ireland for almost five years – stuck to a tried and tested formula.
“I said ‘I think I deserve to be crowned because I push myself, I have a lot of confidence’ – and the fact that I work with a lot of charities, that also helped,” says Dsane, who reckons she’ll enter Face of Africa at some stage in the future.
Tonight’s event has certainly caught plenty of imaginations – among them Wuraola Ayeni and Peace Odiashi, who will feature in the in-show entertainment, modelling combinations of African and European clothing.
Nigerian-born Ayeni (14) from Balbriggan has lived in Ireland for eight years, and maintains that her African heritage will remain important to her, including its fashion.
“I have actual African clothes, I’m actually going to be modelling one tonight – an African top and jeans,” she says proudly.
Her friend Odiashi, who’s 18 and also from Nigeria, says she’s glad to see Africans doing something exciting.
“Africans bringing ideas, making this pageant show, it’s really nice,” says the Blanchardstown resident. “It’s called Face of Africa, so there’s different kinds of faces, different kinds of makeup.”
She wears African attire now-and-again, she adds, mainly when attending church.
FACE OF Africa is the brainchild of Evelyn Gondo Nwaeze, who has television and modelling experience in her native Zimbabwe. A trained accountant, she has been working in Ireland for eight years.
Nwaeze got the idea for Face of Africa from similar events in her native continent. She wanted, as she explains, to promote Africa in order to “bring awareness of it to Ireland through a unique, nice, classy event.”
In this respect African attire – and associated stories – were included in the show segments, along with casual wear, swimwear, evening wear and questions. Some 55 African women auditioned to take part in the pageant, which was narrowed down to 18, and the winner (or “beauty ambassador”, as Nwaeze describes her) will be “a role model” for girls of African background in Ireland.
She’ll also win a cash prize of €2,500, a weekend break-for-two, a 26-inch LCD television, and assistance in compiling a portfolio from Absolute Studios in Dublin.
As well as pulling in an array of sponsors, Nwaeze – alongside her husband Felix, the event director – has gathered an impressive judging panel, featuring Irish model Anne Morgan; experienced beauty contestant Dihapeng Maria from South Africa; Kamal Ibrahim, a Limerick-born Mr Ireland winner who’s of Nigerian heritage; model and actor Francis Xavier Usanga; and Ignatius Okafor, a former professional soccer player who ran for election in Dublin 15 last June.
The girls, who’ve been in intensive rehearsals for six weeks – and it shows – step onto the catwalk to the tune of Kevin Rudolf’s Let It Rock, with quirky held-up glasses as disguises. They confidently milk the applause.
Tonight’s judges will have a difficult job. Several of the girls – who are aged from 17 to 29 – seem naturals, lingering at the catwalk’s end to shoot their smiles into the camera (a team from Ben TV, a British-based channel aimed at expatriate Africans, are present).
Audience member Kennedy Eguakhide from Dublin 15 reflects that African women are generally “very stylish”. The Nigerian, however, explains that many are restricted from wearing their colourful native dress in Ireland.
“They don’t for one major reason – the weather, ” he says. “Even when it’s warm here, it is still cold for most of us.”
But the show’s traditional wear segment gives the women a rare opportunity to flaunt their native dress, and coming from a continent more than acquainted with hardship, a number have accompanying tales of woe which, even in this most people-pleasing of settings, are cynicism-proof.
Gloria Kapuku from DR Congo, a country marred by strife, explains: “If you notice, the majority of my dress is black, representing so many people with lost dreams - but as long as there’s colour in this dress, all our dreams will be realised.”
Bloodshed is depicted by the red colours, she says, but the white signifies “the peace and prosperity that we will have someday.”
Kapuku believes the next generation “will inherit every single diamond”, referring to a sector tainted by exploitation and corruption and whose riches are not evenly distributed.
Ifrah Ahmed from Somalia says her country’s been at war for 20 years. “Whenever I see a Somali outfit, I think about this country,” says Ahmed, who’s lived in Ireland for four years. Nevertheless, she enjoys wearing her native dress and urges others to do the same.
There are religious insights, too. Tianna Suhaila Habib from Kenya, with her true Dub accent, describes how her attire represents her religion, Islam.
“It’s specifically made for Eid,” she says of the garment, “which is our Christmas.”
Joining up the segments are presenters who genuinely wouldn’t look out of place on Irish TV, aside from the obvious: popular African MC Joshua Amaechi and Gibson Ncube, another experienced MC, engage in good-natured banter, sometimes involving the audience. They are ably assisted by Nadine Kapuku, who presented Miss Congo Ireland this year, and the aforementioned Evelyn Gondo Nwaeze.
The segments are also interspersed with quality entertainment acts, including Irish dancer Brenda McLoughlin, young Zimbabwean teen poet Hillary Netsiyanwa, and Nigerian comedian Fabu D, whose Dublin impressions have the audience in raptures.
THE NIGHT is long. But eventual winner Ofentse Molapisi, from Botswana, probably wishes it could have gone on forever.
In Ireland for 18 months, the 25-year-old student, who is planning to do a Master’s in social work, was presented with her prize by Cllr Rebecca Moynihan, representing Dublin’s Lord Mayor.
“I was happy to win, but a bit sorry for the other girls,” says Molapisi afterwards. Runners-up were Angela Osondu from Nigeria and Gwendolyn Maphoso from South Africa.
Asked what made her stand out, Molapisi reckons it was her confidence, and perhaps her response to what she’d change in the world. Her reply was that she wouldn’t change anything, “because people learn from their mistakes and become strong”.
Nice.
