madame thursday

[Image: A dark skinned Desi woman in a steampunk outfit with a bright teal and gold collared choli (midriff bearing top) and pants that end in spats with a bright red and gold cloth that wraps around the character from shoulder to waist at knee length reminiscent of a dupatta with a black hat, gold colored pointed toe shoes, with a large choker-like necklace with green jewels, dangling green jewel earings and a jeweled green and gold bindi. She is holding a cigarette in one hand with a speech bubble that says, “Well, shit”.]

torayot:

nextian:

shoomlah:

Multiculturalism for Steampunk is starting up a weekly art challenge, and it looks promising. SO EXCITED. I’ve had a bunch of ideas for non-Western steampunk outfits floating around in my head, and it’s nice actually having a weekly deadline to motivate me to finish some of them.

This is pretty subtle in its steampunkery (read: no extranneous metal bits), but I was just trying to bring in a few western/Victorian elements to traditional Indian clothing- legomuttoned sleeves, the double breasted, collared choli, and adapting the churidar into buttoned spats.

…Also a sweet hat.

-C

I think there are some colonialist questions that get raised when you incorporate specifically British Victorian elements of couture into Indian fashion? A few?

Buuuuuuut I would fight a man on a grizzly bear for this lady’s comic.

I am so glad you said this. I thought I was alone in this. British Empire, anyone? Company Rule? British Raj?

Dear internet, I shan’t assume that you all know about the British Empire. I know not everyone has the same education and it’s problematic to assume this.

But know that British rule in India lasted from around 1757 to about 1948, and that the relationship between the coloniser and colonised is extremely complicated, and still very much has real lived effects today. Sure, the outfit and character look beautiful, but I just don’t think you can go around mashing up Victorian fashion with Indian clothing just for surface steampunk elegance without encountering some problems. I can appreciate the visual qualities, but the history and meaning causes some concern.

/inb4 people start screeching that I am ~*oversensitive*~ and can’t enjoy anything :-{D

Reblogging for Torayot’s commentary. They are so NOT oversensitive.

While the idea is nice, since the artist is a white/non-Indian/non-Desi person, it is something to think about before uncritically praising this picture. 

I love non-European steampunk (art and literature), but it seems like so many people think throwing in Victorian English/U.S.ian/Western motifs, clothes, and other things is somehow a requirement, that it doesn’t count as steampunk if there aren’t spats or Western style hats and other things, that it doesn’t count if it doesn’t take place in the 1860’s to 1930’s in the West.

And this is problematic given the history of colonialism and it’s ongoing impact on the world.