The adult dancer's dilemma - competition and performance wear!

So you've been going to class, feeling pretty confident, and ready for your feis! But what's that? Your school doesn't have a costume for adults? What on earth do you wear?!

Unfortunately, this is a very common problem for adult dancers. Many times, schools don't have (or feel they don't have) enough adults competing to make an official school costume necessary, and the kids' costumes just don't work for adults. The good news is there are so many different ways to put together something suitable for feiseanna.

First things first, always check with your TCRG before making any major purchases (and even minor ones)! Although they may not have an official costume, they will always have preferences on how you present yourself - you're not just a solo dancer, you're also representing the school.

The basics

The most basic costume you can put together for yourself is a plain dress. Typically this will be black, but you may want to wear something in your school's color instead. Velvet is a classic option that always looks good on stage. Our adult ceili teams a few years ago had velvet dresses that look wonderful on stage.

Just be sure that whatever dress you buy conforms to CLRG costume rules. While in my experience there seems to be a little more leeway with adults (my first dress had an exposed collarbone and 3/4 length sleeves), it's prudent to try to follow the guidelines as much as possible.

The best thing about this option is that there's so many places to find a plain black dress. I found mine on the sale rack at the Limited; one of my friends got hers at Old Navy. Some other great options that I've found browsing around: Forever 21 (velvet AND cheap!), American Apparel, ebay (with and without sequins), or just search for "long sleeve skater dress".

Another very basic option is a skirt and leotard combination, which I see very often. It's even our school's adult ceili team uniform.

There are many different options for both skirts and leotards. Generally you will want either a turtleneck or high-collared scoopneck, but as for materials, you have a lot of room to work with. Anything Lycra will be very easy to get from just about any dancewear company. Like with dresses, velvet is a very appropriate look. These may be a little more difficult to find, but there are still plenty of options: Capezio (turtleneck, which our team uses, and scoopneck), Discount Dance Supply (also good for skirts, dresses, and anything else you can think of), Danskin, and many more.

If you're going with the skirt and leotard combo, skirts are where you can really have a lot of fun. There are much fewer restrictions on skirts, so the options are truly open.

The first is a basic athletic/tennis skirt. The greatest upside is that these are designed as athletic wear, so many if not all will be sweat-wicking (and if you find one that's not, don't even bother with it). They're also incredibly light and pack small, which is very useful if you travel a lot for competitions and even performances. Black is probably your best bet, and just about every athletic wear company makes these. I also have fairly good luck finding these at places like TJ Maxx and Marshalls.

For our ceili team, we have a basic wrap skirt in our school's colors (one on the outside, one on the inside). These are very easy to make if you have basic sewing skills, and you can find a vast number of tutorials online; ours are made by one of the women on our team.

Our beautiful skirts!

The upside of making your own is that you can choose any fabric you want. The downside is that they don't look 'traditionally Irish', but they still have a clean look onstage.

Another option is, like dresses, just go to a store and find a skirt you like!  Circle skirts are a good bet; they typically look very nice in motion. Just like leotards and dresses, fabric options are open but velvet is always nice (if it hasn't been apparent yet, I really like velvet). American Apparel is one store that typically has a wide variety of skirt options, and there's plenty of more options here: H&M, Charlotte Russe, ASOS, and even Etsy.

There are a couple other places that sell skirts specifically for Irish dance, but I'll get to those in the next section.

Dressing it up
Hopefully if your school doesn't have an official costume for adults, they will at the very least have a cape to wear with your own outfit. Even my teacher, who takes his sartorial inspiration from Henry Ford ('any color as long as it's black'), has an official cape for all students to wear with either their own or the school's costume, regardless of age. Ours is very basic (a triangle, one color on one side, a second color on the other, that pins up to show both sides), and if we didn't have anyone to make them for our school, one could easily do so on their own.

If your school doesn't have a cape, ask if one can be made (or even better, ask if you can make one yourself). If your school doesn't have many adults who compete, this may not have even occurred to your teacher. Here's one good tutorial I found on basic cape-making.

Beyond capes, there's other ways to dress up your basic look. One of the easiest and cheapest things to do is to add some trimmings to the edge of your costume - the edge of a skirt or dress, collar of your dress or leotard, or even the sleeves. In NYC we have plenty of trimmings stores, but they're easily findable online (M&J is my all-time favorite trimming store; they have stuff you didn't even know you needed) and in regular fabric stores as well. All you need is basic skill with a needle and thread.

Appliqué is another easy way to add something extra. Like trimmings, these are also generally simple to attach with needle and thread. 

The next option, embroidery, will certainly give an even more polished look. This is something that you'll have to outsource, unless you have an embroidery machine at home (in which case, please become my new best friend). While embroidery designs can be expensive, the actual embroidery is not necessarily so - the embroidery on our ceili team's leotards was only $25 each (with a pattern we provided).

