Steampunk Saturday, vol. 7

As I scarf down a few cinnamon rolls, a few meaning the Pilsbury-in-a-can size, and take a break from catching up on my fave TV show Nashville, I realized it's been two months since I posted.
So I've thrown in the soundtrack to Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and I'm posting about the Victorian lady's wardrobe today.

  

During the Victorian Era, the female fashion and figure changed dramatically from the 1860s to the final years of the century. Many people associate the look of the 1860s as the hoop skirts with layers of crinoline and petticoats, tight corsets and ringlets of curls framing faces. I think instantly of Scarlet O' Hara or Jo March. The fashion of the pre and post Civil War and Queen Victoria's morning period.

  

 

  

But styles changed by the 1890s, a period that dominates the Steampunk genre because the Fin de Siecle was the age of advancing technology and cutting edge invention and theories. Women's fashion was no exception.

 

Unfortunately, a blog post featuring all the infinite details of a woman's dress in this era would be long and probably boring, so I will stick to the most visible and visual of her outfit. And I will stick to the fashionable elite.

 

Dresses, Ball Gowns, and Sitting Room Attire :

 

          

 

The foremost name in fashion at this time was Charles Fredrick Worth. These are just a few of his lovely 1890s gowns. The mutton sleeves, or poofy at the shoulders, was beginning to show up. Gone are the layers of crinoline and petticoats and even the bustle of the 1870s and 1880s is vanishing from the lines.

A woman's wardrobe had numerous dresses for every occasion. She had evening gowns for formal dinners or small social affairs. She had elaborately decorated ball gowns to be the envy and catch a handsome dandy's eye. She had simple yet stunning day dresses usually with an accompanying overcoat to run errands about town or more luxurious traveling wear to be seen out and about. Teagowns - not shown- were for the everyday run about the house, or worn especially during pregnancy due to the voluminous laces and flowing material that allowed ease to put on and move about.

You can check out this fabulous Pinterest page The House of Worth to see even more beautiful dresses from the Victorian Era into the mid-Twentieth Century.

 

Gloves, Hats, Umbrellas or Parasols :

Just as gentlemen looked fashionable with their walking canes, women never left the house without their stylish and expensive umbrella or parasol. Gloves were practically required during this time. At the end of the century, black chamois gloves were highly fashionable for day wear, but white was still popular for evening attire and balls. As many day dresses were two pieces, they may have worn a blouse with an ascot style neckline and had need of a pin to hold their ascot in place. Hatpins were also highly fashionable and had beads and other jewels. Hats at the Turn of the Century were sometimes similar to the bonnets of the 1860s, tying around the chin with large ribbons, or they were fixed to the top of the head with a hatpin. They were small and decorated with silk flowers and bird feathers ribbons and bows. It would be another ten years before the large brimmed Edwardian hats surfaced - my most favorite vintage hat of all time.

 
 
 

Steampunk Saturday, vol 6

Oh the wonderful art of flying contraptions.

When I was, oh about the same as my darling daughter is now(6 ish), my mother would read Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to me. Probably every night. It was my favorite story. It was also one, that after so long, I began to tell my mother stories I made up to go with the illustrations.

It's no wonder I fell in love with the world of steampunk! Within the wonderful pages from the spy master himself, Ian Fleming (no relation unfortunately), is the story of a family and their flying car.

Part of what draws me into the Victorian Steampunk world are the gadgets and machines.
For instance the dirigible.


There are so many beautiful artist renderings of one staple of the steampunk world, the airship or dirigible or zepplin. These airships, lighter than todays counterpart per se, stayed aloft using a large cavity like a balloon filled with some kind of lifting gas - like helium or authors' made up substances like Ether or in my story Akasha. They manuevered with rudders and propellers. Unlike the blimps of today, the steampunk version was like a floating ship with a balloon filled with floating gas attached or large propellers to keep the ship aloft.

 

 

Then there's the velocipede.

Towards the later end of the Victorian Era, an increase in leasure activites came about. In fact, the creation of some of our nation's most beloved parks came into existance in this time period. Like Central Park. As more and more middle class families enjoyed their weekends off from the daily work week grind, more and more activites became accessible. Riding bicycles quickly turned into not just a leisure activity but a sport. In San Francisco, velodromes were created to allow "scorchers" - or bicycles racers - a place to race each other or cycle laps. 

