Madeleine Langstaff

A Moment to Clarify

Before continuing with costume and accessories in which to cosplay with, you might want to take a moment to figure out what kind of Neo Victorian you want to dress like. Now what's really cool about steampunk archetypes is the possibilities are endless, as Diana Vick once said "steampunk needs historical accuracy like a dirigible needs a goldfish." In laymen's terms, anything goes. The most iconic ones off hand would be mad scientists, mechanics, inventors, explorer, dandies, the list really does go on. It depends on what the backstory of the character is or what you want to convey to the public. As for myself, I have two definite characters I dress as when in costume: military turned gun for hire/assassin, and werewolf innkeeper by day posing as monster hunter by night. You can be as general or specific as you like as long as you can back up your character when someone asks what you are. The generic archetypes like the ones I have listed above usually have specific accessories and attire needed to look more convincing. For instance my monster hunter should have monster proof weapons of some sort or a mad scientist will have long leather protective gloves and a leather apron of some sort. Mechanics will have tools like wrenches, screwdrivers (manuel ones), sometimes extremely oversized ones too. As long as you have the right accessories and stories to back them up, you should be golden otherwise you might get sour looks if someone asks what you're supposed to be and you just say steampunk. Unless you're in the general public and not at a convention or festival of some kind that has a lot of likeminded steampunk cosplays around. Most kinds of cosplay need backstories for their characters, it's just good business. Both my characters are actually from novels I'm writing, unrelated to each other completely but if they ever go up on shelves or become movies at some point I'm putting small easter eggs in each novel. So to wrap it up, create or pick your own archetype, stick with it, maybe create a backstory, and make sure the outfit and accessories fit the character.

Cosplay: Protecting the Peepers

The first and probably most noticeable stable of dressing up steampunk for both women and men is goggles. There is rarely a character or archetype that doesn't wear some kind of goggles. Anyone that knows anything about the genre knows you should wear at least one pair but of all those people not as many of them would know a reason why you wear the eyewear. One good reason or example why to wear the goggles would be what a man who works at the Charles River Museum of Innovation and Industry told me: because you never know when science will happen. There are many different kinds of goggles one can wear to dress the genre. One kind that sticks out would be aviator/motorcycle goggles.

As well as being the age of the steam engine, steampunk also reaches into the age of flight and the first airplanes and other means of fast and long distance transportation to be discussed later. This look is usually complete with leather jacket and white scarf for both the pilot and motorcyclist archetype.

The most common goggles one can expect in a steampunk enthusiast are the smaller round welding goggles usually worn around the neck, above the forehead in the hair, or around an era appropriate hat. The welding goggles can also be one of the most fun ones as they have more room to be modified to your liking. You can buy regular welding goggles and paint and design them to your liking, you can buy already modified ones almost anywhere, you can buy basic steampunk goggles and add things onto them to make them look more sophisticated, or you can find legic authentic goggles you can either keep as they are or make them even more authentic to fit your character better. Some hardcore enthusiasts will even make their own completely from scratch. I myself have three pairs: an old pair of leather goggles my grandfather used when he was breaking rocks, a pair of pre-modified ones I bought at a Halloween ball in Portland, ME, and a basic steampunk pair I bought at a halloween store I used to work at that I added a few little details of my own to.

present day modified goggles

goggles made from scratch

Goggles come in many different shapes, sizes, and designs specific to the needs of the character or overall look the person is portraying. Many different archetypes can wear goggles to make it more authentic and not just trying to pull it off. Inventors especially wear goggles, chemists wear them like students would in a chemistry lab, scientists of many fields can wear them, even hunters and assassins could to protect their eyes from whatever they're hunting or to conceal their identity. That's what makes it easy to have on you, almost any archetype wears it but it's always better to have a reason to wear them in case you're asked by a fellow cosplayer or someone who simply wants to understand the culture or your character.

A brief Introduction

This blog is my online shrine to steampunk. Steampunk as I understand it is Victorian science fiction or retro-futurism, a mix of futuristic technologies and inventions set in Victorian times. It can have elements of anachronism and alternative history to it that sets it apart from purely historical fiction or science fiction as well. There are two major subgenres sprouting from steampunk: Weird West and Victorian England although there are other subgenres close to them such as ricepunk which is Asian steampunk but not as popular. What is very exciting about this genre like so many other interesting genres my generation keys in on is that it can appear in many kinds of media. It started however with works of literature from its two founding fathers: Jules Verne and H.G Wells and appeared more popular to the western hemisphere during the 1980s and 1990s. From those novels came the movie versions and then the TV specials and shows and let's not forget cartoons. The more steampunk showed on screens either at home or in the theater, the more people became interested in it and much like anime, comics, and other cartoons, people wanted to be the characters and reenact scenes they've either read or watched at some point. In comes cosplay and more subgenres commence. Steampunk is such a wide genre because there is so much leeway in creating characters, settings, any kind of element needed really. It's all about invention and innovation and anything goes which is why no two characters are alike, no two inventions or technologies are alike, every element in the genre is its own snowflake or fingerprint. This blog will talk about a handful of those many snowflakes in the wonderful world of Victorian science fiction.