Imagine the exuberance and pageantry of a Renaissance fair but add about 400 years and you’ve got Indie Market’s third annual Steampunk Day and Fashion Show. Held on Sunday in Brooklyn, the gathering of steampunk enthusiasts, some calling themselves COS-players and others professional fashion designers, brought out a healthy phalanx of photographers and shoppers looking to pick up the hippest Victorian-era accessories (jewelry, fancy hats, and so forth) for their own, often home-made, ensembles.
Before we continue, a word concerning what steampunk is. If you saw a trailer for the latest installment of Sherlock Holmes featuring Robert Downey Jr, then you’ve already encountered steampunk, albeit a diluted, commercial version, but that’s the basic idea. Essentially, everything science fiction does but powered by steam and sometimes magic. Other examples include any Jules Verne-esque media you may have seen recently, like the Hell Boy franchise or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
And while the most visible incarnations of steampunk may be found on film or in comics, it all comes down to fashion, which lends the particular anachronistic ambiance that is steampunk’s distinctive hallmark. Now, at long last, steampunk has its own couture-verse, both DIY and the theoretical constructions of designers.
Click through below for a gallery of images from the show.
Milo, the bespectacled bouncer
More Artificial Intrigue
Lola Dance Company entertained the audience during the show’s interludes. Here, one reads T.S. Eliot’s poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
The show’s final line, Heartless Revival
Heartless Revival’s final curtain call
Dramatic, post-catwalk pose
Pittsburgh-based artist Tamara Barker’s incredibly cool cuff-links. Tamara’s hand also featured.
La China Loca‘s assortment of handcrafted hats
Last but not least, souped-up key necklaces by Clavis Curios