Vintage/steam-punk style

"Prepare ye hot-air balloons and the brass goggles!!!"

Source: http://steampunkxlove.tumblr.com/post/11191275470

Hey peeps,

Today there was an annual vintage fair at the town's Guildhall that has won "The Best Vintage Fair in UK" award in the past and I am pretty gutted to have missed it AGAIN! I hope to make it next time for sure though.

This brought back memories of this one time (last year before Christmas) I had gone to a Vintage Masquerade Christmas Ball held by University's Steam-punk society called "Kraken Soc." (excellent bunch of people).

It was FANTASTICALLY AMAZING!!!


There were drinks, tea duelling, live music by the steam-punk band "The Dark Design" (read about them here), small circus acts, magic acts, loads of folk ceilidh music and dancing :D What could be better??? We even had lots of amazing hand-made masks that we made ourselves in the mask making workshop organised by the same society just a week ago. You can check my own mask here.

My mask!

So, the best part of the whole masquerade ball event was the creativity and enthusiasm of all the people who attended regarding their costumes. Everyone was dressed to impress in a vintage/steam-punk/diesel punk theme. And I just loved the way everyone turned up!

More so, I was quite anxious as to what I would wear as I had no clue what counts as an appropriate costume from the things in my wardrobe. And since I had never done this before I really wanted to wear a steampunk themed costume, and I thought, "what do I need…a leather belt? Some lace? May be a victorian style dress…" Frankly, I was literally struggling to come up with a solution. I googled for some help with the costume and found this as one of the wazillion ideas that came up:

Example of an ideal steampunk costume… Isn't it fun?

What you notice is that most steampunk costumes comprise of a victorian dress with laces and frills, mostly but not necessarily white top, a pair of brass goggles, stalkings (not too necessary), leather boots, and a leather corset/waist belt which is a definite MUST! So, to match that I looked into my heap of clothes, and after flipping it all upside down three times, I finally decided, "okay, let me take out the most relevant looking clothes and accessories that I have with me." So, I pulled out two dresses, one pink balloon helm knee length dress, and one black with glitters, a golden corset, a big brown belt, and a white shirt. And frankly, I was not convinced :/ Then it hit me… By some cosmic coincidence I had bought a dress about two years ago in India that resembled the victorian style a bit. It had frills and lace and had a balloon cut bottom. I reached out for it and there, perfect match :D (at least I thought so). I now had my costume with me :)

My dress and the final ensemble

For the make-up, I didn't go for an extravagant look, and to be honest it wasn't that difficult as well. I touched up my eyes with liner and kohl and added some dark colours on my cheeks and lips.

Simple make up is all I need :)

As for the hair I didn't really have a lot of things to use but hair clips. So, I went for a side parted, one-sided bun with most of my hair loose on my left shoulders just like these lovely ladies.

 

See what a simple hairstyle can bring out on such beauties?

I also put in some long chunky gold danglers, a bracelet, a long necklace and my very own hand made mask. I hope you liked my combination and look. Trust me ladies, it is REALLY easy to assemble your own costume from scratch. Need I say again that all you need is some frilly skater dress, a leather corset or waist coat, and leather boots, you can also throw in some leather straps, gloves and goggles… And there you go :)

Have fun beauties,

Love always...