The third annual esctoday.com awards are currently being held. While you can still cast your votes until 23rd December, we will take a closer look on the nominees and the categories in random order. Part eight is dedicated to the Best dressed performer(s) and Worst dressed performer(s) categories.

BEST DRESSED PERFORMER(S)

History

This award will be given out for the third time and on both previous occasions it went to female soloists: in 2006, Kate Ryan from Belgium won this award for her orange dress that cost no less than 14,000 €. In 2007, Georgia's Sopho took home the trophy for her classy red evening gown. The complete results were as follows:

2006

1. Kate Ryan (Belgium) – 33%
2. Lordi (Finland) – 26%
3. Tina Karol (Ukraine) – 25%
4. Ich Troje (Poland) – 13%
5. Eddie Butler (Israel) – 4%

2007

1. Sopho (Georgia) – 30%
2. D'Nash (Spain) – 21%
3. Roger Cicero (Germany) – 18%
4. Edsilia Rombley (Netherlands) – 17%
5. Sabrina (Portugal) – 15%

2008 awards

The following acts are nominated this year:

1. Ani Lorak of Ukraine
2. Kalomira of Greece
3. Maria Haukaas Storeng of Norway
4. Euroband of Iceland
5. Isis Gee of Poland

Click here to watch videos of the nominees!

Ukraine'a Ani Lorak wore a rather short silver dress with finges on stage while performing her entry Shady lady. Remarkably, Verka Serduchka, who represented the country the year before (and also finished second) went for a silver/glittery theme in her outfit, too. Still, she finished second in last year's 'worst dressed' award. Ukraine is the only country that has been nominated for a dress award every year so far.

Kalomoira is the first Greek act nominated for a dress award. In Belgrade, she also showed some skin on stage in her glittery pink and bronze-coloured dress. Pink is one of the most successful colours on the Eurovision Song Contest: winners with (mainly ofpartly)pinkoutfits include France Gall, Lulu,Gali Atari, Corinne Hermès, Sandra Kim, Charlotte Nilsson, Dave Benton andSertab Erener.

A darker outfit was worn by Norwegian entrant Maria Haukaas Storeng: in a long, dark blue, silky dress she performed her entry Hold on be strong on stage. She is the first performer from a Scandinavian country (not counting Finland) who is nominated for a best dressed award. A very similar outfit had already brought her luck in the national final, when she took the victory by a landslide.

Euroband from Iceland are the only duo nominated in this category. With their obviously tailor-made black and pink outfits, Regína Ósk Óskarsdóttir and Friðrik Ómaralmost looked like fraternal twins on stage while performing This is my life.They are the only act nominated this year that would be able to break the winning streak of female soloists in this category.

Isis Gee from Poland appeared on stage in a classy, long,slit, light blue evening gown on stage while performing her entry For life. She is not the first Polish act nominated in this category: in 2006, Ich Troje finished 4th with 14% of the votes. Notably, blue is not a classic winning colour in the competition: the last winner with a blue outfit was ABBA'a Agnetha in 1974 (although Linda Martin was wearing something like turquoise in 1992).

WORST DRESSED PERFORMER(S)

History

Like the 'best dressed' award, this one will be given out for the third time. Both in 2006 and 2007, it went to groups: Nonstop from Portugal got the price in 2006 and The Ark from Sweden would do so in 2007. The complete results were as follows:

2006

1. Nonstop (Portugal) – 36%
2. Jenny (Andorra) – 22%
3. Daz Sampson (United Kingdom) – 16%
4. Carola (Sweden) – 15%
5. Elena Risteska (FYR Mecedonia) – 11%

2007

1. The Ark (Sweden) – 31%
2. Verka Serduchka (Ukraine) – 29%
3. Teapacks (Israel) – 19%
4. Olivia Lewis (Malta) – 14%
5. Gerli Padar (Estonia) – 8%

2008 awards

The following acts are nominated this year:

1. Rodolfo Chikilicuatre of Spain
2. Dustin the Turkey of Ireland
3. Gisela of Andorra
4. Ishtar of Belgium
5. Kreisiraadio of Estonia

Click here to watch the videos of the nominees!

Rodolfo Chikilicuatre from Spain is one of no less than three comedy acts nominated in this category. In Belgrade, he tried to convince the audience optically with a purple shirt, blue jeans a black leather waistcoat and most notably an oversized Elvis Presley wig. If those who laughed while looking at him actually laughed about him or just at him, can not be told.

Ireland's Dustin the Turkey, the only puppet ever to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest, was wearing as much glitter as possible on his small body. On stage, he was sorrounded by his five dancers, who wore outfits in the style of the Brazilian carnival but in the colours of Ireland: green, white and orange (and gold, which should be Ireland's inofficial fourth national colour regarding their seven Eurovision Song Contest victories).

Bronze was the colour of choice for Gisela when she sang about her Casanova on stage. The most notable part of her performance was not even her short frilly dress with the cuirass but the outstanding headdress that can be either seen as the horns of the devil or antennas, which nevertheless did not help her receiving good vibrations from the televoters.

Instead of the classy red dress from the national final, Belgian entrantSoetkin Baptist of Ishtar decided to wear a frilly red and white dress with a spiral during the semi final. Red and white, this combination of colours has many associations: Blood and snow, Snow-White and Rose-Red,Bread and Wine, the country flags of Monaco, Indonesia, Poland andSingapore as well as Latvia and Austria. However, in this case it rather seemed tobe the impersonation of a human-sized piece of candy.

Kreisiraadio from Estonia close this line-up. While in the national final, they were trying to symbolise the Estonian flag wearing a black, a white and a blue suit, Mr Black became Mr Rust-Coloured for the Eurovision Song Contest performance of Leto svet, maybe in an attempt to make the whole act even more pointless than it already was.

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