Fashionable Punks

I still love steampunk. In fact, I just downloaded a new collection of steampunk stories to investigate, this one based on fairy tales. I'll let you know how it is when I get to it.  Meanwhile, my Facebook messages seem to be decorated by lots and lots of clothing based on what might be considered steampunk. Yeah, I have liked the page. No, I don't like everything on it.  But, as a character creator, I still need to dress my characters.  I do get inspiration from time to time.

But I might need to re-define steampunk in this context. I like the genre for the opportunity to investigate the relationship between society and technology.  Yeah, I know,.  That's not what everyone else is looking for.  It's just that I think this is an opportunity missed. Given our current state of investigating the relationship between the quality of our lives and our technologies, there is so much we can play with here.

So, where does that leave the fashions of steampunk?  Well, what is the relationship between fashion and society?  I come out of the era of bra-burning.  I was a bit young but still that was my era and my inheritance.  I'm not sure how I feel about corsets and hoops and all the other bindings that we have tried so hard to get free form literally and figuratively.

What I do get from the era, from revisiting the Victorian era, is the role of the hand in creating the life we parody now.  I'm a needlework junkie and have been collection original instructions for the making and decorating of the costumes.  Why? Part of the world of my own stories.  The power of women's work.

We don't think of fashion as world-changing but there have been times... Do you have a favorite fashion?  A designer that you would love to have create something for you?  Alexander McQueen does it for me.

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