Steampunk Moves Between 2 Worlds
Robert Wright for The New York Times
“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.
The structured clothing of the steampunk movement.
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. ............................ARTICLE CONTINUES
Oh, thanks, Huli!
I adore the steampunk style, although I must confess I’m too lazy to do much more than admire it.
Though the article has inspired me to dig out my box of antique watch pieces and see what I can do with them…
Steampunk is rapidly becoming mainstream, sadly. It’s losing its coolness because it’s on the verge of being commercially successful.
I’m waiting for stonepunk.
Mainstream’s not too bad, it makes things more available and visible. However it can quickly turns bad when people who know nothing about it start spewing out mass consumption products. So lets just hope the commercialising happens by the right designers.
Oh, and Chary? Won’t you be missing out on Renaissance castles and medieval knights, not to mention the whole iron-age.
Yeah. I don’t care if it becomes commercially successful.
That doesn’t make it less cool, just means that there will be churning out of cheap imitations. Which is rather against the point of steampunk in the first place. So it doesn’t matter.
I understand why commercial equals less ‘special’ to some people. On the other hand, I don’t think that things are special just because they’re obscure.
*shrugs*
Something similar happened with ‘modded’ computer cases (lights, windows,.. ). They used to be for the hardcore geeks, turning gray boxes into something to be proud of, to really look the part of center of your life. But today, even dell sells them.
So, what did they do? Make ‘em even more extreme of course.
My personal favorie case-mod was the guy who just dumped his entire motherboard into an aquarium full of mineral oil. Drives were kept high and dry, but soaking the entire thing in nonconductive fluid is ideal for cooling.
I’ve decided that if I had the money and space, I’d convert my computer to look like a japanese lamp. Wouldn’t be hard.. some sheets of thick paper, soe bits of wood, little laquer, good to go. Add a light inside, and she’ll be a thing o’ beauty.
