Projects
Irish dance dress. The Repair Shop. BBC TV
Mother and daughter Mona Roddy and Dearbhla Lennon from Dundalk in Ireland, have a child’s Irish dancing dress that Dearbhla wore when she was two years old. It has the traditional lace collar and cuffs which had originally been made for mum Mona when she was a child learning to dance in the 1950s.
It’s tradition that the lace collar and cuffs are unpicked and re-sewn onto all the dancing costumes, and Mona wore them until she finished competitive dancing in her early 20s. When Dearbhla was learning as a child, the lace was added to her costume, and since then has been worn by Dearbhla’s own children. Having had an internationally successful dance career in shows like Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, Dearbhla and Mona have a close connection to the lace and the little dress where it all began.
The dress is stained, but the 70-year-old lace is looking very tattered and is becoming undone. The lace was removed from the dress, wet cleaned, pinned out to dry then the areas of loss and broken threads were re-established using fine cotton thread and button stitch. Once completed the lace was stitched back into place. The stain down the front of the dress was removed by using gel to control the amount of moisture and lift the staining.
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