Foolishly fashionable or fashionably foolish?

God is awesome. He uses the most unexpected scenarios to teach us the most humbling of lessons. And i was taught an important life's lesson this mothers' day.

The contest form in the Sunday Times heralded the search for Singapore's Most Fashionistic Mum. The contest rules were simple: Mums were to be given a time limit and a budget to shop for themselves and their hubbies and the most fashionable one would walk away with a truckload of prizes.
I was intrigued. Should i sign up?

Im a self proclaimed shopping queen.

I pride myself on being able to grab the best bargains in the shortest period of time, a skill honed from countless jaunts in flea markets overseas on a shoestring budget.

I can pull together a decent look, so that even when i go to the coffee shop, i dont look like a train wreck.

Im a mum and can modestly say i didnt let it all go after 2 kids.

And I love a good challenge in the name of fun.
Hell, why not?

But as usual, the procrastinator in me hemmed and hawed over sending in the application, finally only doing it on the very last day and sending in two rather mediocre pics of myself. Thinking that i wouldnt get chosen since i sent in the form so late, i didnt think too much of it.

To my surprise, a call came one week later asking me to go down for an audition as i had been shortlisted for the contest.

.......

During the audition, as soon as i walked into the room to face the 2 interviewers, they asked me why did i send in such pics which didnt show my features clearly. "Why, are u disappointed with what you see in real life?" i asked. Ha ha...

They then commented on my height and asked if i had any modelling experience and then the interview was over.

So short? Ahhh, that's it for me, I thought.

That night, another call came informing me that i had been shortlisted as one of the 8 finalists for the competition. Whoa now this i didnt expect!

.......

And so, the day of the competition came. I didnt expect that it was to be similar to a beauty contest! In addition to the shopping with a budget segment, we had to catwalk in our denims, and then go through a q n a in our sportswear. Gawd...if i had known it was so pagent-like, I would have thought twice or three times before i signed up!

I always thought pagents were flesh parades for bimbos and was thoroughly mortified to actually be a contestant on one myself.

.........

And so on the day itself, my brood trooped down to Plaza Sing to lend support.

First round: We had to appear on stage in a white top and denim bottom sans makeup, and do a brief intro about ourselves.

No problem for me, Im always running around without a scrap of makeup anyway. (Not to be catty but during the briefing, there was an audible gasp from some of the other girls when they heard they had to appear in public without any makeup on...heehee...)

That's all of us fashionable mums...haha

The eventual winner was the 1st lady

Then we had 2 hours to shop for an outfit adhering to the theme of "Going on a holiday" and get my hair and make up done. And here's where we screwed up...big time...

Hubby and I have always talked about going sailing when we retire. So we thought, why dont we dress as if we were going for a little chi-chi soiree with some close friends, aboard a yatch?
It would definitely be different from the get up of the other contestants, cos everyone would go for beachy, resort wear for a short getaway, and we may just score well for standing out.

But have we EVER gone sailing on a yatch?
Nope.

Do we even know how do people dress at these so called "canape and champagne" events?
Nope.

Wouldnt we be dressing in a way that is way off from what we usually wear?
Oh god, yes.

We made our purchases and had loads of time to spare. Feeling smug and gleefully thinking we had outsmarted everyone, we got changed. Me into my sports attire, hubby into this shirt and preppy, argyle printed vest combo. (He did look smart, but it just wasnt HIM...)

Second round: Q & A in our sports attire. I chose a simple black tube and fitting track pants with stripes down the side, and swung my "look at me" retro purple jacket over my shoulder.

I thought i cut a pretty good picture, and i answered ok for the q & a segment too. I was very encouraged by the nods of approval from the judges and was delighted to see many people casting their votes in my favor. (There was this box for the crowd to vote for any particular mum whom they thought would win the contest)

And then it was down to the last segment. This time, we had to appear onstage with our hubbies and explain the reasons behind choosing each item of clothing. Sounds easy rite?

But hubby and I were so self conscious from being decked out in threads we were unaccustomed to, that we kinda bumbled on stage, shuffled uncomfortably towards the emcee and then stood so far apart from each other it looked as though we were mere acquaintances instead of husband and wife.

Then the emcee ripped our entire getup to shreds.

Why did u choose heels for a sailing trip?
Why is he wearing sneakers?
Shouldnt you be wearing a gown and tux for a high society event?
Why are you guys even thinking about a retirement holiday when u are still so young?

Dats me in my sailing booboo getup

Yet we could still fend off his line of questioning and foolishly thought we still stood a good chance. (I didnt think i would win, cos one of the mums - the eventual winner, was really good looking and she was tall and slim and had great fashion sense, but i really thought we could at least be placed)

When the results were announced, I had the highest number of votes from the public and was presented with a swarovski crystal necklace.

That was a nice surprise and spirits buoyed, i waited to hear my name being called for at least 3rd place.
Such big headedness, such overconfidence!

Posing with Fong Fan, the celebrity stylist after winning Most Popular

Of cos, God does not favor such arrogant thoughts. When my name was called as one of the consolation prize winners, I was stumped. I could see hubby was stupefied too. The same thought flashed between us: What went wrong?

After thinking long and hard, it then dawned upon us that we were just not ourselves. Why did we bother to choose such outlandish outfits? Our simple tank top, tees, bermudas and sporty walking shoes would have sufficed.

Why did we say we were going sailing when the thing we missed most after having kids was going on our backpacking trips? A short getaway could see us going off the beaten track to nearby Cambodia, Vietnam or Laos and our usual getup would be perfect for such a holiday. (Come to think of it, i really should have just bought a new pair of walking shoes with the budget money, mine are so worn out! I wanna kick myself!)

And being in those alien clothes just made us so awkward. Zero marks for chemistry. Zero marks for confidence. Zero marks for relevance to theme.

Sigh...we've realised that we are highly competitive people. Every contest we join, we hope to win and that aggressive spirit of ours costs us dearly cos we never stop to think carefully and plan our course of actions.

And so God has taught us a humbling lesson. Always be yourself and never let things get to your head, cos when you fall, it will be a pretty hard wake up tumble.

But it was fun and we'll definitely still sign up for more contests! Just no more pageants for me. *Cringe*