This was the first dress Shirley made.  

It was made for her daughter Rachel in 1986.

Shirley's next attempt at an Irish Dancing dress was for Rachel's friend, Sharon.

At this time, the teacher had one Celtic design for use on all costumes.  You can see that the designs on Rachel and Sharon's dresses are very similar, but to keep them different the side panel pattern was swapped with the front panel pattern.

This dress was made with the 'latest fashion' of a separate, stiffened front panel! 

Made in around 1992, this was the era when the fashion was to have a dress made from black velvet, and only the colour of the lining and the appliqué varied.  The Seven Gates designs were also very popular at this time.

This dress was made in 1993.  The fashion was still with black velvet... no one had heard of making ID dresses from silk, although there were a few gabardine dresses around.  The unique design feature on this dress was the split front panel, but since stiffened kick pleats were unheard of, the split panels didn't become very popular.  The panels only sat nicely after careful rearranging and you can't rearrange while you dance!