Prof. Löwenstein's Views on the Steampunk Phenomenon To begin with, it's probably easier to say what Steampunk isn't rather than what it is...      It's a rather difficult concept to nail down...      For starters, it isn't "Flash Gordon"... but it is "Buck Rogers," at least in the original comic-strip version...  To be fair, the Flash Gordon serial films had some Steampunk elements, but the Buck Rogers comics had goggles, flying suits and Dr. Huer with all of his gadgetry...      While Flash's comics had a very futuristic, moderne look to them, with costumes and gadgets of a more spacey variety... For true Steampunk origins, however, look to our good friends Jules Verne and H.G. Wells...      Just the invention of Cavorite was enough to put Wells in the Steampunk Hall of Fame!      And... the "War of the Worlds" spaceships?  Well, in the books they came cocooned in meteorites and their war machines walked on stilts... unlike the movie version which had modernized the stilt-walkers into flying saucers...

	Speaking of literary sources, even that cranky old Cavalier, Cyrano d'Bergerac, who was a real person in the 17th Century, had visions of birds and balloons attached to devices to carry him to the moon... The Baron of Münchhausen told of similar gizmos, including riding on cannonballs to speed his travels... and... let's not forget Leonardo of Vinci, who put all other inventors to shame with his notebooks full of contraptions!      Even our own Conan Doyle had inroads into the Steampunk universe, particularly in his Professor Challenger stories... Going back even further in time... The fantastic automatons and other clockwork inventions of the Orient and the Middle East made use of a complicated array of gears, pulleys and levers to entertain the fabulously wealthy...      Galileo had much improved various optical devices and made them useful, instead of merely toys for the aristocracy... Archimedes had envisioned a device like the Antikythera mechanism which would solve complicated mathematical problems by clockwork...      And an accomplished Greek Philosopher named Hero invented a power source... a hollow ball with jets, pivoted over a fire... rotating like an ancient turbine... powered by... steam!

	Don't think that electricity is left out, either...      I know... a lot of purists are saying that it has only to do with a steam-powered world, full of gears and grease... But... let's not forget Benjamin Franklin, an early Steampunker whose electric inventions gave impetus to many ideas of the genre which came later...      And... we don't want to leave out Viktor Frankenstein, Allesandro Volta, Nikola Tesla, Robert J. van de Graaf and the early trials of a young Edison...      In short,the concept of Steampunk has had many influences down through the ages... To deal with it narrowly is to miss much of the most interesting aspects of classical science and technology... Of course... in the long run, Steampunk is what you make it... whether you are only enjoying reading about it in books, watching movies with that theme... or running your own laboratory, making objet d'art using brass, wood and leather...      Whether you are on the lookout for more Steampunk trends in fashion... or making your own costumes, garnering ideas from your own imagination or others...      Or... perhaps making films...

	In the movies, the Steampunk theme has been portrayed almost since the beginning of film...      Certainly "Metropolis" comes to mind whenever we try to find the theme in early films...  William Gillette's "Billy," Charles Chaplin, made a film called "Modern Times" at the beginning of the sound era...  "Just Imagine" was a comedy set in a discovered future with Ole Oleson playing the hapless hero... More recently, "Around the World in Eighty Days" and it's cousin, "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" had us adventuring around the planet in Jules Verne-like conveyances...  "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,"  "The Time Machine,"  "The Mouse That Roared" and "The Mouse on the Moon" surrounded us in pseudo-Victorian, scientific excellence...      More obscurely, "The Man in the White Suit," with Alec Guiness, "Master of the World" with Vincent Price, "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" and expecially "The Golden Compass" gave us pause to ponder... In television there has been many examples, the most notable of which are "Wild Wild West" along with it's feature film version, and "Dr. Who," in all of its interpretations...      Which of us wouldn't like to fly about the universe in a dilapidated old Police Call Box?

	Now, when it comes to Steampunk fashion, we are living in an age where technological innovation and heightened interest in the Victorian and other past eras are coming together...      It is still a fairly new trend and innovation is fresh and spontaneous...  There are some that haven't got it right... Victoria's Secret recently held what they called a "Steampunk Fashion Show," where all they did was show off their regular styles, adorned by a few leather belts thrown in... not exactly as trendy as you would have expected from a normally avant-garde couturier... True, the idea is so new that a lot of supposedly fashion-conscious people haven't caught on yet...      Fortunately, the fans of Science Fiction and Fantasy have caught on in a big way... Steampunk was their baby from it's early beginnings in "Cyberpunk."      Since the thirties, there has been a contingent of fandom which has embraced costumery...      At gatherings of fans all around the world, whether it be just a small, friendly costume party, or a large convention, the making and wearing of science-fiction oriented costumes has been a mainstay of the genre...      Whether it be a Renaissance Faire, a Comic-Con, World-Con or other fan-based coming together, fans everywhere have been at the forefront of these fashion trends...

	To this point, here is a number of web sites featuring Steampunk styles and fashions... (click here to go to a new page with lots of links) Back to the Ball   -   To: "What is Steampunk?"   -   To: CCOBS Main Page