An Indian-origin make-up artist has designed a light emitting diode (LED) and fibre-optic bodysuit that could set Miss Universe Australia Monika Radulovic apart on the world stage, a media report said on Friday.
Melbourne-based Jyoti Chandra, 28, designed the suit with a rendition of Sydney Harbour’s New Year’s Eve fireworks as part of a national costume competition to deck out Australia’s representative at the Miss Universe international final at the end of the year, The Canberra Times reported on Friday.
The harbour bridge, opera house and city skyline have been featured in metallic silver and tassels on the shield represent beach waters.
Free spirit “What I wanted to encompass through my costume was to show people how free-spirited Australians are [and] remind people how fun and exciting we can be and that we can put on a really great show in Australia,” Chandra said.
“I wanted it to be quite flamboyant because South America came out with massive feathers [for their national costume] and Canada came out with hockey sticks and I wanted to make something that was really cool and that people would remember,” the former Canberra Institute of Technology student said.
But her battery-powered creative costume has been hampered by some unexpectedly practical considerations.
“Trying to get the battery through security at the airport was hard; because it’s corrosive, it was classified as dangerous goods,” Chandra said.
“We couldn’t go with lithium batteries because then it wouldn’t have gotten through security at all. But because [the battery] was so small they were like, it’s fine, and I was like thank goodness.”
Chandra’s bodysuit is competing with three other designs.
The public voting to decide the best-designed dress closed on Friday morning.
