Steampunk - why???

[happy_renting]

1 hour ago, spyguy said:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3908492/Creatures-night-converge-Whitby-Goth-Festival.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2818315/Returning-favourite-haunt-Thousands-descend-quiet-seaside-town-bi-annual-festival-celebrating-gothic-culture.html

 

Whitby gets loads of the undead everyday .... on the X93 from Middlesbrough.

Steampunk. Scifi retro. Or in Whitby, 'cutting edge technology'.

[JoeDavola]

52 minutes ago, Economic Exile said:

Just go for it! Thomas Dolby looks cool IMO ?

Since my mid fifties and letting my hair be grey I've adopted what I call a posh punk look. Black, dark grey, red tartan, military style jackets, DM boots, biker boots etc. I'm also slim.

I like how I dress which is all that really matters to me but I do get complemented quite a lot from both males and females so at least some other people like my style!

Posh punk sounds pretty good to me! I think we've got it wrong in society when people get plastic surgery to try and look 'younger' and for the most part end up looking weird.

There's nothing wrong with looking a certain age, but you do so with some style and be in the best health possible. I'd much rather look a healthy 40/50/60 than some surgery-enabled 'younger' version.

At the ripe old age of 33 I've got my first grey hairs coming through (only about 5 or so on my beard), so as the gray hair increases over the years I have more license to be a bit more dapper I reckon

[frozen_out]

2 hours ago, StainlessSteelCat said:

Love steampunk. Victorian/Edwardian sci-fi,  tech and clothing has a fantastic style to it. Not least because it feels like the one of the last eras where much of this was handcrafted, designed to last a long time and is often still functional. Steampunk allows you to take all of this, and add alt-reality elements eg imagine if modern day inventions were designed with victorian sensibilities. 

Much of Verne's work is steampunk, as are books like "Stars my Destination". 

Another +1 for Steam punk here. Love the books, love the look.

On the point about things being handcrafted - unlike 'Goth' clothes where you pick up any old tat as long as its purple and black, steam punk gear tends to be fairly expensive as it's all leather, brass, glass, steel etc. Which makes dressing like a steam punk a fairly expensive pastime. I would love to dress this way day to day, but I just couldn't afford it.

[One-percent]

1 hour ago, happy_renting said:

Steampunk. Scifi retro. Or in Whitby, 'cutting edge technology'.

 very good.  I see you are familiar with t'ord spot

[DrMartinSanchez]

So SpyGuy is bemused by followers of the Steampunk fashion.

Wait until he learns about furries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furry_fandom

[longtomsilver]

I'm a +1 for the steam punk look too. Very mad max and unlike goth punk at least they put the expense and effort into their appearance and costume. Makes all of us very drab.

[MrPin]

I wonder how this came about. I am all for dressing up eccentrically.

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

6 hours ago, frozen_out said:

Another +1 for Steam punk here. Love the books, love the look.

On the point about things being handcrafted - unlike 'Goth' clothes where you pick up any old tat as long as its purple and black, steam punk gear tends to be fairly expensive as it's all leather, brass, glass, steel etc. Which makes dressing like a steam punk a fairly expensive pastime. I would love to dress this way day to day, but I just couldn't afford it.

I agree on the books being cool.  This is really where it all came from, and actually cyber-punk existed before steampunk.  Though steampunk has retrospectively adopted some older literature.

[One-percent]

Just now, Mikhail Liebenstein said:

I agree on the books being cool.  This is really where it all came from, and actually cyber-punk existed before steampunk.  Though steampunk has retrospectively adopted some older literature.

I'm completely confused and lost.  Steampunk? Cyber-punk? Goth?  They all look the same to me   I must be too old 

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

5 hours ago, One-percent said:

 very good.  I see you are familiar with t'ord spot

Now this is worrying - it's actually worse than the most extreme manga cos play.

The only thing worse than Furries is Paraphilic Infantilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphilic_infantilism

[One-percent]

1 minute ago, Mikhail Liebenstein said:

Now this is worrying - it's actually worse than the most extreme manage cos play.

The only thing worse than Furries is Paraphilic Infantilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraphilic_infantilism

Ah, I see you are familiar with the locals then. 

[Saving For a Space Ship]

9 hours ago, JoeDavola said:

I actually love steampunk. As in the 'look'. I'd love to have the balls to dress like that casually every now and then. And this comes from someone who was never a goth and never had an interest in fashion or art or anything; I just instinctively 'like' the steampunk look.

The chap in my profile picture is Thomas Dolby; musician, silicon valley entrepreneur, and now college professor, who has been known to dress steam punk-ish:

 

Who's been playing too much Battlefield One on the Ps4 then Tom ? 

 

my earliest memory of a steam punk type art form was the excellent  "The Gothic Empire " from 2000ad Comic strip Nemesis the Warlock c. 1984

An alien race who recieved Victorian age waves /images from earth & immitated/ merged  it in a sci-fi world  

 

"Albert and I find the Zero gravity most amusing !" 

