There are a lot of different goth folks out there and the two styles, goth and
steampunk tend to overlap. I spend some time among the goth folks and I see
people of all sizes shapes and colors represented regularly. We definitely have
a regular contingent of people of color in the Austin Goth Scene.
On the goth side, because it's a music based subculture, the music probably
filters out more than anything. What I mean is, if you don't like goth music,
you probably are less likely to be interested in the fashion or other aspects.
Steampunk on the other hand is a literary based subculture and while the
literature functions as a filter, it probably does so to a lesser degree.
That's my thoughts anyway
--- On Mon, 8/30/10, Martin Baxter <martinbaxt...@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Martin Baxter <martinbaxt...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Steampunks: The New Goth?
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, August 30, 2010, 11:04 AM
I'll try, B.
Maybe it's because I know nothing of the Goth movement, aside from seeing the
results walking through Atlanta, but Goth seems to be just for a select set of
people (usually teens to early twenties), while I've seen people of all ages in
steampunk gear. Literally. And I'm trying to avoid bringing in a racial
component, but... I have yet to see a person of color in Goth. One Asian girl,
but that's it.
On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Bosco Bosco <ironpi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying? Could you reiterate?
B
--- On Mon, 8/30/10, Martin Baxter <martinbaxt...@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Martin Baxter <martinbaxt...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Steampunks: The New Goth?
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, August 30, 2010, 5:27 AM
I see steampunk as more of a presence than Goth. Steampunk came out of
the SF genre, and it's far more inclusive.
On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 8:57 PM, Mr. Worf <hellomahog...@gmail.com> wrote:
Steampunks: The New Goth?
May 12, 2008
So maybe im late on this one but just found out about this
trend/movement/identity called Steampunks. They basically look superGangs of
New York, dressing in antique clothes, buying antique objects and for hardcore
Steampunks– they redesign new technology like iPhones (wrapped in burnished
brass) or Mac computers (modify keyboards with old cash register buttons and
such), etc.
I love the aesthetic and revival of old technology, but these peops claim they
are the “new goth”. Let me tell you something Steampunkers, no one should ever
want to be the new goth! Goth kids suck… if you’re still in Highschool and
think its super OG, roll with it, but the day you graduate you better burn up
your Wednesday Adams’ wardrobe because there’s nothing more un-original or
stylish than turning in your personal identity for some non-mainstream outfit
subscription (pent-up goth anger since 96′).
Steampunk Moves Between 2 Worlds
Robert Wright for The New York Times
>From left, Deacon Boondini, the Great Gatsby and Giovanni James of the James
>Gang share a vision with the designer Alexander McQueen. More Photos >
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By RUTH LA FERLA
Published: May 8, 2008
“MEET Showtime,” said Giovanni James, a musician, magician and inventor of
sorts, introducing his prized dove, who occupies a spacious cage in Mr. James’s
apartment in Midtown Manhattan. Showtime is integral to Mr. James’s magic act
and to his décor, a sepia-tone universe straight out of the gaslight era.
Multimedia
Slide Show
Steampunk
Enlarge This Image
Robert Wright for The New York Times
The structured clothing of the steampunk movement. More Photos »
The lead singer of a neovaudevillian performance troupe called the James Gang,
Mr. James has assembled his universe from oddly assorted props and castoffs: a
gramophone with a crank and velvet turntable, an old wooden icebox and a
wardrobe rack made from brass pipes that were ballet bars in a previous
incarnation.
Yes, he owns a flat-screen television, but he has modified it with a burlap
frame. He uses an iPhone, but it is encased in burnished brass. Even his
clothing — an unlikely fusion of current and neo-Edwardian pieces (polo shirt,
gentleman’s waistcoat, paisley bow tie), not unlike those he plans to sell this
summer at his own Manhattan haberdashery — is an expression of his keenly
romantic worldview.
