A comment in the recent batch of Tor blog posts on steampunk made me reflect on the insistence of one significant faction that steampunk must focus on the mechanical, not the electrical.

As though they were separate. As though the 19th C European technological types weren't all over electricity, and, in fact, magic.

The rallying point of this faction seems to be "macro-mechanical processes", with a hefty dose of "a simpler time" underlying it. Even if you just stick to Britain, that's absurd. The Victorian era was over-complicated, over-mannered, over-wound, and eager to experience the "unseen" while the consumers insisted that the guts of any mechanical process be hidden. Especially the human guts. It was the home and font of Spiritualism, and of truly astonishing credulity. The eagle-eyed scientist and inquiring-minded tinkerer were in the mix, too, but they left steam-power in the dust early on and started looking at (you guessed it) electricity. Well, them and the Spiritualists, and half the time that was the same person. And there we have what I think is the core of the matter.

If I were to point to a hallmark concept out of this, I would not say "mechanical", I would say "juxtaposition". Thomas Edison and Madame Blavatsky, biologists attending seances, the pretty brass and wood first class compartment and the black gang, the flaming suffragette who's a howling racist.

Those examples are all from Europe, but the pattern seems to apply to any major period of discovery anywhere, so I'm inclined to say it holds true for world-wide steampunk also. Concentrated discovery or change happens because some people are tossing over rules that someone else is clinging to with a death grip, and no one knows what will be true in the morning, and everyone is terrified of what it might be, and everyone is dead wrong half the time but right often enough that no one is sure of who's right this time and is desperately trying to make sure it's them, and the whole thing rolls on in a welter of mistakes and newness and brilliance and cruelty. And there's your renaissance for you, or your revolution. That's what makes this period an interesting place to write or tinker or cosplay or whathaveyou.

The reason I think the "dress up for high tea" crowd is so flat and uninteresting is that they're imitating one tiny fraction of that ferment without, usually, acknowledging the vast web of tensions and contradictions that fashion and manner were born out of. Similarly the "visible mechanical processes" crowd seems willfully ignorant of the Victorian passion for the hidden.

How boring. And how very un-steampunk.

This would be easier if it was narrative.

( Wrestling with how to translate mindful worldbuilding into fabric )

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.

So, I'm at Marcon. There's a lot of steampunk this year (indeed, I yearn for a hat but have restrained myself thus far in light of my art bidding). And I've discovered that the theme for this year's Ohayocon will be steampunk.

This led, as such things do, to lamentations on the fact that steampunk is so direly Euro-centric and how much fun it would be to do actual Japanese steampunk.

Not, I pause to add, here, Victorientalism, which appears to consist primarily of the utterly, utterly clueless drive to reify the Orientalism of 19th C European authors who had never actually been in sniffing distance of any Asian country and merely used the specter thereof as a screen on which to project the results of dredging their own ids. *pauses to go find something to settle her nausea* Nor am I thinking of FMA and Castle in the Sky, which are explicitly set in Europe or Europe-analogues.

No, what I'm thinking of is more along the lines of what one aspiring author has dubbed steampanku: a re-imagining of Japanese history, especially late Edo and Meiji, with the addition of 'steam' and clockwork based technologies. See also, Samurai Seven, only a good deal more optimistic and less constrained by the urge to Extreme Pathos. More cheerful erasure of gender inequality as per speculative fiction that wants to make a point. Steam mecha. Air ships to navigate about the interior. The energy that was plowed into social containment mechanisms being let to run instead into technological advance (cue the steam arms-race, cue science as a method of social advancement and class laundering, cue the re-opening of the country being because Perry brought a rich bribe of favorable trade deals for coal [or handwavium, as steampunk really has zero history of technologically or economically sound underpinnings]).

I mean, seriously, Meiji practically is steampunk already, especially in terms of social ferment, the search for new modes of existence, the drive for modernization, and the value placed on "advancement". The fact that these things led to some very problematic moments both domestically and abroad is, itself, very in line with the sociopolitical critique at the roots of steampunk (not that you'd know it to look at these days...).

So, I envision, in broad strokes, the persona of an imported consultant during Meiji (since I'm leery of taking on a Japanese persona) who adopted, as some did, a certain amount of local dress. In costume terms, I think this would come out to a hip-length kimono on top (local, as I'm postulating shorter styles for tech class), full pants below (equally comfortable to those used to bloomers or hakama, suitable to tech class), sandals or low boots (since they would have to be removable reasonably easily; boots seem most appropriate to a Westerner persona, though) and a leather obi with suitable compartments, hangers, brass, whatever seems appropriate (also local style for techs). Possibly a watch-cuff, because they're cool.

What do you guys think?

ETA: Oo, of course, the striped kimono! Good, quiet middle class pattern and fabric (bonus that existing steampunk aesthetics lean heavily to stripes), and those odd sleeves that are a bit too long for a married woman but way too short for a girl having her come-out; perfect for a mature but unmarried tech chick.