It is almost St. Patrick’s Day and what better way to celebrate than with an entire post dedicated to Irish dancing. Well, not so much the dancing, but the dresses. Have you ever seen Irish dance dresses? Our assistant, Colleen here surprised us with the little secret that she Irish danced most of her life and had gone through many-a-dresses back in the day. When she told us she would be attending Oireachtas (World qualifying regional championships) and asked if we wanted to see pictures we immediately responded with a very enthusiastic, yes!
Get ready for dresses galore after the jump…
Traditional school dresses, like this Aniar Academy school dress, are a lot like uniforms. Most of the kids in the school have one and they all look identical. They are usually very traditional in style (no flashy colors and sparkles) and can be hand embroidered.
Now, let’s get to the good stuff. All these dresses below are solo dresses. You get a solo dress when you start moving up to higher levels in competition. The exciting thing about a solo dress is that you can custom design it exactly how you want it and have it made to all your exact measurements. Having a custom dress comes with a hefty price. These dresses can usually fall around $1000, you better really be sure you want to dedicate yourself to this.
Throughout the last several years Irish dance solo dresses have gone through quite a transformation. The styles started breaking away from the traditional knotwork and moving to bright flashy colors and geometric shapes. Here is a dress that was made just as the changes started to come in. It is still full of knotwork but starts incorporating busier fabrics like sequins and lace with a hint of rhinestones.
Dresses then started to have less intricate knotwork and significantly more sparkles. They moved away from using velvet, which was from the older styles, and moved to using full sequins and lighter fabrics like silk.
Now at competitions you can see a lot of geometric shapes and repeating patterns. The older style skirts were made with three panels, where they have now started to use tulle and ruffles to make tutu-like skirts. Sparkle is in full force and even the socks get a little bling. Velvet is making a comeback, woohoo. Funny how things go full circle.
Fabric flowers? Do you think they could use some of these or these too?
The super ruffly skirt.
And just for fun there’s usually a fun print on the inside.
Or underneath.
Love the dresses! I did irishdancing for 10 years and went through a number of dresses. It was when they were more traditional, and when mum’s often hand embroidered them! My mum did a couple of hand embroidered dresses, and quite a few machine embroidered ones. Thanks mum!
Great job Colleen! Love all the pictures of the dresses!
[…] Check out her post to learn more and see some beautiful photos! Sharing is fun!Posted By Niamh […]
Look at the air you are getting! I think this is such a cool little subculture that many people don’t know about. I only know about it because my cousin’s kids do it, and I think It’s fantastic!
From age 4 to age 18 I was in Irish Dancing on the East Coast attending Oireachtas in the fall and Nationals in the Summer. My mother made all my costumes in the old school style by hand-school and solo. We always used the Book of Kells as our source for design and then she painstakingly transfered onto the fabric the design and hand embroidered the design.
She eventually taught my sister and I how to embroider and we were responsible for some of the work on our solo costumes.
This is exactly what we had to do!! 🙂 My mom got sick of embroidering school and solo dresses for my sister and I and taught us to do it ourselves… but mom always did the front panels.
My husband’s family all Irish danced, and I love seeing the photos of them. Their family also still helps put together the St. Patrick’s Day float for their old dance school (now under a different name/teacher). We’ll probably have our children (one boy and one boy on the way) dance, too.
Woooooow! I love them all! Are super nice dresses and superb works in all of each one! I’m Spanish, and I never know about this dancing irish tradition, but really love it now! I want to see more! Thanks to share! Sweet kisses!
The dresses are neat. Now tell us about the hair!
Absolutely gorgeous!!! Thank you for sharing!
Love this! I came across this post on Pinterest. I’ll be linking to your this post on my next “pinterest round-up.” As a 26 year old Irish dancer (now teacher) I love this post 🙂 I’m also super psyched to have found a fun new blog to read!
Amazing…!!!
Thanks for sharing a beautiful Irish baby clothes…
Thanks for sharing….!!!!
Really a nice dresses for dancers…!!
The last one amazing pose I liked it…!!
Keep it up…!!!
Very descriptive post, I loved that bit. Will
there be a part 2?
[…] about fourteen years old I was competing in an Irish dance competition (yup, wearing one of these crazy dresses and wigs) and right before I got on stage my mom gave me a Claddagh ring adorned with Celtic knotwork. Until […]
I really like it when people get together and share ideas.
Great blog, keep it up!
You can be a hero or persona, extremely hellcat or recovery ranger–the options are specific by absolutely null.
Hit From the Tong – You must complete the mission “Rat Race” to
make this mission available for play. Blast all the monsters absent and have entertaining.
[…] I was an Irish dancer for about twelve years of my life, St. Patrick’s Day has always been a major holiday in my […]
[…] week we are traveling in style along the Ring of Kerry in the southwest of Ireland. Back in my Irish dancing days I traveled this route with friends and have dreamt of going back ever since. With St. […]