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branchandroot) wrote2010-05-31 05:31 pm
branchandroot) wrote2010-05-31 05:31 pm
Thoughtful steampunk with just cloth
This would be easier if it was narrative.
In narrative, it would be the simplest thing in the world to convey that the Meiji setting of the story features the intersection of domestic and imported technologies, both well out of step with "our" history, and that Japan had been developing land-defense weapons for pretty much all of Edo because the Tokugawa, starting with Ieyasu, were trying to turn technological development away from easy-to-hide personal arms by emphasizing outside threats (bonus social stability with that tactic), and that Edo social engineering had established swords as the prestigious weapon but baited loose samurai into the tech class anyway with the under-the-table understanding that the tech class got access to the most effective weapons, and now there's a competition of pride between the samurai class and samurai-descended tech class individuals which expressed really complexly during the civil war, and that Perry was a reasonably astute economical mind who had come to knock on the door with a trade agreement for the bulk materials a 'closed' country might be running low on (instead of a cannon), and that my character is present as a foreign tech employee who likes her co-workers here and maybe agreed to renew her contract for another couple years.
In narrative, nothing would be easier. It would still have all the difficulties of writing about a culture one learned about from the outside, and of writing as the cultural descendant of an aggressor in that time and place, and of writing as a privileged party in current and historical relation to the nation and ethnicity the story is set within. Historical AUs have a lot of potential to address those issues, though, and while the genre is no guarantee of success at least there's a nice bit of elbow room to try.
In cloth alone... well there's less room. As guidelines, however, "do your homework" and "know the symbolism" seem equally useful for both the writer and the costumer.
To start with, I suppose I can triangulate based on the problematic forms that orientalist costuming has taken. So, don't do it like that. This would seem to suggest wearing a kimono proper, rather than an adaptation, and modifying it. It should be a kimono that is appropriate in most fashions to the theoretical background, age, and class of the persona, something that indicates more thought and research than "pretty!". Historically appropriate but remixed, as it were, to match the theoretical world modifications.
Modern values of mobility and comfort are both strong threads in steampunk style (something I find wonderfully ironic at times), so dissonance or unfamiliarity is often achieved by using fabric that would not, historically, go together or go with the style of the garment, or by shortening or loosening the garment, or by reducing layers. All these are easy enough to do, and the latter two have some useful resonance both with working class styles of the period and with some modern fashion reinterpretations.
I posit that there would be less exact imitation, in the modernization drive of steampunk Meiji, because there would be less anxiety. Not none, to be very sure, but less; in a history where Japan has already been developing domestic technology during the closed period, Perry's visit would be an occasion for internal upset, renegotiation, for the tensions of the Edo system to snap and rebalance, yes, but not for the shock and panic engendered by the Black Ships in our timeline. (Unless you want to posit serious, all-out war, with advanced weapons on both sides which is more dystopian than I generally do in my fanwork.) I hope to reflect this both by the essential fact that the foreign consultant is wearing a kimono and by the addition of a buckled obi and boots, mixing some more Western fashions with the kimono and wide pants she picked up from her co-workers, neither side imitating the other wholesale.
That's my best hope for making my worldbuilding legible, I think: in this time period it really says something that the foreigner, who will eventually be going home again, is wearing local styles instead of resting on the modern = Western equation that fashion in our timeline showed. And, within the modern lens through which steampunk is viewed, the fact that the kimono is quiet and simple and has none of the aristocratically descended patterns and layers and bling and more layers that an unfortunate lot of modern Japanophiles go for should, I hope, differentiate this project from both the "wanna dress up like a geisha girl!" cluelessness and the "I shall follow all the rules of kimono and thereby be Correct and Japanese" that have bedeviled the modern Western relation to kimono fashions.
Of course, wearing a short single layer is also very much a men's fashion. As far as I'm concerned, this is a wonderful bonus, because that kind of mixing of gendered fashion is one of the things that most appeals to me about steampunk costuming. This, too, is something that resonates with the more rebellious modern fashion re-interpretations of kimono.
Of course, most of this is going to be completely invisible to anyone who has not also done a fair amount of digging around after fashion and clothing styles in relation to class and gender and this time period. Perhaps I'll print up a small broadside (or, more handily, a chapbook) to hand out to anyone who asks. And, of course, I expect to give any passing Kimono Police the screaming fits, which I consider a nice little bonus.
