IF not for a chance meeting at the casting call for The New Paper New Face contest four years ago, these two bosom buddies would have never met.

Thanks to that meeting, the two became firm friends and went on to win something else yesterday - Triumph's Bosom Buddy Cleavage Revolution contest, held at Tangs Orchard.

Miss Cassandra Leong and Miss Jaclyn Ng beat five other pairs of women - mostly friends or sisters who competed in the race to makeover themselves using the brand's new 'Zero to Sexy' maximiser bra, along with clothes, shoes and accessories picked out from the department store.

Shoppers looked on bewildered, as the 12 women scrambled to put together their winning head-to-toe look with the bra in just 20 minutes.

They also had to keep a tab on the total cost of their outfits - not more than $500 each.

For their efforts, both Miss Leong and Miss Ng walked away with their entire outfits, which were collectively worth $1,000.

The other contestants each walked away with $40 worth of Triumph vouchers.

Miss Ng, 22, a Singapore Management University (SMU) undergraduate, said she didn't hesitate to sign up for the event with her friend after seeing a newspaper ad for the competition.

She said: 'We like to do fun stuff like that, life is short and we've going to graduate soon, so we'll like to do as many fun things as possible.'

Miss Leong, also 22, a Murdoch University undergraduate, agreed.

'We've both very bubbly and talkative and have always been that way.'

She recalled how she met Miss Ng back in 2005.

It was raining heavily, and Miss Ng was at the Raffles Place MRT station trying to make her way to the nearby audition venue.

So Miss Leong offered to share her umbrella with her.

While Miss Leong made it to the top 20 finalists then and Miss Ng didn't - that umbrella sealed the friendship, and the pair have been inseparable since.

Little black dresses

Yesterday, while some of the contestants might seem a tad more shy, the pair had no qualms about strutting their stuff in their little black dresses that they selected.

That winning confidence was what won over Miss Tina Lee, 38, a merchandiser for Tangs and one of the three judges.

She said: 'They were very impressive, confident and exuded a lot of sensuality.'

 Sisterly bonding was also demonstrated at the event, with two pairs of sisters taking part.

One pair, Miss Cassandra Lee, 22, an accounting student, and Elissa Lee, 19, a Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts student, were taking part in a competition together for the first time.

Elissa said: 'We've never done anything like this before, so we just thought of trying it for the experience.'

And it was worth it.

Said Cassandra: 'The competition was an eye-opener because I learnt how to present myself better and of course I had fun especially running around during the shopping part.'

The experience even got the thumbs-up from Elissa's boyfriend, Mr Marcus Wong, 21, who's in national service.

He told The New Paper that his girlfriend tend to dress more conservatively most of the time.

'She's not usually the sort to dress up but she looks perfectly gorgeous, she really looks great,' he said, beaming.