At the coronation ceremony held on 5th August 2018 at the festival village, A'yana Phillips, popularly known as Lady Mix, was crowned Miss British Virgin Islands 2018. A’yana will now represent British Virgin Islands at Miss Universe 2018. Because the national pageant was not to be held this year, A'yana was chosen from the last year’s competition.
At Miss British Virgin Islands 2017, Phillips was one of the two contestants who shared the first runner-up position with Helina Hewlett. The 22-year-old legal assistant, a business administration student at the H Lavity Stoutt Community College, and a disc jockey who goes by the moniker, Lady Mix.
Among A’yana’s hobbies are bartending, entertainment promotion and disc jockeying. She also enjoys sailing and island hopping.
A’yana succeeds Miss British Virgin Islands 2017 Khephra Sylvester who represented her country at Miss Universe 2017. Unfortunately Khephra failed to secure a place at the Top 16 delegates. British Virgin Islands is yet to pioneer its win at Miss Universe pageant.
Vice-chair person of the VI Festivals and Fairs Committee Xayrna Samuels told that A’yana Phillips was selected to represent the British Virgin Islands this year for a number of reasons. She remarked, “We chose A’yana because Helina had already gone and represented the territory internationally so we just decided that we would give A’yana a turn to represent the territory as well. We were not sure if we were getting a budget to do such [pageant] and at the time when we started planning. It would have been too late to go out and start preparing for a show.”