Above: Mr Chris Keely, managing director of Elite Models Singapore, at Pan Pacific Hotel with model Bao Ling Wang.

Listen up, The New Paper New Face girls, we have three words for you: Confidence, Confidence, Confidence.

Crucial beauty contest advice from no less than MrChris Keely, managing director of Elite Models Singapore.

The model management company, founded in Paris in 1972, shaped the "supermodel" concept in the 80s.

Here to talk about their next search for the model award 2012, Mr Keely reassured us that "there is no such thing as an 'unpretty' girl".

What will tip the balance in her favour is "confidence".

He should know - their stable has included Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks and Heidi Klum.

Mr Keely was flanked by Bao Ling Wang and Philippa Lett (above), past winners of worldwide Elite Model Look. Wang is a Singaporean model who has worked in Europe and Asia and told us she owes it all to "my eyes, and my face, it's Oriental."

The British Lett said she played up her "different Eurasian look before it became popular". Lett was a runner-up in 1988, when she was just 16, and went on to catwalks and magazine covers, bit-part acting, a broadcast career and famously appeared in a Sisters Of Murphys TV commercial for the Irish stout.

Thanks to mum

All thanks to mum (Indian-Malay-Portuguese), who sent her schoolgirl daughter's picture to a modelling agency. "I thought of myself as an ugly duckling."

Years later she would notice an unusual-looking girl who would sit on casting couches weeping, because no one would give her modelling jobs.

The girl was Kate Moss.

Lett has settled in Singapore with her two young daughters. She said: "My husband has set up a business here."

Lett is very articulate and from her stories we learn singer Rod Stewart likes them blonde and actor George Hamilton is great with a pale yellow dish.

"I was friends with Ashley, George Hamilton's son. George was then married to Alana (who went on to marry Rod Stewart).

"When Ashley's father visited in the UK, he would make us the most brilliant omelettes. "Rod later married a friend of mine, Penny Lancaster."

Gee, how come he never married you with the model good looks?

"I'm not blonde!"

At the height of her career, Lett made such good money she bought a nice flat in a good district, with Chris Evans the deejay and Blur's Damon Albarn as neighbours.

Her current neighbours are "angels" as Lett is working on hosting "Angels Gate" for Channel NewsAsia.

This article was first published in The New Paper.