Places like Taoknitter Arts does embroidery design, embroidery, and appliqués for Irish dance. There is also helpful information if you are inclined to do your own embroidery. Garden of Daisies is another place I've come across that does embroidery for Irish dance, as does Jiggedy Jig (plus appliqué sets).

Earlier I mentioned that there are a few specific Irish dance skirt vendors that I was saving for this section. There are a few that do embroidery, appliqué, or even custom designs. Irish Dance Skirts provides just what's on the label - skirts for Irish dance (plus leotards, headbands, cuffs, and appliqué patches) with embroidered hems. They have a limited number of patterns, but a variety of skirt and embroidery colors to choose from.

Pennie Drew is another place to buy skirts (as well as dresses). These are more involved; you can decide on the design for the panels of the skirt, as well as color, etc. She also does team skirts; before our wrap skirts, my school's adult ceili team had these skirts (ours are the maroon and gold ones that appear in the slideshow). These are flat, stiff skirts, but they do look great on stage.

Solo dresses
At a certain point, you may want to bypass all of this and jump into solo dresses. I said this at the beginning of this post, but it certainly bears repeating here: check with your TCRG before making any purchase! I do not know of a single school that doesn't require approval for any and all solo dresses. You absolutely do not want to spend hundreds of dollars (let alone thousands) on a dress that your teacher will not let you wear. Also, whether you're buying new or used, your teacher may be able to give you helpful hints on where to look. And if you are buying new, your teacher may have a preferred or required dressmaker.

What are the upsides of buying used? First, they are significantly cheaper than new dresses, whether off the rack or custom. This in turn gives you a wide variety to test out what style you like. For example, I currently have a stiff skirt dress. While it looks beautiful, it makes it more difficult to keep my arms straight when dancing, and is completely impossible to sit in. Had I paid brand-new costs for this dress, I would be much more unlikely to turn around and sell it so that I could get one in a different style. But I didn't, and the small (in relative terms) price I paid will make it hurt much less financially when I do get a different dress.

Second, you get a much wider variety in styles with used dresses. If, for example, you really like the dress styles of the early 2000s, with the large three-panel skirts and glitterball fabric, you may have a very hard time finding a dressmaker today that will make that kind of dress for you. However, there are plenty of used dresses in that style that are available on a number of different websites.

The downsides of buying used: first, you may not get nearly as perfect a fit as you would with a custom-made dress, particularly if you have odd measurements. One of the biggest problems I've noticed for adult dancers is finding used dresses with a large enough bust. Luckily, a number of used dress sites, such as Used Solo Dresses and Feis Dresses, will let you search by measurements instead of age. 

Second, there may be flaws in the dress that aren't described in the listings (e.g. stains, loose threads) or can't be shown in pictures (i.e., weird smells). While these may not necessarily be deal-breakers (for example, the dress I bought ended up having loose stitching in the bust that I need to have repaired), they can certainly be an inconvenience that you should not have with a brand-new dress.

Third, especially buying a dress through a website, there is always the risk of fraud. Every secondhand dress website has a section on how to prevent fraud, so I won't go over that. However, shopping smart is always your best protection against this, whether it's a solo dress or an addition to your rare coin collection (or whatever your thing is).

Some other good sites for searching for used solo dresses:

Dance Again (I purchased my own dress through here)

Get That Dress

Second Chance Dance

ebay (Yes, really!)

For new dresses, there are hundreds of dressmakers out there to choose from. The first place to start looking is though your teacher - ask if he or she has a recommended or preferred dressmaker. Beyond that, look at other dresses online (I could look at solo dresses for days on Pinterest) and see if there's a particular dressmaker's style you like, both in construction and design. Once you get that narrowed down, it's just a matter of contacting them about availability, timeline, etc. 

What happens if you don't want to buy used, but you also don't want to go through the process of using a dressmaker? In that case, you can try your hand at making your own. There are plenty of online tutorials and forums that discuss the process of dressmaking, in addition to a number of patterns online, either for free or a small cost. You will most likely still want to do some embroidery or appliqué on your dress, which would follow the bit about embroidery and appliqué above. 

You may also opt to update an older dress, whether it's adapting a dress from the early 2000s and earlier, or even just updating the skirt on a more modern dress. Many of these dressmaking forums also have discussions on how to make these sorts of changes as well. 

These are some of the websites and forums discussing dressmaking:
Dance.net (this is a very active forum with discussions, tips, etc. on dressmaking)
Irish Threads (for purchasing patterns; there are also some helpful tips)
Custom Dancewear (multiple patterns for purchase; also sells dresses)
Voy.com

Overall, despite initial appearances, there are actually so many different options for adult Irish dance costumes! Whatever your resources, there is always an option to look fantastic on stage. Happy dancing!