In narrative, it would be the simplest thing in the world to convey that the Meiji setting of the story features the intersection of domestic and imported technologies, both well out of step with "our" history, and that Japan had been developing land-defense weapons for pretty much all of Edo because the Tokugawa, starting with Ieyasu, were trying to turn technological development away from easy-to-hide personal arms by emphasizing outside threats (bonus social stability with that tactic), and that Edo social engineering had established swords as the prestigious weapon but baited loose samurai into the tech class anyway with the under-the-table understanding that the tech class got access to the most effective weapons, and now there's a competition of pride between the samurai class and samurai-descended tech class individuals which expressed really complexly during the civil war, and that Perry was a reasonably astute economical mind who had come to knock on the door with a trade agreement for the bulk materials a 'closed' country might be running low on (instead of a cannon), and that my character is present as a foreign tech employee who likes her co-workers here and maybe agreed to renew her contract for another couple years.
In narrative, nothing would be easier. It would still have all the difficulties of writing about a culture one learned about from the outside, and of writing as the cultural descendant of an aggressor in that time and place, and of writing as a privileged party in current and historical relation to the nation and ethnicity the story is set within. Historical AUs have a lot of potential to address those issues, though, and while the genre is no guarantee of success at least there's a nice bit of elbow room to try.
In cloth alone... well there's less room. As guidelines, however, "do your homework" and "know the symbolism" seem equally useful for both the writer and the costumer.
To start with, I suppose I can triangulate based on the problematic forms that orientalist costuming has taken. So, don't do it like that. This would seem to suggest wearing a kimono proper, rather than an adaptation, and modifying it. It should be a kimono that is appropriate in most fashions to the theoretical background, age, and class of the persona, something that indicates more thought and research than "pretty!". Historically appropriate but remixed, as it were, to match the theoretical world modifications.
Modern values of mobility and comfort are both strong threads in steampunk style (something I find wonderfully ironic at times), so dissonance or unfamiliarity is often achieved by using fabric that would not, historically, go together or go with the style of the garment, or by shortening or loosening the garment, or by reducing layers. All these are easy enough to do, and the latter two have some useful resonance both with working class styles of the period and with some modern fashion reinterpretations.
I posit that there would be less exact imitation, in the modernization drive of steampunk Meiji, because there would be less anxiety. Not none, to be very sure, but less; in a history where Japan has already been developing domestic technology during the closed period, Perry's visit would be an occasion for internal upset, renegotiation, for the tensions of the Edo system to snap and rebalance, yes, but not for the shock and panic engendered by the Black Ships in our timeline. (Unless you want to posit serious, all-out war, with advanced weapons on both sides which is more dystopian than I generally do in my fanwork.) I hope to reflect this both by the essential fact that the foreign consultant is wearing a kimono and by the addition of a buckled obi and boots, mixing some more Western fashions with the kimono and wide pants she picked up from her co-workers, neither side imitating the other wholesale.
That's my best hope for making my worldbuilding legible, I think: in this time period it really says something that the foreigner, who will eventually be going home again, is wearing local styles instead of resting on the modern = Western equation that fashion in our timeline showed. And, within the modern lens through which steampunk is viewed, the fact that the kimono is quiet and simple and has none of the aristocratically descended patterns and layers and bling and more layers that an unfortunate lot of modern Japanophiles go for should, I hope, differentiate this project from both the "wanna dress up like a geisha girl!" cluelessness and the "I shall follow all the rules of kimono and thereby be Correct and Japanese" that have bedeviled the modern Western relation to kimono fashions.
Of course, wearing a short single layer is also very much a men's fashion. As far as I'm concerned, this is a wonderful bonus, because that kind of mixing of gendered fashion is one of the things that most appeals to me about steampunk costuming. This, too, is something that resonates with the more rebellious modern fashion re-interpretations of kimono.
Of course, most of this is going to be completely invisible to anyone who has not also done a fair amount of digging around after fashion and clothing styles in relation to class and gender and this time period. Perhaps I'll print up a small broadside (or, more handily, a chapbook) to hand out to anyone who asks. And, of course, I expect to give any passing Kimono Police the screaming fits, which I consider a nice little bonus.
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