And finally, the steam coach or carriage.

A horseless, steam or ether or other energy source powered carriage or stagecoach. Think of it as the Victorian mini-van, able to haul anywhere from four to six people inside the carriage to neighborhood destinations, like a ball, or across the US to far off cities.

 

Finally, I leave you with this, in lieu of much speculation from Disney's purchase of the rights of the Star Wars Franchise.....

 

The Kick-Ass Heroine vs. the Meek, Yet Strong Protector Heroine

It's only fair, after devoting 3 posts to the Hero, that the ladies should get some equal posting time.

When I mention kick-ass heroine, I imagine most envision this.....

 






Or this.....   

I think of this.....


So what qualities make up the K-A Heroine?

1.) They don't need no stinkin' man, at least they've started out thinking that. They're quite capable of stealing Death Star plans and smuggling them off their ship under attack. Or infiltrating an evil spy organization at the same time working as a double agent to help the CIA. Or surviving the jungle, or a televised death match, or demon spike-haired vampires infesting their high school.

2.)They've got some wicked Dos that say I'm perfectly coifed to kick some alien, spy, jungle butt.

3.) Leather is never optional; it's required.

4.) They've had some kind of training. Whether it's in espionage, deathmatch bootcamp, fugative on the run, or inert latent jedi mind-tricks.

 5.) They never pout or put their hands on their hips to get their way. They take what they want, even if it leads them into a smelly, monster infested trash-compactor. Never argue with the K-A Heroine. The hero must understand, she knew exactly what she was doing.

6.) She puts others first, her life is last thing she's concerned with. The cause is greater. She'd rather die than expose a rebel base or let the governement make her kill her hunger games partner for "ratings."

7.) Don't let her tough exterior fool you. She is wrought with emotions, usually of the conflicting sort. Does she choose the bloodsucker over the sensible vampire hunter, does she choose the annoying, prying reporter for the CIA handler. But nine-times out of ten she falls for the smirking anti-hero with a blaster by his side, because she sees in him her greatest challenge, making him have a change of heart.

Origins

 

 

Today is the #PitchWars contest and I get to be an alternate to the fabulous mentor Stacey H Lee!! We worked to polish up my Mission Impossible meets Charlie's Angels Wild West Steampunk YA Historical. So I thought, like a few other mentees, I would write a post on the origin of BAD COMPANY.

 

 

When I went to the Romantic Times Conference last April, I was brainstorming with some of my author besties Natalie Zaman, JA Souders, Liz Czukas, Zoraida Cordova, and Charlotte Bennardo on what to write next. I had two ideas already shot down and I was in a funk trying to figure out what I wanted to write.

 

While sitting in the hotel room one afternoon while one friend worked on her editorial notes, I wracked my brain and an idea kept teasing me A time travel horror story. I wanted to have the steampunk elements in the horror story and that meant focusing on Victorian England and that meant taking a look at the most gruesome horror that happened in Victorian England. (I don't want to give too much away because I still plan to write that horror story)

 

But as I wrote the opening chapters and had my beta readers take a look, I just couldn't get much further than chapter one. My heart kept telling my to write happy happy joy joy, something humorous and fun.

 

And I knew it had to be Steampunk. I wanted to move away from the popular Victorian London setting of most steampunk stories, so I went to the otherside of the United States, to California and the Wild West.

 

Since a main component of Steampunk is the "ether" that powers the gadgets and anachronistic devices that populate these stories, I began looking for ideas for my energy source. And as I wrote the first chapter of my story - which has since been pretty much scrapped in revisions - I envisioned my hero as a half-Lakota Sioux kid from Knob Hill San Francisco. And I knew that my energy source had come from a discovery on his grandfather's reservation that changed the whole perception of Native Americans in my alternate West.

 

At the same time I was writing the first draft my children were watching and rewatching the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible movies along with Charlie's Angels with Drew Barrymore, and the idea stuck with me to have to competing spies/detectives with their paths crossing and falling in love.

And that's how BAD COMPANY came about.

Steampunk Saturday, holiday edition

'Tis the season for holiday cheer, and what better way to celebrate than with a look at a traditional Victorian Christmas.

