By fAbRONTE
June 2010
“Here's the thing about steampunks that I really really love, and the reason why the subculture appeals to me so much: we're all a bunch of uber-nerds…. who grew up to put our nerdy knowledge to use, and in the process became damn sexy.” JRF, a steampunk from Texas, USA.
Hold on to your pocket watches – the Neo-Victorian/Edwardian science fiction fashion revolution is upon us.and
If you’ve ever read the books of or watched a movie or television series based on the works of British Victorian-era science fiction authors Jules Verne or H G Wells, you may know what I am talking about.
Steampunk, according to Hieronymus Isambard “Jake” Von Slatt, of Massachusetts, USA, proprietor of The Steampunk Workshop website and a leading light in the steampunk universe, “is the intersection of technology and romance. It’s fashion, an aesthetic, a genre of fiction, a musical style, and a burgeoning sub-culture which delights in making things that are a blend of the modern and anachronistic”.
In clothing terms, think corsets and bustles, top hats and tails coats, flying helmets and goggles – and you’re halfway there. But only halfway, because these wonderful styles are being infused with large doses of inspiration plundered from all over the place – punk and goth street fashion, wild west looks, modern science fiction, utilitarian and military influences, historic decorative military uniforms, especially British and American, fetish fashion, kilts, tartan, tweed and brown leather…. its almost difficult to know in exactly which corner of the cultural universe the proponents of the genre, including myself, will forage next – but that’s what makes it so wonderful, so creative.
According to The Wall Street Journal in January 2010, who even gave steampunk fashion a mention in their January 2010 fashion feature: “Rather than fuss about skirt lengths or the season's silhouette, people now dress the way they see themselves, choosing looks that flatter their bodies and fit their lifestyles. Most of us dress with our social groups or professions, rather than fashion trends, using clothes to flash messages about who we are.”
Jake Von Slatt says the subject of the New York Times article was ”the death of trends and the struggle that the big fashion cartels are having with the fact that their carefully managed seasonal campaigns have far less of an impact than they used to and that ‘everything is now in style.’
“My take-away is that the fashion industry is starting to fracture like the music industry, and for the same reasons,” he says.
Steampunk as a popular cult and aesthetic movement, is believed to have come from Britain - that makes sense - but a number of movies over the last 10 to 15 years have been quite steampunk in their aesthetic, and definitely fuelled the trend. Along with the showing in the States of a Jules Verne series at the beginning of the 21st Century, that some US steampunks put down to being a big influence on them - according to Wikipaedia, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne was "a 22-episode science fiction television series in the steampunk genre that first aired in June 2000 on CBC Television in Canada and in syndication in the United States".
Since I was a teenager I always wanted an excuse to swan around in Neo-Victorian clothes, and even tried to make a skirt with a bustle in the early 90s. More recently I was experimenting with Neo-Victorian design and translating Victorian industrial imagery onto fashion with influences of Sci Fi as far back as the start of 2005, completely unaware there was even such a thing as steampunk. And throwing flying helmets and goggles into the mix, Delicious. But at the time I recall thinking nobody would really be into it, as it wasn't where fashion was at that moment. My take-out from this experience has been "trust those crazy ideas", and just keep going. The movie "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" turned out to be, in my view, a catalyst for a new way of thinking about blending eras and genres. "Your clothes were already steampunk back then and nobody else was doing it," said an Oamaru friend recently. "It was just a bit too soon."
I recall noticing strong, dark and gothic Victorian looks rocking down the international catwalks in 2005, thanks in large part to Alexander McQueen, and this coincided with a time when we all seemed completely swamped with cheap and often bland imported clothing. It was also around or following the time of a number of pivotal inspirational movies that featured Victorian-style clothing and/or science fiction elements in a kind of historical context, such as "City of the Lost Children" (1995 - extraordinary, very steampunky grunge sepia-noir with very steampunky industrial and mechanical imagery and costumes by the wonderful Jean-Paul Gaultier), "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (2003 - Victorian clothes and fantastical vehicles) and of course "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" (2004 - the late-1930s in tweed, sepia and film noir, with sci-fi uniforms, flying helmets and goggles, and fabulous graphic imagery).
The word “steampunk” itself was coined by American science fiction writer K W Jeter in 1987, but as a literary fiction genre it has been around for over 100 years. Although many of the elements that combine to make "steampunk" have been round independently for some time, what is think is really new is that the modern "steampunk" aesthetic movement now happening globally, actually brings all the different elements combining and meshing into the one genre for the first time.
Von Slatt says he first became alerted to steampunk as a design genre around 2006. I too think there was definitely something in air, or in the “aether” as steampunks like to call it, around about then. It definitely seemed to me back then that it was time for a fundamental aesthetic and cultural sea change from the road we were all travelling on.
The work of top international designers, notably Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier, and more recently Alexander McQueen, has been paramount in fuelling the development of the genre in fashion terms, and in the case of Westwood and Gaultier, for at least two decades.
