![[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.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lymqqtM6Qa1qz5g4uo1_500.jpg)
[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”.]
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.
-CI 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.
zuky:
Jess Nevins urges steampunks to expand their historical horizons, citing intriguing facts like
- Zeppelin pirates are a staple of steampunk, but nautical pirates were a reality in the waters of Southeast Asia. Notable among these were the female pirates, from Zheng Yi Sao and Cai Qian in the beginning of the 19th century to Lo Hon Cho and Lai Choi San in the early part of the 20th century. These women were captains and admirals, commanding dozens of ships and leading them into battle from the front, gaining reputations as fierce fighters. According to a contemporary Chinese account Cai Qian Ma even commanded ships with crews of niangzijun, “women warriors.”
and
- From the mid-17th century through the 1920s Chinese novels translated into Mongolian were in huge demand in Mongolia, and there was a flourishing trade in them. But the problem for the Mongolian bookbuyers and booksellers was not only the bidding wars which would break out with Russian, Mongolian, and Chinese buyers, but that getting the manuscripts back to Mongolia to sell was difficult because of the very real chance that those transporting the books would be attacked on the way back by bandits wanting to get the manuscripts and sell them for themselves. This resulted in decades of adventurous Mongolian book traders as skilled with sword and gun as they were at selling books.
Nice. I’d add that the swashbuckling trade in scrolls and books has gone on for millenia, since the beginnings of the Silk Road, from the Eternal Capital of Changan through the heart of China, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East (the Far West if you’re Chinese), East Africa, all the way to Rome. And flying pirates have been around for many centuries in China, but it’s not called steampunk, it’s called wuxia. Those Chinese books which were traded along bandit-prone trade routes in Mongolia, Russia, and far beyond, were probably wuxia novels, along with sacred scriptures from Buddhism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, and other now-vanished religions and civilizations. Wuxia novels detailing the adventures, romances, and feats of high-flying warriors, outlaws, sorcerers, and saints are the stories which Chinese kids have grown up reading for centuries. And it’ll always be wuxia to me, even if such stories get absorbed into steampunk.