"Flamenco stuff: The picture at right is me, taken way back in 1971 (aged 27 then) at a fantastic small night club in Benidorm, resort Spain. It was like a medium-sized  private house, the club name, La Cancian Del Mar.  The floor show was wonderful - two girls, one man and guitarist.  The girl dancer with me was the main star, Mary Milagros, the other was Loli Calvo.  Mary had several dresses she wore for her performance, one of course very spectacular with a long train skirt, which she kicked out from behind. This dress shown here, sorry if a little invisible, was in black lace, the bodice lined in satin, into a 3 tier ruffled knee length skirt.  At the time my camera had run out of film; luckily I managed to record some of her other dresses, but sadly not this one.  However, the skirt of it was very noisy, this due to the spectacular skirt linings. They were of a very stiff. and thickish paper taffeta or paper nylon, all tier ruffled, and tiny ruffles on each tier edge, in brilliant glow poppy red. Quite a few flamenco dresses at the time had paper taffeta skirts, so what with the linings, also paper taffeta, the noise was incredible. The other dancer, Loli, had one like that, in pink with black spots, lined in black and a second layer in white ruffles. I met her too and she let me rustle it also.  

 After the show, I had the delightful privilege of meeting Mary, and she was more than happy to show me her flamenco dresses, and let me rustle some of the skirts. They felt wonderful, and the rustle noises were almost deafening, as the paper taffeta ruffle linings rubbed each other.  Mary also rubbed together, my favourite dress of hers, black with a floral design, and brilliant glow orange paper nylon linings.  The paper nylon screamed-rustled, " You like, Si?" she said with a smile, "Sexy Si?", I nodded in total agreement.  Most of Mary` dresses were knee length, with a spectacular to-the-floor one.  These days, sadly, they do not use paper nylon linings (which, by the way, they call 'can can') in flamenco dresses, due to the fact the dance steps have now changed, and the dress fabrics are more fluid and softer, so the real beauty of flamenco is revealed.  However they may still use paper nylon linings in traditional flamenco dresses - be most pleased to hear from anyone who knows this still is the case.