Steampunk Costume - 01

The second costume I hope to have by Dragon*Con this year is a Steampunk costume.

I actually designed this in '09 and am just now getting to it. The idea with this costume is I wanted to do something Archaeology based, so I designed it based on men's safari gear. The beauty with this costume is it's the kind of thing I can just keep adding to at my leisure. With the Padme build I'm not sure I can do this completely, but as long as I have the skirt, boots, white shirt and an accessory or two done, it's complete enough to wear. The skirt will have a panel under the jacket that's sort of underbust-corset shaped, and will be coulottes instead of a skirt, with a bit of a bustle on it. I am still contemplating what kind of accessories will go with the Archaeology profession, but I plan to throw in some Ancient Egyptian influences because I loves me some Ancient Egypt. Maybe even a choker with the Eye of Ra, maybe even a few little Stargate references thrown in.

I found some actual Victorian boots on eBay that are in exquisite condition except the soles need replacing. I have to test and see if they aren't too tight to wear all day though.

I'll either go with these, or these other shoes I have and make spats for them.

As of right now, all I have done is the corset. Like the Padme gown, I decided to make the corset historically accurate so I can re-use it for historical costuming purposes.

I used the pattern from page 71 of the book "Corsets" by Jill Saleen, and I used this PDF called The Corsetmaking Revolution which I cannot recommend enough. It uses math to alter a corset pattern from a book to a perfect fit and was a great learning experience. For this corset I have two layers of cotton coutil covered in an outer layer of cream silk dupioni from SilkBaron.com. I used the flossing pattern from a corset on the next page in the book. It has 1/2 wide steel bones. Oh, and I made this portrait for funsies.