This year, and some of last, Steampunk has really been a prevalent trend in the costuming circles, and like the bandwagon jumping dorks me and my friends are, we had to get on that too. Now I'm no expert when it comes to Steampunk, but I've done enough period research to at least have an educated take on the trend.
First of all, what it steampunk? Wikipeidia, in a nut shell defines it as; "a sub-genre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date.". Its seen as the path that wasn't taken during the Victorian Era. Perhaps technology stood still, and the only means of power, besides crude electricity, was steam - which was the method of choice at the time.
Steampunk has been present in American culture since the late 1980's when the term was coined, and while not many people are familiar with the term itself, many people are familiar with its asthetics without even being aware of it. Wild Wild West (with Will Smith) and League of Extraordinary Gentleman (both the comic series and the movie) easily fit into the Steampunk Genre. Both instances have technology far advanced for their time period, but they still meld seamlessly into their anachronistic time period.
And while, for this particular post, the distinction doesn't need to be made, I'm going to make it anyway, perhaps to return to for a later day. Steampunk, in many ways, is the antithesis of Cyberpunk, which shows a science fiction take on the development and expansion of technology, and is usually depicted in a distopian enviroment, whereas Steampunk stays in the heyday of the Victorian age (1880-1890). Cyber and Steampunk aren't the only kinds of alternate realities that got their own aesthetics, In the same vein as Steampunk, Dieselpunk is very similar to Steampunk, only their technology and styles of dress are taken from 1920-1950 (Tankgirl is argueably an example of Dieslepunk, incorporating aspects of modified WW2 war machines and very heavy 1980's Punk movement influences). There are kinds of "-punks" for just about every era and notion of the future.
Now that we've got the nutshell definition out of the way, how do you plan a costume like this? While it seems silly, it helps to first make a character for yourself. Now perhaps this works for me because I'm in school for costume design, I'm given a character who's clothing I want to recreate. First off, I chose aspects of a costume that I would like to make, things that I would want to work into this character simply because I want to make them. I'm a fan of makeup, so I wanted to include scars or some kind of minor trauma, which would mean I have to think of a way for the character to have gotten those scars. Secondly, I needed to find reference images that would support whatever minor details I had decided for my character.
I browsed the Rhode Island Commercial pattern database, narrowing my parameters from 1885-1899, simply because I perfered the clothing of the late Victorian Era, and it would be much easier to construct in the 1) limited time and 2) limited patience for something like this as towards the end of the 1800's the clothing became far less ruffly and much more streamlined, moving straight into the iconic 1920's with their long lines and lack of silhouette (arguably speaking). The dresses I seemed to be gravitating towards were either bathing suits or dresses for girls around the age of 14. I, a 20 year old who by no means can pull off being a 14 year old would have to justify someone of my age, wearing children's clothing (which I did by doing what every great B movie writer does, a bump on the head - the scars I wished to incorporate simply came from some kind of accident which caused my character to lose her general mental stability, and so, simply hasn't changed her clothing since she was 14) obviously this choice would mean my clothes didn't have to fit, and would probably be pushing the limits of Victorian modesty. My main reference came from a dress worn by a 14 year old from 1892.
A sort of Steampunk staple, and something I enjoy wearing, is the corset. While wearing one is very much underpants on the outside and would likely be very frowned upon in the era we are trying to recreate, its almost required of any female Steampunk-ite, as its the most iconic article of clothing from the Victorian age. I'll be making a simple straight seam corset, something akin to a ribbon corset with garden variety rigidline simply because I don't have the money at the moment to buy a busk or nice steel boning. Though an accidental perk to this is that I will have more movement, which is generally my main gripe about steel boned corsets, though women wearing steel boned corsets in their correct time period weren't mean to do as much slouching around as I do.
Staying with the outgrowing ones clothing and underpants on the outside, I also made the choice of making a pair of bloomers that far extend the hemline of my dress, as though these might be the only article of clothing on this character that actually fits her, the legs of the bloomers being artificially lengthened by the addition of more and more lace (enough to choke a Lolita).
Smaller details, such as a belt of skeleton keys, various religious artifacts, jars of teeth (both animal and human) and rabbits feet - were chose because of their ties to the era (such as skeleton keys and rabbit feet - the notion of a lucky rabbits foot came from the time period) and to display the mental dissaray of the character (the jar of human teeth).
As construction swings into high gear, I'll be sure to post pictures.
