Rince: The Dress Quest

The dress is arguably the most important (and expensive) part of any dancer's costume, being the actual costume part, but with the cost of dresses rising what's out there for those of us with a (lot) less than £1500 budget?

I've been searching for a new dress now for about 2 months. You see, my dress was made for me originally when I was 15, a UK size 6, 5 foot nothing... 4 years and 3 sets of exams later with periods of absence from dance class, it's understandable why forcing myself into my precious dress is just not going to work. Not that I haven't tried, mind you.

The question is; where to look? I'm a student, my budget is minimal and to buy a new or even fairly modern dress you're looking at prices well into the hundreds if not thousands.
I started my search on ebay, because as a student I swear by ebay as the answer to everything; new cookware, textbooks, technology accessories... And surprisingly enough they even have a fairly extensive list of Irish Dance dresses available for sale. Even better, these dresses are for the most part modern in style and reasonably priced. However, if you're over the age of 12 your choice begins to narrow, and for those us over 15 you're restricted to maybe 4 possible dresses, albeit the ones that are listed are quite lovely. For example this gorgeous dress originally made by Chantelle Domican.


Chantelle Domican dress listed by Irish seller elaghbeg - check it out if you want to bag a bargain! Photo courtesy of ebay.

Not finding anything to suit me though, I moved my search over to usedsolodresses.com. This site is possibly one of my favourites now for a mid-morning browse. The standard of dresses listed range from the stunning (see dress 2 ) to the downright ludicrous (see dress 1 ), but of course this depends on your taste. Prices on this site range from the sweet and cheap at around £150 to the much more expensive prices which go up to around £1700. There's also an easy-to-use search function with a range of ages available...and plenty of dresses to go with them! The site also boasts a great range of designers , from my favourite Elevation Designs to Gavin Doherty as well as many others such as Eileen Plater, another personal favourite. This site is definitely one to take a peek at if you're looking to upgrade your dress.
Whilst I haven't found anything for myself just yet, I've certainly enjoyed looking and I hope to find something soon. This blog to be continued...