CLRG Irish Dance World Championships – Wrap Up

Sadly, all great things must come to an end! Today was the last day of the 2011 CLRG Irish Dance World Championships. I had a great time obsessing over the live commentary and streaming! The quality of dancing that I could see was incredible and the outfits didn’t disappoint either. I think this is one of the more publicized years with multiple RTE reports and other news outlets reporting on the event. Maybe the Jig movie coming out and Worlds being inDublin had something to do with that. Either way, I’m super appreciative for it!

Stay tuned for a wrap up of fun Irish Dance links relating to the Worlds!

There were so many trend setting dresses at Worlds this year. I’m going to wrap up what I saw as the major trends throughout the week. I’ve done rough sketches of what each trend looks like to give you an idea, with a picture linked. Of course, the actual dresses are much more detailed and nuanced! But, this at least gives you a quick idea. Check out the updates for the individual days to see the more detailed breakdown of what was popular for each age group.

1. Of course, asymmetry. I saw it take a little bit of a different road this year. While last year the trend was largely asymmetry down the center of the dress, this year diagonals were all the rage. The designs were either a solid color bodice with asymmetrical appliqué or full asymmetrical color blocking along diagonals. Designs starting from one corner of the dress were also popular. Often, the asymmetric design will continue onto the skirt. Finally, corset type dresses (Ref#22-“Fairy Skirt”) where the top and bottom edges of the corset has asymmetrical curved cutouts popped up several times throughout the week.

Asymmetry on a diagonalAsymmetrical color blocking

 Asymmetrical solid color bodice (Picture #1 – White Dress)

 Asymmetric diagonal color block

2. This type of skirt. Lauren Early rocked it earlier at the All-Irelands and many of the dresses that Gavin has made for his top dancers have repeated the skirt style. Niamh Taylor took a different twist using a colored inner pleats.

• Solid Colored
• Multi-Colored

3. Solid color dresses decorated in rhinestones. Niamh Neale made a big splash on the first day of the Worlds with her white dress. Gavin used large rhinestones to make it look like pieces of mirror were stuck on her dress. There were several other all white dresses throughout the week, but there were also dresses in solid yellow and in blue.

• “Mirror” effect white dress
• Yellow solid dress

4. Bodices made from sequins. This trend spanned the age groups throughout the week. Some girls had solid color sequins, others had stripes of sequins. It looks like sequins are making a comeback!

• Solid color sequin (Picture #3 – black dress)
• Striped sequins

5. Metallic accenting was also popular throughout the week. Most of these dresses had a black base and then copper and gold decorating. It was done in a wide variety of ways on dancers with a wide range of colorings. This is a trend that can look very nice on almost anyone!

• On a Brunette! 
• On a Blonde!
• On a Redhead!

6. Neon colors was by far the most popular color choice for dresses throughout the week. Neon pink, especially, stood out as the winner this week. Many dresses had either neon pink accents or a neon pink base. Many of the boys rocked pink shirts or pink accenting as well! There were less neon dresses in the older girls – more neon accenting. The neon pink trend hit its prime around the Girls U17 with the little girls being a little more spread out among the neon spectrum.

• Neon Accenting
• Neon Dress
• Crowd shot (Feispix from AIs – you’ll have to login, but for free!)
• Boys (Both boys!)

7. Gavin’s open corset look made its debut this Worlds. I was stuck on how to describe this look, but Claire Greaney’s dress today helped! It looks a bit as if someone had a corset on, but didn’t hook it together all the way. Gavin had a few different manifestations of the design this week, creating unique looks every time.

• Orange Half Suns
• Gear Teeth
• Bow tied bodice
• Claire Greaney

8. The starburst design was also popular this week. This design has a center somewhere on the dress and spirals lines of rhinestones radially out from that center. Reminds me a bit of some of my differential equation graphs… It’s a powerful effect that looks very elegant. My little representations don’t do it justice.

From side (Picture #1 – black and pink dress)

• From center
• From top (Picture #5 – Orange Dress)

9. The kimono wrap inspired dress was scene several times this week. Gavin made the original kimono dress last year for Kate Kaneko and the Irish dance world went crazy for it. This year, the kimono influence isn’t as obvious, but many dresses had a similar wrapped top effect. Many dresses also used the wrap effect to have layers of Celtic embroidery. These usually would have a black base and then have the embroidery in warm neon colors – reds, yellows, etc.

Wrap Dress (On far left)

10. There were several dresses were the bodice color continued onto the skirt so it looked like the skirt was just an underlay on a solid dress. My personal favorite was the royal blue dress with knotwork that started in the bodice and fanned out over the skirt. Really classy and artsy.

• Overlay dress (Red dress on the far right)
• Another overlay dress (Picture #7-black and pink dress)
• Bodice all the way over skirt (Feispix, you’ll have to login-free though!)

11. There were several belted dresses during the week. Not as many as I thought based off the first day, but there were several. Gavin had two main styles. One with one large belt and the other with three skinnier belts over the bodice. The three skinny ones also usually had a motif along with it, especially in the younger girls. Definitely a trend to look out for in the future.

Three belt with motif

• Big belt (Dress on far right. Middle dress also!)
• Small belt (Green dress on left)

12. Another trend that was more popular in the younger girls was big, swooping asymmetric designs. A blown up version of intercrossing knotwork lines. These seemed to be more popular earlier on in the week and less popular later, but is still a design to watch for the future.

• Big swooping (Middle, yellow dress. Same picture as the green dress above!)
• Another one!  (Picture #3 – Orange dress)

13. Animal print also made a big surge this Worlds. Usually as an accent on the bodice, but there were some full bodices made from animal print. They were all done very tastefully, though!

• Cheetah Print
• A purple leopard (I think it’s leopard?)
• Full bodice (Ref #21 – “Niamh skirt”)

14. In terms of wigs, full wigs were dominant, but bun wigs are making more of a surge. Usually loose, natural looking versions, rather than the tightly curled bun wigs of a few years ago. It looks like tiaras are making a comeback as well. Headbands were still popular, but many top dancers were wearing fabric tiaras with rhinestones.

• Bun wig
• Tiaras

15. For guys, the large overall outfit was black shirt, black vest with embroidery and black pants. Embroidery colors spanned the gamut with some decoration following the asymmetric trend. There were a few standout outfits though that dared to break the mold!

• General model (Picture #11 – black and red vest)
• Asymmetrical model (From the AIs, but same trends!)

Notable Outfits!

• Niamh Neale’s mirror effect dress
• Niamh Taylor and Sinead Carson’s, pictured in the half-bodice section
• Nadine Martin’s high waisted skirt
• Therese Corless’s Overlay dress
• Drew Lovejoy’s pink accented outfit (Picture #12-pink shirt)
• Joe Bitter’s military inspired vest

And that’s all for now! Hope you enjoyed the updates! I’m going to keep updating this page throughout the week as Feispix uploads more of their pictures. There were some really lovely dresses that I couldn’t find anywhere online yet. Let me know what you think about the new trends (not being mean, of course)! Anything I missed? What do you think will be big for nationals?