I thought Johnny Morris was dead ? 

[spyguy]

8 minutes ago, One-percent said:

I'm completely confused and lost.  Steampunk? Cyber-punk? Goth?  They all look the same to me   I must be too old 

My mum knows what a gimp suit is.

Someone was wearing in the queue at the coop.

[spyguy]

3 hours ago, MrPin said:

I wonder how this came about. I am all for dressing up eccentrically.

Ah it all started with Mr Bowlby.

[One-percent]

3 minutes ago, spyguy said:

My mum knows what a gimp suit is.

Someone was wearing in the queue at the coop.

 

[Riedquat]

Looks rather good to me.

[stormymonday_2011]

A concept that can be traced back to the time when Rob Calvert used to occasionally front Hawkwind in the 1970s.

Though sometimes he went for a more formal look

Not to mention the influence of Michael Moorcock who liked to mix science fantasy and Edwardian threads in his novels

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nomad_of_the_Time_Streams

[happy_renting]

1 hour ago, Saving For a Space Ship said:

my earliest memory of a steam punk type art form was the excellent  "The Gothic Empire " from 2000ad Comic strip Nemesis the Warlock c. 1984

I'd say a much earlier examples of the genre were in the excellent films of Verne's The Time Machine (1960)...

...and possibly 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1954)

Essentially modern or futuristic technology in a Victorian/Edwardian style. Though in the films people dressed in authentic(-ish) period style.

 

[stormymonday_2011]

25 minutes ago, happy_renting said:

I'd say a much earlier examples of the genre were in the excellent films of Verne's The Time Machine (1960)...

...and possibly 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1954)

Essentially modern or futuristic technology in a Victorian/Edwardian style. Though in the films people dressed in authentic(-ish) period style.

 

Indeed, though the Time Machine is based on a novel written in 1895 so it really is Victorian Sci Fi

The resurrection of elements of Regency, Victorian and Edwardian clothing was already happening on the Kings Road in the 1960s

Steam Punk is really a merging of elements of that revival with some of the punk fashion ideas of the 1970s plus of course the sci fi and science fantasy elements. Quite a lot of looks to be mixed and matched there.

[happy_renting]

Just found this extraordinarily prescient picture, apparently from 1828, lampooning predictions about future transport - 190 years later many are fact.

http://whewellsghost.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/90728623.jpg

[Saving For a Space Ship]

23 minutes ago, happy_renting said:

I'd say a much earlier examples of the genre were in the excellent films of Verne's The Time Machine (1960)...

...and possibly 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (1954)

Essentially modern or futuristic technology in a Victorian/Edwardian style. Though in the films people dressed in authentic(-ish) period style.

 

 

 

Fair point. Certainly, they are steam punk, cemented on earth

 I saw Steam punk as having a parrallel universe , other wordly influence as well .

Quote

steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the 19th century's British Victorian era or American "Wild West", in a post-apocalyptic future during which steam power has maintained mainstream usage, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power. Therefore, steampunk may be described as neo-Victorian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk

[stormymonday_2011]

26 minutes ago, Saving For a Space Ship said:

 

 

Fair point. Certainly, they are steam punk, cemented on earth

 I saw Steam punk as having a parrallel universe , other wordly influence as well .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk

Moorcock's novels are full of alternative histories in a multiverse

Sadly I found a lot of them simply unreadable though Behold The Man is a stunning short book

[juvenal]

2 hours ago, Saving For a Space Ship said:

 

I see Fergus Wilson's got a new bird....

[Oliver Sutton]

2 hours ago, stormymonday_2011 said:

A concept that can be traced back to the time when Rob Calvert used to occasionally front Hawkwind in the 1970s.

Though sometimes he went for a more formal look

Not to mention the influence of Michael Moorcock who liked to mix science fantasy and Edwardian threads in his novels

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nomad_of_the_Time_Streams

What about Linda Perry?

 

 

[stormymonday_2011]

14 hours ago, SNACR said:

Bit like battle re-enactors, always seems hard to decide if it's harmless fun to be applauded or if you should swap in some live ammo, whilst they're not looking. Reminds me a bit of weekend 'shoots' amateur photographers do with female models, who volunteer. Seems like a bit of a mutually assured self-destruction pact scenario where there's an unspoken agreement that none of the blokes photographing mention the women are far from modelling material and none of the women mention the blokes doing the photographing are a bit pervy.

Didn't this all come from Manga like Howl's Moving Castle before the various video games got in on the act though?

Battle re-enactors always puzzle me because they take great pains to get the gear, weaponry and tactics right but the rest is hopelessly inauthentic. Not only do they not kill and maim each other which after all is the central feature of most battles but they also look remarkably healthy going into the fighting rather than being racked by dysentery etc Given that prior to the 20th century sickness killed more soldiers than enemy action it seems they are not recreating the event accurately at all. At least steampunks know that they are manufacturing a fantasy alternative personality and existence rather than trying to recreate a historical reality.