When you first start getting confident in flamenco, you want to dress the part.  It's tempting to rush out and buy yourself a beautiful flamenco dress, to make yourself look like a real flamenca.

Wait!  Take a deep breath and let's be realistic here.  It's likely to be a few years before you're good enough to dance solo.  In the meantime, if you get a chance to perform, it will be in a group.  Your teacher will want the group to look like a troupe, which means all of you must be wearing similar costumes.

If she's sympathetic to the financial circumstances of dance students, she'll try to use outfits that students already have - but it's very difficult to make a coherent group out of a bunch of dancers who've all bought dresses separately.

Flamenco dresses come in many different colors and patterns, with sleeves vary from extremely frilly, to tight, to none.  The skirts of a flamenco dress may have several frills and multiple petticoats, or be tight and sleek around the hips with no frills at all.  The chances of your dress matching what others have chosen is pretty slim.

That's why a flamenco shawl (worn as a top) and skirt combo is the best bet for your first costume:  no matter where you buy your shawl and skirt, or what colour you choose, the style is similar enough that it will fit it with everyone else's shawl and skirt.

Look at this photo of a flamenco performance at the Feria in Seville, and notice the dancer on the left is wearing a purple leotard as a top, with a matching skirt.  She looks just as good as her partner who's wearing a dress.

The benefit of using separates is the same as in real life - you can mix and match to suit your needs.  You can also wear the skirt or leotard separately in class, and use the shawl as your working shawl.  If you buy a multi-colored shawl, you can even buy two or three skirts which pick up the colors from the shawl - and probably still have spent less money than if you'd bought a dress!

In any case, your first step should be to ask other students how costumes are arranged for your school performances.  At some schools, the teacher will insist that every troupe member wears exactly the same costume (and probably makes them pay to have it made).  If that's the case, you may as well be patient - no matter how beautiful a flamenco outfit you buy, you're not going to get a chance to wear it on stage until you're a solo artist.

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Photo by A. www.viajar24h.com