Oh Tannenbaum!
The evergreen tree has long been a symbol of life during the long winter months and celebrated long before the Victorian Era, but it was Prince Albert who brought the first Christmas tree to the royal family. A tintype of the royal family's tree set a trend and afterward, to be fashionable, every Victorian home had one.
Christmas trees in the Victorian Era were decorated with simple hand-cut decorations, tinsel and tin cut ornaments like stars and snowflakes. The trees were lighted with tiny tapes - which would sometimes prove extremely hazardous.
Paper cornicopias filled with nuts, candies and fruit were also hung on the tree. Sometimes small gifts were hung on the branches.

A Caroling We Will Go
The tradition of carolling began in England before taking hold in America. Carolers would travel from home to home in hopes of being invited inside for something warm to drink. Carols that were most popular were : God Rest ye merry Gentlemen (mentioned in Dicken's A Christmas Carol), Silent Night, The First Noel, Wassail Song, and The Holly and the Ivy.

Christmas Feast
In Victorian times, life was centered around the family, especially at Christmas time. Not just immediate family gathered to celebrate but aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents. On Christmas morning, the family gathered for Mass and then for the Christmas dinner. Goose was especially popular in England while Turkey was most popular in America. Christmas Pudding was a special treat that even had a day set aside, the Sunday before Advent, for stirring and preparing. It is a combination of raisins, beef, prunes, sugar all packed in a cloth and put into a pot to cook.

Steampunk Saturday, vol. 4

 

The best part of writing historical fiction is the research. So early in my current WIP I have ballroom scene where the hero and heroine dance. This required research on late Nineteenth ballroom dancing. A quick Google search came up with the amazing website that talked about primers published during the Victorian Era on everything from the correct dancing formations to dinner party etiquette.

 THE WALTZ is most likely one of the most enduring ballroom dance to have carried from the Nineteenth Century to the modern era. I won't even begin to explain the steps - there are hundreds of Youtube vidoes for that. From looking at the vidoes, it was a sweeping and turning dance that became popular during the height of the Victoian Era. The Quadrille and Cotillian, the prior dances that dominated ballrooms, was more prevalent in the early part of the Nineteenth Century. Think Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy.





THE DANCE CARD in simple terms was a way for ladies to keep track of who they were promised a dance throughout the ball. Generally, on the left side was pre-printed list of the dances for the evening and on the left were lines where men could "pencil in" for selected dances. The dance card was used in the United States starting in the middle of the Nineteenth Century as Americans strove to mimic Victorian social etiquette set by London society and held balls more frequently as a way to forget for the moment the horrors of the Civil War. By the beginning of the Twentieth Century, dance cards fell into disuse as gender boundaries and strict etiquette rules changed.


THE BAND was vitally important to a successful ball. Just looking at website for Kalamazoo listed several dozen quartets for hire for any type of social gathering, whether it was a wedding or a ball.



White and Sherwood's Band (White’s Quadrille Band), ca. 1880. (W. S White: far right)

History Room Photograph File P-572

As promised, next time we'll discuss the Victorian ladies garments and baubles.



 

Steampunk Saturday, vol. 3

That moment when you realize that the coolness of Steampunk just went viral....Target has these shoes for sale. If you want them you can buy them HERE.

Speaking of clothing, a gentleman's accroutrement in Victorian times was very important. Kind like the man who never leaves the house with out his designer watch, iPhone, ect.

Gentlemen carried a pocket watch. Punctuality was an admirable quality desired in a gentleman and future husband. (Becasue let's face it ladies, the modern feminist sensibilites we hold dear - independence, for one - were not so readily shared among our ancestor sisters. Unfortunately, it WAS all about finding a good husband.)

Cufflinks. The hero can't have his shirtsleeves flapping about, getting in the way, and looking just plain ungroomed with out them. Of course, gentlemen of wealth and prestige would have several pair of cufflinks for various occasions, ranging from

high society functions like balls or attending the opera down to everyday use. (the ones shown on the right are of the Art Nouveau style)

The walking cane or walking stick. Not necessarily for the aid of walking, but looking stylish while carrying a weapon of defense. A gentleman of wealth was a target of opportunity for those less fortunate but bold enough to try and mug him. (I said try.)

Stickpin or cravat pin. The stickpin, some times elaborately jeweled or simply, sometimes matching the cufflinks, held the gentleman's cravat in place. Man did they know how to do brooding at the Turn of the Century.

These are just a few of the many things that made up a part of the Victorian Gentleman's dressing gear....Next time, the Victorian Lady's trousseau(not just for her wedding.)