Miss Universe Malaysia's pageant dress is literally Nasi Lemak

Because they love their national dish so much, they made it into a dress

Guan Zhen Tan | October 31, 2017, 06:39 PM

Previously, the Nasi Lemak burger swept Singapore by storm and left our Malaysian neighbours with a bitter taste in their mouths.

This is because Nasi Lemak is often hotly debated as an issue of who did it first and who is doing it better, even though it can be done in many different styles and have been improvised many ways in Singapore and Malaysia.

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Nasi Lemak dress winning

But with this one pageant dress though, the Malaysians probably want to tip the "Which country loves Nasi Lemak more" scale, in their favour:

Photo via

Photo via

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The dress

The Nasi Lemak dress was revealed as part of a line-up preview today (Oct. 31), showing the dresses that Samantha Katie James, the Malaysia's Miss Universe contestant, would be wearing during the actual pageant itself.

James will don the delicious-looking dress during the National Costume category of the competition.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba5M6swhWbP/

The Nasi Lemak dress is designed by Malaysian Fashion Designer Brian Khoo, who runs a luxury womenswear brand of the same name.

His website describes his style as "refined, yet provocative and challenges classic styles whilst combining them with visually dramatic concepts".

He also gave a sneak preview of the Nasi Lemak dress a couple of days before the reveal, posting two cryptic pictures that will go on to make the banana leaf wings and the "sambal" portion of James' dress, which are the ruby beads.

Reactions

Netizens were definitely wowed.

Of course, our neighbours had to spare a thought for us:

Well, at least we got the Nasi Lemak burger, right?

Top image adapted via Astro Radio News and Farah Nabilah Wazer'stweets