What is "
steampunk"?
Some describe it as if gothic people discovered the color brown. It mostly reminds me of time travel. It uses clothing from the turn of the century, mixed with images of technology from then & now. They integrate lots of references to cogs, gears, locomotives, air ships, flight/wings/aviation, and pipes with clothing similar to both Victorian dresses and military uniforms, BUT they also include lots of sci-fi elements.
EXAMPLES:
At the costume store I manage, we're putting up a steampunk-themed mannequin display. We have lots of options for rental costumes that can be used to look steampunk for a
day, but since steampunk is a life-style (similar to people who are gothic, as a lifestyle), customers generally want to OWN their steampunk ensemble. With that said, we are super excited that next month we'll have in new steampunk accessories to purchase. We've dressed the mannequins in our rental clothing and next month will cover them with accessories that can be purchased (i.e. Gloves, top hats, bowler hats, scarves, skinny suspenders, monocles, glasses, goggles, jewelry, parasols, corsets, and etc.).
My project:
To make a mannequin wearing a fitted velvet coat look more steampunk, instead of vampire-like, I borrowed his top hat tonight to attack it with a cogs, gears & gizmos look.
I picked up a sheet of scrapbook paper covered in bright cogs. (Right shape, wrong colors/texture.) I also found a pack of little metal cogs in three shades of metal. (Perfect colors, but kinda small for size of the hat).
I cut the cog shapes out of the scrapbook paper, to get
perfectly round cogs of varying sizes.
Then I flipped the paper over and painted the white-side with rust, black and silver paints, to match the colors of the metal mini-cogs.
I wrapped some wide brown ribbon around the top hat and tied a bow. Then I cut the ribbon to this length and removed it from the hat. Remember: I wanted to temporarily change this hat for a display, so all my decorating has to be on a removable ribbon, so the hat can still be sold in it's original condition if neccesary.
Next, I hot-glued on the hand-made cogs and the mini metal cogs to the ribbon & tied the ribbon back on to the hat. :)