The really nice thing about the freedom being created by the steampunk aesthetic in fashion is that people can wear something unique, something they have made themselves, or an ensemble they have put together in their own creative way, or taken an op shop item and changed it into something steampunk-suitable – and they are not going to look like anybody else that is walking down the street. They are not even going to necessarily look like anyone else in the steampunk movement if they have used their own creative imaginations. In a sense I think it gives people back some power over their dress, rather than just wearing cookie cutter off-the-rack looks because a fashion magazine dictates exactly what are the “must haves” of the season.
Steampunk also provides also an opportunity for men to dress more flamboyantly and elegantly than they have generally been allowed to since the early 20th Century, and for women to sweep aside modern androgyny if they wish and to dress like women again in a more feminine and female-distinctive way, but without the baggage and social restrictions that went with being a woman in Victorian times. Even the corsets are comfortable and humane nowadays – or at least they should be.
I have also noticed a sense of ethics among some steampunkers, about the conditions of garment factory workers in some countries, about trying as much as possible not to be a party to that, and also about supporting and buying from local craftspeople, or small businesses on the Internet. Recycling and using found objects is also important to some of us, particularly from environmental and, especially in recessionary times, economical, standpoints.
There is the satisfaction to be had from coming home after working under pressure all day in, for example, an office or shop, and making something by hand yourself, possibly to your own design, that is uniquely your work and a real expression of who you are. We have a tendency to lose ourselves nowadays under the pressure of modern life with its ridiculously fast pace and complex social expectations, fuelled by the multi-mass production of everything from underwear to food, and the relentless media and advertising pressure to conform to the generally unrealistic fashion and lifestyle images coming at us all.
Cue steampunk - a fantastical escapist voyage to a glamourised Victorian/Edwardian past but with an eye firmly on the future. While the polar ice caps melt, are we subconsciously looking for salvation, for the chivalrous dashing heros and/or heroines who can rescue us from all that, armed with the finest machinery and accessories in solid, reliable and beautiful olde worlde brass, leather and wood, while dressed in a top hat and tails or a corset, cargo pants and goggles, but carrying a Blackberry? Who knows, but in the meantime, lets just have fun with it and enjoy the journey.
COPYRIGHT FABRONTE (Trish Frances Jardine) 2010
June 2010
“Here's the thing about steampunks that I really really love, and the reason why the subculture appeals to me so much: we're all a bunch of uber-nerds…. who grew up to put our nerdy knowledge to use, and in the process became damn sexy.” JRF, a steampunk from Texas, USA.
PHOTOGRAPHED BY FABRONTE AT THE CHRISTCHURCH ARTS CENTRE (2010). Model: Sara Scott; Make-Up: Ruby Baker; Monocle by Mac Mcgowan for Steambaby.net; Motorcycle goggles (on hat) courtesy of Bernard Shapiro; Bustle skirt by Fabronte from recycled fabric (designed and made for the Oamaru Heritage Fete Day fashion show, 2007); Styling and Photo: Fabronte. Copyright June 2010. Christchurch, NZ.
Hold on to your pocket watches – the Neo-Victorian/Edwardian science fiction fashion revolution is upon us.and
If you’ve ever read the books of or watched a movie or television series based on the works of British Victorian-era science fiction authors Jules Verne or H G Wells, you may know what I am talking about.
Steampunk, according to Hieronymus Isambard “Jake” Von Slatt, of Massachusetts, USA, proprietor of The Steampunk Workshop website and a leading light in the steampunk universe, “is the intersection of technology and romance. It’s fashion, an aesthetic, a genre of fiction, a musical style, and a burgeoning sub-culture which delights in making things that are a blend of the modern and anachronistic”.
In clothing terms, think corsets and bustles, top hats and tails coats, flying helmets and goggles – and you’re halfway there. But only halfway, because these wonderful styles are being infused with large doses of inspiration plundered from all over the place – punk and goth street fashion, wild west looks, modern science fiction, utilitarian and military influences, historic decorative military uniforms, especially British and American, fetish fashion, kilts, tartan, tweed and brown leather…. its almost difficult to know in exactly which corner of the cultural universe the proponents of the genre, including myself, will forage next – but that’s what makes it so wonderful, so creative.
According to The Wall Street Journal in January 2010, who even gave steampunk fashion a mention in their January 2010 fashion feature: “Rather than fuss about skirt lengths or the season's silhouette, people now dress the way they see themselves, choosing looks that flatter their bodies and fit their lifestyles. Most of us dress with our social groups or professions, rather than fashion trends, using clothes to flash messages about who we are.”
Jake Von Slatt says the subject of the New York Times article was ”the death of trends and the struggle that the big fashion cartels are having with the fact that their carefully managed seasonal campaigns have far less of an impact than they used to and that ‘everything is now in style.’
“My take-away is that the fashion industry is starting to fracture like the music industry, and for the same reasons,” he says.