It is also the vision of steampunk, a subculture that is the aesthetic
expression of a time-traveling fantasy world, one that embraces music, film,
design and now fashion, all inspired by the extravagantly inventive age of
dirigibles and steam locomotives, brass diving bells and jar-shaped
protosubmarines. First appearing in the late 1980s and early ’90s, steampunk
has picked up momentum in recent months, making a transition from what used to
be mainly a literary taste to a Web-propagated way of life.
To some, “steampunk” is a catchall term, a concept in search of a visual
identity. “To me, it’s essentially the intersection of technology and romance,”
said Jake von Slatt, a designer in Boston and the proprietor of the Steampunk
Workshop (steampunkworkshop.com), where he exhibits such curiosities as a
computer furnished with a brass-frame monitor and vintage typewriter keys.
That definition is loose enough to accommodate a stew of influences, including
the streamlined retro-futurism of Flash Gordon and Japanese animation with its
goggle-wearing hackers, the postapocalyptic scavenger style of “Mad Max,” and
vaudeville, burlesque and the structured gentility of the Victorian age. In
aggregate, steampunk is a trend that is rapidly outgrowing niche status.
“There seems to be this sort of perfect storm of interest in steampunk right
now,” Mr. von Slatt said. “If you go to Google Trends and track the number of
times it is mentioned, the curve is almost algorithmic from a year and a half
ago.” (At this writing, Google cites 1.9 million references.)
“Part of the reason it seems so popular is the very difficulty of pinning down
what it is,” Mr. von Slatt added. “That’s a marketer’s dream.”Devotees of the
culture read Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, as well as more recent speculative
fiction by William Gibson, James P. Blaylock and Paul Di Filippo, the author of
“The Steampunk Trilogy,” the historical science fiction novellas that lent the
culture its name. They watch films like “The City of Lost Children” (with
costumes designed by Jean Paul Gaultier), “The League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen” and “Brazil,” Terry Gilliam’s dystopian fantasy satirizing the
modern industrial age; and they listen to melodeons and Gypsy strings mixed
with industrial goth.
They build lumbering contraptions like the steampunk treehouse, a rusted-out
40-foot sculpture assembled last year at the Burning Man festival in Nevada and
unveiled last month at the Coachella music festival in Southern California.
They trawl eBay for saw-tooth cogs and watch parts to dress up their Macs and
headsets, then show off their inventions to kindred spirits on the Web.
And, in keeping with the make-it-yourself ethos of punk, they assemble their
own fashions, an adventurous pastiche of neo-Victorian, Edwardian and military
style accented with sometimes crudely mechanized accouterments like brass
goggles and wings made from pulleys, harnesses and clockwork pendants, to say
nothing of the odd ray gun dangling at the hip. Steampunk style is corseted,
built on a scaffolding of bustles, crinolines and parasols and high-arced
sleeves not unlike those favored by the movement’s designer idols: Nicolas
Ghesquiere of Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen and, yes, even Ralph Lauren.
Quaint to some eyes, or outright bizarre, steampunk fashion is compelling all
the same. It is that rarity, a phenomenon with the potential to capture a wider
audience, offering a genteel and disciplined alternative to both the slack look
of hip-hop and the menacing spirit of goth.
The elaborate mourning dresses, waistcoats, hacking jackets and high-button
shoes are goth’s stepchildren, for sure, but the overall look is “not so much
eyeliner and fishnets,” said Evelyn Kriete, who sells advertising space for
magazines like Steampunk, The Willows and Weird Tales, and who manages
Jaborwhalky Productions (jaborwhalky.com), a steampunk Web site.
Ms. Kriete and her eccentrically outfitted cohort of teachers, designers,
writers and medical students, drew stares last week at a picnic at the
Cloisters in Manhattan, but provoked no shudders or discernible hostility.
