Lost Coast Historical Patterns in Fort Bragg, California offers a variety of garb-making supplies. For steampunk fans, there are a variety of traditional Victorian patterns, based on original clothing from the eighteen hundreds. There are also quite a variety of patterns for things to make your skirts bigger and Lost Coast Historical Patterns does sell the all-important hoop wire. FYI, the Victorian era was from 1837 to 1901, but you should always feel free to throw in anachronistic details or accessories which never were when costuming for steampunk.
Sep 132009
Old time newspaper prints on fabrics and leathers seem to be becoming more popular. Steampunk clothier Clockwork Couture describes their Time Traveler’s Corset, a nice example of the style, as follows: “Headlines from the newspapers chronicling the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, Man’s first walk on the moon, the sinking of the Titanic and more featured on this newsprint fabric corset. It’s as if you had pieced together headlines from each era traveled and put in on a beautiful waist cinching piece of art. Our exclusive design is a Clockwork Original, created by our very own team and available nowhere else. Red dupioni silk trims this corset with brocade trimmed pocket, perfect for a pocketwatch. Authentic Victorian skeleton key is carefully and sturdily placed on the side.”
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Obscuria has wonderful text to go with their product line. Obscuria describes my favorite mask from their site: “After Lady Synthestruct polishes off her pint of nightly brandy from the steam powered liquor atomizer, she passes through the richly colored sitting room and makes way towards the hangar, where a patchwork hot air balloon awaits for mysterious Victorian adventure. A brass riveted rust colored leather Steampunk mask, with black leather accents. Two brass and mesh cylinders protrude about one inch out of the mask and are curiously decadent. Dual straps with brass buckles finish off the design, with a slightly padded nose bridge inside of the mask for added comfort.” As an added plus, Obscuria manages to have a personal feel while still offering same day shipping on these masks.
Aug 232009
Heavy Red has recently released a Victorian Misfit Gown. Of course, all Victorian styles have a touch of steampunk about them. Or perhaps all steampunk has a touch of the Victorian. At any rate, Heavy Red gets a steampunk bonus for featuring their lovely gown model loitering by an old train. After dirigibles, trains are nicely steampunk modes of transportation, even without a steam-powered engine. I wish Heavy Red credited the model and photographer her, but they describe the Victorian Misfit Gown thusly: “The trains all stopped dead in their tracks as she walked by…stunning, breathtaking and with devious intentions. Born of another time, lost in this world, she is a misfit.The Misfit Gown is deep blood red satin, covered with a net and lace overdress. The overdress is adorned with black lace, ribbon and sequins. This fitted A-line dress gives you a glamorous statuesque figure, while not being impossible to wear, accentuating the bust and hemline, while distracting from the hips and tummy. Dress has spaghetti straps and a side zipper. This is a dress that is truly to die for…Shown with our matching sequin strap gloves.”
Aug 162009
I think Ariel is one of the cutest redheads on the web. I think she is from Eastern Europe but speaks a fair amount of English. This Victorian lady costume set was shot by Zbyněk as outtakes from a calendar shoot.
Aug 122009
All I had to do was mention that many fanboys at the Comic Con were disgustingly sweaty from the extreme heat and that a lot of people showed up in steampunk costumes. That was all I had to do to induce dozens of people to send me emails with a link to Goths in Hot Weather. GothsInHotWeather is one of those ironic sites where they obsess about something while claiming not to really like it or care about it. Sort of like Perez Hilton. In case this was not painfully apparently already, the site addresses the issue of some gothic attire being a poor fit for overly warm weather. Humorous concept and domain, but it sort of states the obvious.
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Aug 092009
Ani Niow, of One Letter Wonder, says she can’t fathom why she would get placed in the steampunk area at Maker Faire. I think I can fathom it. Victorian women, living in such a repressed society, used to get vapors where they would swoon and be out of it. Doctors could often treat the vapors by putting the women on huge vibrating machines until they felt better. Ani Niow has made a much more compact steam-powered vibrator and she says it is really better to run it off of compressed air, as the steam makes her model get extremely hot to the touch. The guts of the vibrator feature one of the “world’s smallest Tesla turbines created out of brass and Dremel cutoff discs”. She explains the genesis of her creation: “this is it. this is what happens when you’re an engineering student with a minor in sexuality and you find yourself funemployed.”
The LA Weekly has a gallery of forty of their best photos from the Comic Con. I think my favorite was the steampunk animatronic girl costume and the Wonder Woman costume in the same frame. Sums up some of the factionalization at the Comic Con this year. The most extreme example of warring factions was the huge turnout for the Twilight programming coupled with the protesters carrying picket-style signs and heckling the lines for the Twilight panel discussions. Wonder Woman and steampunk girl represent different sorts of costuming, but they both look happy in their photo which is nice. According to the LA Weekly, the steampunk presence at the Comic Con was so large that the Guinness Book of World Records came out to take the record-setting largest steampunk gathering photo on the steps of the convention center.
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