Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Steampunk

Steampunk is an interesting new(ish) "lifestyle" that has emerged to incorporate an old-world, industrial age aesthetic to our modern, technological age. I really like the idea of juxtaposing old and new, the costumes particularly are great. I've seen this style on Firefly and Serenity, but I didn't realize that it had taken off as an entire subculture. I'm interested in anything that has people making their own stuff, especially things as elaborate as these people have done, like the car the man was making in the Youtube video, or the huge elaborate dresses some of the women were wearing. There has been a lot of borrowing from different eras in the current styles today, and I wonder why we haven't really come up with a new aesthetic to define this age, or if it's just that we're in the age of "remixes."
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 9, 2009 at 10:47 AM

    Remixes. Good word. We are in the age where people take subcultures and continually make them more and more exclusive, it's pretty insane. Whatever floats their boat.

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  2. Bryn!JacksonOctober 13, 2009 at 2:20 PM

    It's a little difficult to say that that we're just in the age of remixes. Especially in terms of fashion. Fashion is largely a derivative art, and you can trace the shapes and colors and textures in one era and relate it to a preceding era.

    But I have to ask. If you were to create a new aesthetic, what would it be?

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  3. angelaOctober 14, 2009 at 8:37 AM

    Fashion has always been cyclical. Funny you should say that our age isn't defined by some sort of general style but I think hindsight is 20/20. In 5-10+ years, I think we'll see that there is a definitive 2000's style, and that might include skinny jeans, graphic tees, big huge sneakers.. I don't know...

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  4. AnonymousOctober 15, 2009 at 11:05 AM

    With the rise of fashion blogs and rapid-commentary, I think it won't even take that long to sort the general style of the 2000s. I'm pretty sure we've already sorted it (Sartorialist, Garance Dore, etc) and framing any new fashion within that self-aware context. It makes something like steam punk so interesting, as it's utilizes that cultural commentary explicitly.

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