Steampunk, Definition and Evolution in 2024

Welcome steamers!

Whether you are a complete novice or have just started, discover the origins of Steampunk in just a few minutes!

How to define this so little-known and yet so recognizable style of science fiction? Travel through these fascinating works of Steampunk literature and discover the growing community that lives this steam passion. Retrofuturism now extends to all Arts and means of expression .

Discover the origins of these incredible objects. You will see the accessories , the immediately recognizable pieces, and the DIY that is becoming widespread for personalization.

Definition of Steampunk, retro futuristic science fiction .

It is not easy to give a definition of steampunk. So we offer you several to satisfy the purists to the most permissive, otherwise go to Wikipedia ...

What is steampunk?

1. It is an Alternate History that likes to mix popular culture from the end of the 19th century with historical realities from the Victorian era . We are between futuristic imagination, retro aesthetics and industrial revolution .

2. Steampunk is a concept that comes from literature where technology never progressed beyond steam engines. So it has been around for a long time, long before the word was invented, we can say that Jules Verne or HGWells are already related to the style

What era, steampunk?

1. Steampunk is also called Victorian science fiction . Note that it focuses on technology and the steam age, but can include magic and fantasy.

2. Aesthetically, steampunk draws its irresistible charm from the refined elegance of the Victorian era (1837-1901) in England, as well as from the splendor of the Belle Époque (1871-1914) in France and the audacious style of the American Civil War (1861-1865).

Why punk in steampunk?

• The inventor of the word is originally the author KW Jeter. Steam for steam, a nod to the industrial revolution and Punk to differentiate his works from other science fiction authors in the late 1980s (in reference to cyberpunk). Therefore, the most picky will tell you that before this date (1987), it is not steampunk.

• The origins of the use of the term "punk" in The word Steampunk also comes from the protest base and the rejection of conventions, with real values. It is an offbeat and unbridled counterculture . Its marginal, anti-consumerist thinking gives pride of place to DIY, like the original punk movement

Who are punks today and how to recognize a punk?

Today's punks are passionate and rebellious people, who continue to carry high the colors of a vibrant and daring movement. To recognize a punk, just observe their inimitable style, characterized by torn clothes, colorful and spiky hair, piercings and tattoos.

Who invented punk and where was punk born?

Punk, this creative and musical explosion, was invented by revolutionary minds such as the Sex Pistols and The Clash in the United Kingdom, as well as the Ramones in the United States, in the 1970s.

How do punks dress?

Punks dress boldly and provocatively, wearing studded leather jackets, ripped jeans, T-shirts printed with protest messages, and complementing their outfits with accessories such as chains and studded bracelets.

So what characterizes a world that is part of the retro futuristic universe?

1) Steampunk Style and the steam engine.

The setting of the natural theme is often set during the time when England was an empire. During this period the foundation of technological advancement with the steam engine, science, society, with the industrial revolution and colonization as a backdrop, was played out.

Many authors in several languages ​​are associated with the style long before the term "Steampunk" was invented. We find Jules Verne there but also others like HG Wells , Albert Robida or Mary Shelley.

And there are many who have influenced and structured this nameless movement. Weren't you amazed by Captain Nemo and his submarine, the Nautilus... or by the time machine... or the one to resurrect Dr. Frankenstein. We dealt with the subject of style before the term Steampunk was coined .

At the risk of repeating myself, it was in the 80s that the steampunk movement became a recognized literary genre. Some authors like Tim Powers and James Blaylock , William Gibson and Bruce Sterling thus created rich and captivating works. The Victorian era found color again thanks to the steampunk movement.

All this indescribable atmosphere with this outdated but yet so effective technology, with bolts, gears and other parts ... the steam coming out of everywhere. The metals with their warm colors like copper , brass and steel of course. All this mixed with all the elements of fashion, architecture and English myths of the Victorian era and the belle époque.

This movement is full of works and inventions, it smells of vintage, DIY, we often see mad scientists or mechanics with their surrealist tools. The steam engine is everywhere, planes, zeppelins, mechanical computers, etc.

It's about combining elements of Victorian technology to create something elegant that would explain modern complexity in a simplistic way. It's not just smoke and mirrors, but an alternate history with enough logical basis to support the concept of this fad.

The literary genre is therefore an ideal means of expression to criticize technology and the man who uses it. Beyond aesthetics, it is a kind of reflection and sharing on the evolution of the world . We bring a little of what we want, which makes retro futuristic genres that now extend to several eras, from the 18th to the Roaring Twenties, and sometimes even to the Second World War with Dieselpunk (Captain Tomorrow).

The steampunk movement therefore has as its basic element aesthetic visions neighbors, derived from the industrial revolution and the Victorian era. This creates tasty mixes, such as western-punk (Wild Wild West) or dreampunk (Arthur and the Minimoys), raypunk (Flash Gordon), atompunk (Fallout games). Cyberpunk dominated, but has almost disappeared (maybe it is too similar to our time...).

