The colored photos are my dd's first solo dresses. I didn't feel comfortable using dresses off the sales sites (though I was tempted) without the owners' permission. The black and whites are from an ethnology collection at Cleveland State University. Cleveland State had the opportunity to gather pictures from the long-defunct Cleveland Press newspaper. That is how I was able to publish them here. I've found more photos in the archives of the Globe, Chicago Tribune and NYT, but they all charge steep fees to have photos put out on the internet.

While I didn't see much in the way of changes in women's costumes in the 1940s, knickers for men faded away during that decade. It would be nice to have a few photos documenting that change.

That's great...those dresses from the late 70s- early 90s remind me so much of my own from that time period (I danced for quite a few years, then took a break, only to come back...you can never truly leave). AAAHH, the good old days...they were great dresses and I still love that look.

This is a great thread, so informative. Karma for you!

And after seeing some of those 70's pictures, I'm wondering why An Com isn't relieved that our dresses have gotten longer!

Very cool! I really like some of the older dresses. My mom has her dresses from the 70s. I should try them on and see how short they were!

Does anyone know when the fashion of wearing your medals on your outfit went out? I know it's now "illegal". Does anyone know when that happened?

Well, whatever happened happened after 1962 and before 1974. If you look at the pictures in the link "Bec" gave on p. 1 of this thread, a couple of the dancers are holding pieces of triangular cloth with medals attached. (They remind me of the hip scarves belly dancers wear!) None of the dancers are wearing medals in any of her pictures.

Related topic:

There was a display of medals at the 50th Anniversary Cleveland Feis. The older medals were very lovely and detailed; most were smaller than half-dollar coins--if you have ever seen one of those. Of course, those were given out in different times. Only 3 per competition and I doubt any feisianna had 2,000 dancers competing as some of the largest feis do today.