Steampunk and its growing following

[The Lady Mercedes]

I enjoy dressing goth but as I'm dark skinned, I refuse to whiteface...would look godawful! I also only dress a certain way...victorian or romantigoth, or in black, red, or purple. There's many types of goth after all...so I guess I'm not opposed to wearing certain bits of sp in mundane wear if you can pull it off.

[Rani Zemirah]

Personally, I don't think the "whiteface" look is good for anyone at all, really!  It seems to always end up streaked, runny or chalky, and for some reason people seem to think they should stop at their chin, even though they usually have copious amounts of throat, chest, breast, arms and hands exposed, so it looks even more fake...  I like the glam goth look, if someone does it really well, though, but it really would depend on the event, I guess. 

I'm kind of into the whole post-apocalyptic look, but I'm really not sure if it actually has a name, so I don't know what to call it.  Kind of a cross between Steampunk and Mad Max, though... with lots of piecing together, lacing together, repurposing/refurbishing/recycling and mixing of style and costuming genres... and some really great sharp pointies if you're into the whole weapons thing!    heheh 

Just finally watched Book of Eli last night, and I am deeply covetous of that machete!!!  I'd love to see exactly how they had that scabbard rigged for him to pull it so smoothly out from under the back of his jacket like that, without just slicing it to rags...  However, none of the rest of the movie had any type of clothing/garb ideas that appealed to me at all. 

[groomporter]

Of course there's certain amount of overlap between Goth and Steampunk occasionally in things like the "Victorian Lolita" fashions.
When I first started seeing some of the Victorian or Edwardian end of Goth appear with torn fishnets and tattered poet's shirts I thought,"bah, I could do that better" but then I grew up reading things like Sherlock Holmes and Poe and wanted properly dressed vampires, (or vampire hunters) and I'm pushing 50 so by the time it started coming around I was already "old".

Some of the post-apocalyptic stuff is great, but I'm more into something closer to the history, say British Empire still with the Raj in India, and Zulu War red coats, but with Lovecraftian esoteric mysteries, and aether-powered technology.

I really like the direction this guy goes basing his character off a traditional uniform

[Rani Zemirah]

Nice... He looks so... clean!!!    See, I lean totally the other way, with the whole tattered, pieced together look something I really enjoy creating.  I'm dreaming right now about making a cloak entirely out of scraps of leather, such as you might find littering the floor of a leather shop, in various shades of browns and darker tans, with none of the pieces being more than a few inches across, at the most.  Maybe edged with a few pieces of fur...

[Lady Neysa]

I'm kind of into the whole post-apocalyptic look, but I'm really not sure if it actually has a name, so I don't know what to call it.  Kind of a cross between Steampunk and Mad Max, though... with lots of piecing together, lacing together, repurposing/refurbishing/recycling and mixing of style and costuming genres... and some really great sharp pointies if you're into the whole weapons thing!    heheh 

Isn't that what they call 'cyberpunk'?

[groomporter]

Yeah it can be, but there's also a Victorian post-apocalyptic subset to Steampunk.

[Rani Zemirah]

I thought cyberpunk was more... modernistic and slick, like the Matrix, or something.  Lots of black patent leather with weird gizmos and such...

Like some of this stuff:




I'm not really even thinking Victorian so much, though... I'm going for a much rougher look.  Clothing that might be quite literally pieced together from other pieces of clothing, like you might find if all the textile mills were suddenly... gone, and few people new how to weave, so what cloth was available had to be scavenged. 

Not exactly what I picture, but closer:

[LadyFae]

Forgive me if this has already been covered but WHY do people dress Steampunk at Ren Faires?  It isn't as outlandish as Storm Troopers, Trekkies or the like so it comes across more as if they just don't understand the time period.  Is it just an opportunity to show off their cool steampunk attire? 
I'm not trying to start anything, I truly am curious.

[ArielCallista]

Well I do know that time travel tends to run alongside Steampunk...My boyfriend's and my Steampunk characters are a time traveling couple, which is a rather common idea. because of all of the invention mentality, and individuals having different ideas as to how to invent certain things. So, some people (the ones who think about things) will usually be like we traveled from such and such time to study the whatever about renaissance life or something, some kind of backstory thing. Some people that aren't major faire goers just want an excuse to wear their steampunk garb, and then there are others that arent even aware of a difference between the victorian era and the renaissance *sigh* I'm not sure how those people made it thru history class.

I kind of get wanting to wear steampunk to faire, cuz for some people there arent many steampunk events. But as for the trekkies and stormtroopers, I find that highly annoying because scifi cons are everywhere all the time. My brother is a member of the 501st (basically a highly renowned legion of stormtroopers and other armored star wars characters for those of you who dont know) and he once for a "day of wrong" went to faire as a "pirate trooper" basically he wore his stormtrooper armor and then his pirate coat, hat, accessories etc. But that what day of wrong is for lol...

[LadyFae]

Oh DUH!  I never even THOUGHT of the time travel aspect of Steampunk.  Ugh, don't mind me...  =P

[Taffy Saltwater]

When I went in SP to TRF last year, one of the greeters at the gate exclaimed "Time Traveler" when she saw me and all but demanded that I be part of the costume contest (on AHE).  The cast members I saw really loved the change and the neo-Victorian fashions really speak to me. 

I think that people who love to garb will use any excuse to haul out their pretties.  I saw renwear at both WindyCon and ComicPalooza this year, both of which had a steampunk theme. 

However, I am working on an Italian overgown, which I will hopefully have a chance to wear this season.  The plan was to wear it for Celtic Christmas weekend, but I may be headed for LosCon on that weekend.

[The Lady Mercedes]

Personally, I don't think the "whiteface" look is good for anyone at all, really!  It seems to always end up streaked, runny or chalky, and for some reason people seem to think they should stop at their chin, even though they usually have copious amounts of throat, chest, breast, arms and hands exposed, so it looks even more fake...  I like the glam goth look, if someone does it really well, though, but it really would depend on the event, I guess.

I hear you Rani!

[dbaldock]

For the Geeks, if you've "Liked" ThinkGeek on Facebook, you saw this on their Wall this morning:

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*Edited for content, to pass the filter on this forum.

[Becky10]

Sorry i went missing, yes brassgoogles is the one! What a life saver that was, you wouldn't think jodhpurs would be so impossible to find. Should be coming in the mail today or tomorrow.

I have yet to see people in steampunk at our faire but i do remember a shop that had all sorts of steampunk things that is now unfortunately gone.(It was there back when i thought "what on earth is all this weird stuff?")

[crashbot]

It's a cute little offshoot of a well established subculture, but it does not have the legs to stand on its own, that is where it ends for most people that are not part of some steampunk larp group.

There are club nights and cons available for folks to express steampunkiness, I would prefer people do it there.