But let's skip the subgenres and get back to the classics, a very thin line between a credible and crazy world makes it exhilarating. The genre is clearly fantastic in view of the incredible machines, like in a Jules Verne, which cannot function in a normal world.

From the beginning of the movement, for example, time travel and Egypt (The Ways of Anubis) or Excalibur (Morlock Night) are mixed. It is common to add the myths of the Victorian era, such as Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes , Dorian Gray, the invisible man or Dracula... the fantastic also accompanies the Gothic and enriches the form as well as the content.

To find out more about what the term actually encompasses, we recommend the steampunk guide (French) as an encyclopedia and other works for their ideas and illustrations:

• The Steampunk Guide by Arthur Morgan and Etienne Barillier.

• All Steampunk! by Raphaël Colson

• The Steampunk Handbook by Jeff VanderMeer

But it's more exciting when you bring this imagination to life!

2) The Steampunk Community, a cultural movement.

Long considered a literary subgenre, the movement has become very materialistic. Now objects such as glasses, the famous googles , the top hat , the bowler hat and pocket watches are a distinctive sign of steampunk fashion.

But it is also a philosophy, a lifestyle. The first images of each Facebook group and other social networks, forums or amateur illustration sites and other categories are almost always of the same type.

First of all, we see a cultural movement with people in costumes, cosplay.

Black, brown, beige, white tones dominate the fabrics. Their arrangement immediately evokes another era, other postures, such as the emblematic plague doctor . Steampunk is not just about reading, it is lived, it is embodied in bodies, in a way of life, in a desire for permanent creativity and in a desire to break the codes of our daily lives.

A good example is typically the Burning Man festival, which takes place every year in the United States for a whole week. Thousands of participants live self-sufficiently in the middle of the desert. The perfect opportunity to give life to the craziest projects, especially artistic ones, with floats or giant sculptures and Cosplay .

A parade of exhibitions up to the most incredible costumes. It's also quite funny to see how much the visual codes of the festival were inspired by Mad Max, with in particular the famous thunderdome that we find in burning man and in Mad Max, before becoming itself a source of inspiration for the last film released in 2015. In short, this festival is imbued with visuals of the industrial revolution and retrofuturism .

Beyond conventions and other events, the community also extends into the virtual world.

For example, you can learn how to build each element of your house in a steampunk style in this giant sandbox that is the Minecraft game. Many blogs give the basics for dressing steampunk . This inscription in the bodies seems to be at the heart of the evolution of this movement.

Cosplay fans, if they choose for example to do a cosplay to present at a convention, will not generally dress up as a generic character, but as Star Wars characters with steampunk glasses, Star Trek characters with gas masks or Stargate characters that seem to come out of the Victorian era... but in steampunk culture it is much more common not to make any reference.

The vaporist likes to say to himself: there, I created a character with my top hat. Of course, there could be a bit of Jules Verne, a bit of Lovecraft or Tesla, we take ourselves for Sherlock Holmes or Dracula in mechanized vampire mode.

The debate of the decade among writers is that increasing commercialism has diluted the critique of steampunk works... the "punk " aspect. Their argument is that steampunk has been reduced to a romantic backdrop, decked out in its codes like the famous goggles or the brass light fixtures.

3) Steampunk Art a subgenre halfway between the past and the future.

Cinema, for example, popularized the style with numerous Steampunk films . At the beginning of the 7th art, Georges Méliès created masterpieces that can now be described as steampunk, just like the adaptations of Jules Verne 's books a few decades later.

More recently, in the cinema we have been able to appreciate Christopher Nolan's The Prestige or the films of Jean Pierre Jeunet, with the city of lost children (among others), which were greatly influenced by the style of the 19th century. Hollywood has tried to stage the genre with poor quality films like the league of extraordinary gentlemen (let's talk about the submarine?). More recently, Mortal Engines was released, an adaptation of the eponymous fantasy book which received a mixed reception.

There is also an art that has been able to develop thanks to its very visual aspect and its very recognizable codes. The style has drifted to be mainly a very graphic and script style and more generally an aesthetic that is transmitted in painting, architecture or sculpture. Discover incredible artists in our article dedicated to Steampunk Art .

• There is also a whole musical universe, notably with groups claiming to make steampunk music .

• Steampunk video games with Final Fantasy 6, Dishonored or Bioshock and other lesser known but quite ambitious titles where the submarine and the goggles are appropriate.

• Steampunk TV series are also influenced by the retro futuristic style, to our great delight with Penny Dreadful , Warehouse 13, Dr Who and more recently Carnival Row.

• Steampunk manga also appreciates retro fusturism, we can no longer count the references in the films of the greatest, Hayao Miyazaki not to name him. The best-known title in French comics is Adèle Blanc sec (also adapted into a film).

Steampunk Style is Victorian Era?

