Steampunk fashion runs the gamut from the purely Victorian to the raggedy post-apocalyptic. Steampunk fashion draws inspiration from many modes, it is usually (but not exclusively) constructed on a 19th Century base and weaves in cultural threads from around the world and throughout time.
Fashion
Someone once told me that the first things people look at when they meet you are your shoes and your hands. It's very easy to tell if someone uses their hands to make things as they tend to have callouses, weathered skin, and may have curious stains or broken nails. Shoe choice reads just as clearly--do your shoes match your outfit? Are they stylish and functional? Are they impractical, well-designed, worn out, or coated in dust from the workshop?
One of the ways I upcycle old, worn garments is to dye them. Stained, stretched-out beaters, ratty petticoats, and once-white tuxedo shirts with dingy collars enshroud themselves in new life when dropped into a steaming bucket of color. As my best friend is a pedigreed textiles artist, I've spent many a night in a professional dye lab, using bromine and other harsh chemicals to deposit tint onto wool, but I feel that the most satisfying way to dye fabric is to use what is essentially garbage. I speak of items you're probably going to toss or compost anyway, like yellow onion skins, beet tops, yesterday's Earl Grey bag, or that rusting tin of turmeric you bought eons ago for Indian cooking (but instead forgot in the back of the cabinet). Natural dye has been used to color fabric for 4,500 years, and was even popular amongst German soldiers in World War II due to broken trade routes.1
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