Steampunk as a popular cult and aesthetic movement, is believed to have come from Britain - that makes sense - but a number of movies over the last 10 to 15 years have been quite steampunk in their aesthetic, and definitely fuelled the trend. Along with the showing in the States of a Jules Verne series at the beginning of the 21st Century, that some US steampunks put down to being a big influence on them - according to Wikipaedia, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne was "a 22-episode science fiction television series in the steampunk genre that first aired in June 2000 on CBC Television in Canada and in syndication in the United States".
Since I was a teenager I always wanted an excuse to swan around in Neo-Victorian clothes, and even tried to make a skirt with a bustle in the early 90s. More recently I was experimenting with Neo-Victorian design and translating Victorian industrial imagery onto fashion with influences of Sci Fi as far back as the start of 2005, completely unaware there was even such a thing as steampunk. And throwing flying helmets and goggles into the mix, Delicious. But at the time I recall thinking nobody would really be into it, as it wasn't where fashion was at that moment. My take-out from this experience has been "trust those crazy ideas", and just keep going. The movie "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" turned out to be, in my view, a catalyst for a new way of thinking about blending eras and genres. "Your clothes were already steampunk back then and nobody else was doing it," said an Oamaru friend recently. "It was just a bit too soon."
I recall noticing strong, dark and gothic Victorian looks rocking down the international catwalks in 2005, thanks in large part to Alexander McQueen, and this coincided with a time when we all seemed completely swamped with cheap and often bland imported clothing. It was also around or following the time of a number of pivotal inspirational movies that featured Victorian-style clothing and/or science fiction elements in a kind of historical context, such as "City of the Lost Children" (1995 - extraordinary, very steampunky grunge sepia-noir with very steampunky industrial and mechanical imagery and costumes by the wonderful Jean-Paul Gaultier), "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (2003 - Victorian clothes and fantastical vehicles) and of course "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" (2004 - the late-1930s in tweed, sepia and film noir, with sci-fi uniforms, flying helmets and goggles, and fabulous graphic imagery).
The word “steampunk” itself was coined by American science fiction writer K W Jeter in 1987, but as a literary fiction genre it has been around for over 100 years. Although many of the elements that combine to make "steampunk" have been round independently for some time, what is think is really new is that the modern "steampunk" aesthetic movement now happening globally, actually brings all the different elements combining and meshing into the one genre for the first time.
Von Slatt says he first became alerted to steampunk as a design genre around 2006. I too think there was definitely something in air, or in the “aether” as steampunks like to call it, around about then. It definitely seemed to me back then that it was time for a fundamental aesthetic and cultural sea change from the road we were all travelling on.
The work of top international designers, notably Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier, and more recently Alexander McQueen, has been paramount in fuelling the development of the genre in fashion terms, and in the case of Westwood and Gaultier, for at least two decades.
The really nice thing about the freedom being created by the steampunk aesthetic in fashion is that people can wear something unique, something they have made themselves, or an ensemble they have put together in their own creative way, or taken an op shop item and changed it into something steampunk-suitable – and they are not going to look like anybody else that is walking down the street. They are not even going to necessarily look like anyone else in the steampunk movement if they have used their own creative imaginations. In a sense I think it gives people back some power over their dress, rather than just wearing cookie cutter off-the-rack looks because a fashion magazine dictates exactly what are the “must haves” of the season.
Steampunk also provides also an opportunity for men to dress more flamboyantly and elegantly than they have generally been allowed to since the early 20th Century, and for women to sweep aside modern androgyny if they wish and to dress like women again in a more feminine and female-distinctive way, but without the baggage and social restrictions that went with being a woman in Victorian times. Even the corsets are comfortable and humane nowadays – or at least they should be.
I have also noticed a sense of ethics among some steampunkers, about the conditions of garment factory workers in some countries, about trying as much as possible not to be a party to that, and also about supporting and buying from local craftspeople, or small businesses on the Internet. Recycling and using found objects is also important to some of us, particularly from environmental and, especially in recessionary times, economical, standpoints.
There is the satisfaction to be had from coming home after working under pressure all day in, for example, an office or shop, and making something by hand yourself, possibly to your own design, that is uniquely your work and a real expression of who you are. We have a tendency to lose ourselves nowadays under the pressure of modern life with its ridiculously fast pace and complex social expectations, fuelled by the multi-mass production of everything from underwear to food, and the relentless media and advertising pressure to conform to the generally unrealistic fashion and lifestyle images coming at us all.
Cue steampunk - a fantastical escapist voyage to a glamourised Victorian/Edwardian past but with an eye firmly on the future. While the polar ice caps melt, are we subconsciously looking for salvation, for the chivalrous dashing heros and/or heroines who can rescue us from all that, armed with the finest machinery and accessories in solid, reliable and beautiful olde worlde brass, leather and wood, while dressed in a top hat and tails or a corset, cargo pants and goggles, but carrying a Blackberry? Who knows, but in the meantime, lets just have fun with it and enjoy the journey.
COPYRIGHT FABRONTE (Trish Frances Jardine) 2010
