DMcG was exaggerating slightly; it's a bit more than 10 seconds, but not, as I recall, much above a minute. In fact, since I typed that bit, I've been talking to my daughter, and she confirms this; dancing three at a time, they would do two and a half steps, and then the bell would ring, and the next three wuld do teir bit. So the adjudicator could not have been looking at any one contestant for more than 20 seconds or so.
She says that the last dress she had made cost about £600 in 1994. When she started dancing - 1985, I think, the dresses were still of the lightweight, unstiffened kind described in my previos post, embroidered by the teacher. The stiffened, commercially-produced ones were just staring to come in about that time, along with the ringlets which Bonnie mentioned in her first post. My daughter says she hated dancing in the stiff dresses, as they were heavy and didn't move the right way. This is obvious really; how can stiffened dresses move with the dancer? They wil simply bounce up and down in their own limited way. As my daughter says, it all seems to be influenced by American 'Beauty' Pageants. Which is curious; if American influence is to be allowed in, then why have things not gone in the opposite direction - light, simple, unadorned and unstiffened dresses a la Riverdance?
John Kelly.