Well, tbh, you don’t need to put in Victorian elements to make it Steampunk- that’s the brilliance of the multicultural steampunk challenge: you think how that particular culture would have evolved with just steam for power and they didn’t necessarily have Victorian influences. They’re their own steampunk.
Yesyesyes, that’s definitely true. Yikes, I hope it doesn’t come across as that. I don’t want to imply that adding traditional elements of Victoriana immediately makes something steampunk, but rather that mixing the fashion styles present in India at the time is what makes it so. I admittedly tend to focus a lot more on punking of fashion, rather than adding overt sci-fi elements; a character choosing to appropriate and integrate motifs from the invading class, on their own terms, rather than the other way around.
So much of sci-fi is about addressing human issues, rather than the actual technology, and Steampunk has a tendency to ignore that entirely if not prompted. Yes, I definitely enjoy playing around with the design aspect of these sorts of pieces, but I’m also extremely keen on the historical and social context that informs it. Not saying I’m on par with Gavin Fernandes or Yinka Shonibare when it comes to fashion design with a message, but I am trying to keep it in mind and encourage the critiques from people who are better informed than I am.
While there is definitely room for the marginalized class to adopt and mimick the dominant class as an act of resistance, very often, this adoption happens as a result of assimilation into the dominant class’ terms. I’d have to ask you why you think the adoption of Victorian elements would make an outfit automatically “steampunk”, even given the elements and the history you’re working with, because as valeriane pointed out, you don’t actually need to turn to Victoriana for that at all. There were MANY other things happening in India at the time, and ardhra has pointed out that a lot of Victorian fashions had already influenced Indian fashion at the time itself (no matter how “traditional” it looked). (See my response to your Ask for more.)
Just trying to keep somewhat apprised of this whole conversation, because it’s pretty awesome.
(Source: shoomlah.deviantart.com)