“As a subculture, we are not the spawn of Satan,” Ms. Kriete said. “People
smile when they see us. They want to take our picture.”Robert Brown, the lead
singer for Abney Park, a goth band that has reinvented itself as steampunk,
echoed her sentiments. “Steampunk is not dark and spooky,” he said. “It’s
elegant and beautiful.”
Even heroic, if you like. The movement may have a postapocalyptic strain, but
proponents tend to cast themselves as spirited survivors. Molly Friedrich, an
artist and a jewelry designer in Seattle, approaches steampunk, she said, “from
a perspective of 1,000 years into the future, after society has crumbled but
people have chosen to live in Victorian fashion, wearing scavenged clothes.” In
keeping with her vision, Ms. Friedrich has devised an alternate identity
composed of petticoats, old military storm coats, goggles and aviator caps with
an Amelia Earhart flair.
She takes her emotional cues from scientists and inventors like Nikola Tesla,
magicians like Harry Houdini and soulful spies like Mata Hari, each of whom
injected a spirit of enterprise, intrigue and discovery into their age.
Contemporary fictional parallels in film include the wildly ingenious scientist
played by Robert Downey Jr. in “Iron Man,” who hopes to save the world by
retooling himself as a flame-throwing robot made of
unwieldy scrap metal parts.
If steampunk has a mission, it is, in part, to restore a sense of wonder to a
technology-jaded world. “Today satellite photos make the planet seem so small,”
Mr. Brown lamented. “Where is the adventure it that?” In contrast, steampunk,
with its airships, test tubes and time machines, is, he said, “sort of a dream
, the way we used to daydream. It’s like part of your childhood’s just bursting
forward again.”
For some of its adherents, steampunk also offers a metaphoric coping device.
“It has an intellectual tie to the artists and artisans dealing with a world in
turmoil at the time of the industrial revolution,” said Crispen Smith, a Web
designer and photographer in Toronto, and a partner in a steampunk fashion
business.
Now, as in the late 19th century, “we have to find a way to deal with new
ethical quandaries,” Mr. Smith said, alluding to issues like cloning, the
dissemination of information and intellectual property rights on the Web.
Steampunk style is also an expression of a desire to return to ritual and
formality. “Steampunk has its tea parties and its time-travelers balls,” said
Deborah Castellano, who presides over salonconvention.com, which organizes
neo-Victorian conventions. “It offers an element of glamour that some of us
would otherwise never experience.”
And an enticing marketing hook. The Bombay Company is selling steampunk-style
brass home accessories, instruments like astrolabes and sextants. A steampunk
fantasy game, Edge of Twilight, will be introduced by Xbox 360 and PlayStation
next year.
And steampunk fashion, which until now has been a mainstay of craft fairs and
destinations like eBay and Etsy, the online market for handmade clothing
designs and artifacts, is finding its way into the brick and mortar world.
Gypsymoon.com has begun offering its cream and umber petticoats, an Air Pirate
ruched tunic and Time Machine bloomers at boutiques. Abney Park is selling
swallowtail tuxedos, antiqued flight helmets and airship pirate T-shirts, like
those it wears on stage, atabneypark.com and at concerts across the country.
Mr. James, who performs with his troupe at the Box, the music-hall hideaway on
the Lower East Side, has just leased space for a steampunk shop in NoLIta. He
plans to offer brass Rubik’s cubes, riding boots, early-20th-century-style
motorbikes, handmade leather mailbags and brass or wooden iPhone cases, all
under the label TJG Engineering.
There will, of course, be a clothing line with vintage and new looks modeled on
Mr. James’s own neo-Edwardian sartorial signature. “I’m so sick of baggy pants
hanging off your bottom,” he said. “This is more refined. It goes back to a
time when people had some dignity.
“It’s a new day.”
--
"If all the world's a stage and we are merely players, who the bloody hell
wrote the script?" -- Charles E Grant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUxw9aUVik
--
"If all the world's a stage and we are merely players, who the bloody hell
wrote the script?" -- Charles E Grant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUxw9aUVik
