Has the Miss World Singapore crown lost its shine? Fewer than 30 hopefuls signed up for this year's pageant. So few, in fact, that organiser Edmund Ooi did not bother to hold a semi-final.
This is a far cry from the 1970s and 1980s, when more than 100 contestants signed up each year. Rounds of heats, quarter-finals and semi-finals were held before 20 were chosen for the final.
Observers say the low take-up rate is hardly surprising, as the once prestigious beauty contest is now plagued by grumbles about poor prizes and scandals.
When this year's winner is announced tonight at Pan Pacific Hotel, she will take home $3,000 cash and get to choose a set of clothes worth a few thousand dollars from designated boutiques. She will also represent Singapore at the international pageant in Jakarta on Sept 28.
In contrast, when Miss Teo Ser Lee was crowned Miss Singapore in 1988, she won $10,000 cash and cash-in-kind worth a few hundred thousand dollars, including gowns, shoes and accessories she could pick up "any time" from designated shops during her year-long reign. She travelled to Spain to film videos, then to London for the grand finals that year.
"The sponsors were very generous then. I felt so pampered, like a queen," she says.
Miss Teo, now 47, went on to become a TV host and actress and now owns an etiquette-training company. Going by the fate of recent beauty queens, however, Miss World Singapore 2013 would probably make a blip and disappear from the radar.
Take, for instance, Ms Roshni Kaur Soin and Ms Faraliza Tan,pageant winners in 2007 and 2008 respectively, and now likely subjects of a "where are they now?" article.
Still, fleeting fame and paltry prizes are nothing compared to the brickbats and very public fall from grace that some former beauty queens had to suffer. This may scare off women from joining the contest.
The rise of social media, says Miss Teo, may have contributed to the viciousness of attacks against current contestants. In the run-up to the finals, contestant have had to deal with negative comments in old and new media, such as "you are a prostitute".
That was an actual charge Miss World Singapore 2013 finalist, 19-year-old Vanessa Tan, dealt with this month. The freelance model and dancer denied netizens' accusations that she is a freelance prostitute in an interview with The New Paper.
She said the experience has not put her off beauty pageants: "You are only young and beautiful once. I want to join when I can still do so."
A reader tipped off The New Paper that another finalist, Miss Teri Chua, 22, had to settle a legal case for posting defamatory comments about 2009 Miss Universe Singapore winner Rachel Kum on the Internet. The out-of-court settlement reportedly included an apology letter to Miss Kum, with Miss Chua paying $12,000 in legal fees.
It does not help that the image of the contest, as a showcase of femininity, has been sullied in recent years by some infamous winners. In July 2009, Ris Low won, only to be stripped of her title after a past criminal conviction for credit card fraud came to light three months later.
More recently, winners have been criticised for not doing more for charity or being good ambassadors of the Miss World brand. To clean up its image, Miss World Limited from Britain, which runs the show, appointed a new licensee to replace Mr Alex Liu of ERM World Marketing, who had run the contest from 2003 to 2010.
Mr Edmund Ooi, 49, whose company, Asia Music People produces music entertainment shows, will be organising the event for the next three years.
He is optimistic about the future of beauty pageants and believes women would still join to use their beauty to make a difference to society. He is working with online charity portal give.sg to allow finalists to promote a charity event they are involved in. People can pledge donations on the website. "We hope charity work can become a lifelong commitment for finalists," he adds.
An industry insider, who declines to be named, says organisers are now not as active in "engaging the media", compared to the 1980s when there was media coverage of Miss World Singapore in major newspapers from the first rounds."Without media coverage, sponsors are not willing to come on board. Prizes become less attractive and girls do not want to join."
Freelance photographer Sam Yeo, 51, said he used to follow newpaper reports of Miss World Singapore but stopped doing so in the 1990s. He says: "There were contestants with beauty and brains such as Teo Ser Lee but now, you don't get brainy ones and sometimes, not even the beautiful ones."
In this day of Facebook and Twitter which gets your message out instantly, a pretty young girl could find fame - and a voice - easily by being on a reality show, writing a blog or via an Internet meme.
Another major beauty contest, Miss Universe Singapore, has also seen a drop in entries. The number of applications used to be as high as 100, in 2001. It dropped to 35 last year, according to Derrol Stepenny Promotions, which has organised the event since 2000. This year, however, the number went up to about 70. Miss Shi Lim, 23, was crowned the winner on July 6 and received $5,000 cash.
Madam Yvonne Ng, now 55, was one of the top five finalists in the 1979 Miss World Singapore contest. She says that back then, she saw the pageant as a chance "to have fun, meet more people and maybe see the world".
Since then, she has married a Greek businessman and become a partner at a leading hairdressing salon here. Her daughter, Ms Maria-Anna Zenieris, is a finalist in this year's contest.
Ms Zenieris, 18, a United World College graduate, says she joined not because of the prize money or chance to travel. She had lived in places such as Ghana and China because of her father's work.
She says: "Since I was five, I have been involved in raising funds, especially for underprivileged children. If I do win, I would like to use my title to do this work on a bigger scale."
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