On the clothes at first, we can distinguish several influences like Victorian England which feeds the style. Moreover, Gothic is also inspired by this period and mixes quite well with steampunk. On the menu other trends like rock and punk are sometimes relevant, as in post-apo steampunk .

This has extended to fashion since the 2000s with Kit Stollen , who likes to define himself as an anachronaut. The "punk" for him in Steampunk represents the individuality of the creator through his representation of art. Like craftsmanship, combining beauty and functionality, clothing must be wearable according to him. He popularized steampunk elements in our everyday clothing, accessories like necklaces, goggles or the bowler hat integrate better.

Of course you will always be out of place and scrutinized if you wear a steampunk top hat to a job interview, but you have to dare to cultivate your differences. Kit Stollen's message is to stop conformism, it oppresses us and prevents us from revealing ourselves.

1) Women's clothing.

Everyone has in mind the blouses, corsets and dresses of the 19th century from the Victorian era or the belle époque, to be discovered here. The skirts and all these outdated clothes from the wardrobe that find a new freshness by mixing industrial or fantastic elements.

The article on Steampunk Cosplay for Women could guide you in your purchases and on the best ways to make your dresses, corsets and boots for a retrofuturistic look, even in everyday life.

On the accessories menu: Steampunk Jewelry also takes its origin and source in the vintage theme with metallic colors like silver, gold, bronze, copper or brass.

But be careful! Women are independent and strong in this world. Modernity allows us to wear anachronistic women's clothing like pants and even leggings. This is in a way the great strength of the movement, everyone brings a part of themselves into their wardrobe.

2) Men's clothing.

The most common image is that of the dandy with his top hat and his 19th century shoes with built-in googles. The costumes are still influenced by the Victorian era, but not only those of the aristocrats. The Scotland Yard police and Her Majesty's army have costumes with details that are highly appreciated for their spectacular effects. You can consult the men's clothing guide , you will be surprised to find ideas like boots or frock coats for your future steampunk costumes .

3) Steampunk Cosplay and DIY.

These fictional subgenres provide a steampunk framework, a space, in short a sandbox which is the most basic definition of the game. It is this link between games, passions, fictions, imaginary worlds, as a framework for the expression of individual and collective identity that pushes to participate. Taking part in what has been happening since the beginning and therefore being part of a collective or a community is exhilarating.

But it is also the staging appropriating objects and technology and building one's individuality that takes extremely numerous forms in the case of steampunk. Participatory activities abound in particular, this genre has taken off and taken on its full dimension through the plastic and visual arts even more than in fan-fiction and podcasts.

On the menu, a lot of steampunk visual elements with steam engines.

Objects like steampunk lamps , gas masks, the English top hat from the Victorian era ... make the steampunk cultural movement. This is to my knowledge the only example where when you type the name of a literary genre on Amazon the first results are all objects and not books, except maybe one or two exceptions like the league of extraordinary gentlemen.

On all the amateur illustration sites, on the Facebook page groups, or on the Twitter page, the simple fact of typing the keyword steampunk offers us a profusion of works of incredible richness.

I can only encourage you to spend some time if, like us, you appreciate these aesthetics. Everything is there, but we find, of course, as with cyberpunk, a large presence of urban landscapes, from machines to objects, and even steampunk objects.

In addition, in this culture, costumes are always completed with various accessories: cane with copper and silver knob, retro glasses ... the famous googles and other jetpacks. They pay homage to the first superheroes or to films like Rocketeer by Joe Johnson; a little-known gem signed Disney, which unfortunately flopped at the time like almost all steampunk films.

Then the decoration blogs talk a lot about customized objects with connotations of the Victorian era of the 19th century. Electric guitars, books, computers, jewelry, cars, game consoles (not the minitel, it is already steampunk) and a whole bunch of other everyday objects.

It even seems that shops like Steampunk Store are developing to exhibit and sell Steampunk Decoration . There is also the reign of DIY , that is to say "do it yourself", a kind of cooperation in learning that forges a very very strong community feeling.

What Evolution for the Steampunk Style?

Over the years, the style has continued to reinvent itself, enriched with new influences and opening up to ever-wider horizons. The abundant creativity of its followers has made it possible to explore new facets of this universe, by evolving codes and aesthetics.

From the emergence of trends such as Dieselpunk and Clockpunk, which push the limits of retrofuturism, to the integration of contemporary themes and the search for societal questions, Steampunk is constantly reinventing itself to better surprise and move us.

By drawing on literature for the resources of our history and confronting them with our reality, this constantly evolving universe invites us to rethink our relationship with time, technology and society, while celebrating the infinite richness of the human imagination.

And now, you will be convinced like me that most appreciate the trend, used in so many works of science fiction, without knowing steampunk. Since the style has attracted many people for various reasons. Some are simply attracted by the Victorian era, others by the industrial, the vintage, or the powerful imagination of the genre.

Here, thank you all for reading this block of text, share , visit the shop if you are looking for items. I hope you want to know more. For my part, I will see you for a future article ... see you soon vaporist!