Miss Queens

How a politics sophomore at New York University got closer to becoming Miss New York.

Miss Queens was at the wheel and her lipstick was riding shotgun. 

Having overslept for the beauty pageant that would decide whether she’d advance to the coveted Miss New York competition, Miss Queens was doing her makeup on the highway. Her passenger seat reclined all the way back, her makeup suitcase laying out a slew of eyeshadow palettes and mascara.

“Oh my gosh, I need to make it on time,” she said. 

In the parking lot, she lugged the makeup suitcase to the front door of the Miss Queens competition, held in the basement library of Emanuel United Church of Christ. The door was locked. As she knocked, Miss Queens looked at herself in her phone camera. 

“I just have powder all over my face,” she said, taking in a sharp breath. “I just didn’t finish anything. I’m just walking in looking crazy.” 

Miss Queens will emerge the titleholder of the borough. She will gain the chance to make it to Albany for a bigger crown –– Miss New York –– this June. But she did not know this in the parking lot in February, months before, hoping someone answered the door. 

Miss Queens was at the mercy of a knock, which was inherently gentle. She did not want to mess up her baby pink coffin nails for Evening Gown. 

After she entered into the church library, Nadia Michel, 19, went through a series of performances to become Miss Queens: Opening Number, Interview, On-Stage Question, Fitness, Talent, and Evening Gown. 

Michel was crowned with a silver tiara and a sparkly white sash. She is one of 28 titleholders across the state who will be going on to compete in Miss New York this summer, from Miss Westchester to Miss Big Apple. 

She danced through Opening Number with a white-shirt-blue-jeans look. Michel wore a green pantsuit and white heels to Interview, blurting out a passionate answer about the American immigration crisis to the judges. Talent was where Michel performs a 90-second slam-poem called Herstory about her life. 

And then came Evening Gown, where Michel wore a black, strapless, fitted dress and walked in slow-motion across the stage. The slit gave way to a corona of fabric across her feet as she held hands with the other Miss contestants. 

“It gives me a more mature look,” Michel mused, in reference to the fact that she is currently the youngest of the 28 delegates to go on to Miss New York. 

But what makes Michel inherently special –– or, at least, stand out –– in a competition based on a uniform and poised presentation of excellence, is that she was not born into the beauty queen industry. Michel started pageants in November 2023. 

“The honest truth is that my mom passed away this summer, and that taught me to stop waiting around to do the things that I want to do,” Michel said.

She saw a post about Miss Staten Island on Instagram and applied.

She had previously expressed interest in pageants, but was dissuaded at the hands of various costs. Events like Fitness require contestants to purchase entire outfits from sponsored brands. Many of them cost more than the monetary prizes received. For reference, Michel was awarded $100 as the winner of Miss Queens, but her Fitness outfit alone cost more than the prize. However, other competitions like Miss Staten Island awarded Michel the likes of $900 in scholarship funds, despite not winning overall. 

Michel is a politics and Russian-language sophomore at New York University, where she works as an office assistant for the Politics Department, and is an active member of the Delta Phi Epsilon sorority. But she isn’t chasing a crown bigger than Miss Queens yet. 

“I don’t want to be Miss New York this year –– if I won, obviously I’d be grateful,” she said. “Like, out of this world happy. But I am a student first. My goal is to just win as much scholarship money as possible,” which she can still do at the Miss New York competition without winning overall. 

She has received runner-up in Miss Staten Island, the People’s Choice Award for Miss Greater New York, and lost in Miss Five Boroughs. But now that Michel is Miss Queens, representing the borough’s 2.6 million residents in community service and engagement, she has also become closer in advancing to Miss America and then, to Miss Universe. 

But what does it mean to be a Miss anything, really? 

The Miss New York Scholarship Organization does not have a clear or single phrase to define being “Miss.” Yet they reference pageant winners as titleholders or delegates –– who, much like delegates at the United Nations, are a “public face,” taking “active roles in their communities, advocating for the importance of education and philanthropy.”

Michel has, in the months since her crowning in February 2024, appeared at the Queens County Parade for Saint Patrick’s Day, and is planning to run in the Footsteps for Progress 5K Run in April with a group of Miss New York girls, to raise funds for foster care. 

“It’s definitely hard, ‘cause when you Google Queens organizations, it comes up Queens the crown, not Queens the borough,” Michel explained, cracking into a smile. “But we’re working on it!”

One of Michel’s closest university friends, Michaela Varvaro-Vetere, 19, watched Michel take on the role of Miss Queens as much socially as in event efforts. 

“I think what Nadia is really spearheading in her duty as Miss Queens is to be real,” Varvaro-Vetere said. “To not set unrealistic expectations for other women. I think she’s doing a really good job in creating an honest, open environment that is supportive of other women, rather than the competitive environment that is innate to being in competitions, and also to being a woman in society.” 

Perhaps Michel’s most “real” moment was the very fact that she could react in an un-poised way to her Miss Queens crowning. 

Standing in Evening Gown –– the full-face of makeup done on the highway that morning, black high heels hugging her ankles, a braid gone loose framing her face –– Michel was crowded with a bouquet of red spray roses, a white sash, and a hefty-looking crown. 

Miche doubled down and cried. 

“Even my boyfriend said he was crying, watching me cry,” she said. “And I remember telling the crowd, I’m sorry! I worked really hard for this. And then I kept crying.”

Michel’s boyfriend, Rosario Pelucco, 19, remembered that moment in the church library as “the purest form of happiness I have ever felt for someone.” 

And so the focus turns for Miss Queens to the Miss New York competition in June. Her training has focused on posture, walking, and timing, which has made her sweat, she said. 

“I’m like, nervy,” Michel said, shrugging, admitting to the fact that –– albeit indirectly –– this was once a fun idea from an Instagram post, but has now morphed into a shot at Miss New York. “But this is also fun!”

Miss Queens has not yet picked her new Evening Gown. But she has already given it, she promised, fabulous thought.