Fashion and style changes- what does a rockabilly pagan wear?

Last night I went down memory lane and looked at all the photos I had been tagged in on Facebook and how different my style is now from when I was in my early twenties.

When I was at younger I was at art college and I dressed more Gothic than anything else. Black and red was my watch words and I loved the style. I even brought a PVC dress for my 21st birthday! 

This picture use to get me a lot of 'likes' on vampirefreaks!

Everything I wore was pretty much red and black!

As time went by and I got more involved with the faerie and fantasy art community I found my style became a bit more hippie with other colours like purple and brown creeping in, my ears even grew longer and pointy!

At chalice well gardens 2009

For a little while my fashion sense went out the window, no longer feeling I could carry off being gothic as I got older and was no longer a student.

Then this happened!

I won a beautiful dress on eBay from Hell Bunny and I decided to learn how do do my hair in a vintage style to go with it, well I had never received so many compliments from friends and complete strangers  and it made me feel good!

Now I don't dress like this everyday so now my fashion style is a fusion of rockabilly, 40s/50s style along with a more ethic/ pagan clothing. So I have evolved a rockabilly pagan fashion style!

But of course there is always the excuse to get dressed up as a faerie!

 A dread pirate!

or a Steampunk!

My clothing choice has changed over the years I think I feel at my most confident now with my style and really that is all that matters.

Steampunk on a budget

Recently I have been to two events where I dress Steampunk. The first event was the Faery ball at Avalon and the second was at a friends rather awesome Halloween party.

For both events I dressed with the same key items but mixed it up a bit.

In this photo you can see my costume in full. The only thing that I really spent money on was the corset I am wearing.

This can be purchased from http://www.corsets-uk.com/ who do a lovely selection of steampunk attire. I managed to get mine off ebay for a fraction of the rrp! It pays to shop around.

The skirt was from a charity shop, I paid £3 for it and to give it a steampunk look I attached skirt lifters which in essence are just suspender clips. you can find a variety of them on sites like etsy but I got mine from Sock dreams: http://www.sockdreams.com/products/double-grip-clips:5992

The socks were cheap from ebay as were by boots.

My tweed jacket was another charity shop steal. I brought it back in August at Broadstairs Folkweek for £6. It was missing a couple of buttons but I had some military buttons to replace them and I added some patches I had to make it unique. The jacket label says it was originally from River island.

In this photo you can see the patches and badges I added to the jacket.

The Steampunk staple: goggles! These were provided by my dear friend Martin of EBG Leather, as was Leon's top hat: https://www.facebook.com/EBGLeather

My dread falls were made by a friend.

At the Halloween party I was surprised to discover that a competition was held for the best dress male and female costume and I got first place!  Still very surprised.

Receiving my prize!

As part of my costume I also made a pair of wings but I made them a bit to big to wear but Esther Remmington did manage to take a photo of me wearing them.

Next time I will make them not so wide!

When buying things for a Steampunk outfit it is always best to search what you have already and visit your local Charity/ thrift shops and plan in advance!

Avalon faery ball and fayre.

On 26th October I went to the faery ball and fayre in Glastonbury. I have wanted to go to this event for several years and this time I booked the travelodge, brought the tickets and set off.
We left Kent at 6:30 in the morning and arrived in Glastonbury just after 10 o'clock and spent the day mooching about, meeting up with all my faerie friends and fellow artists.
Now from my previous blog post regular readers (and I know you exist because I have met a few of you over the weekend!) will know my heart lives in Stonewylde and I was lucky enough to meet the author who was doing a book signing in the lovely shop Cat and the Cauldron. I was so excited to meet Kit and to show my appreciation for her creation I gave her a mounted print of one of my paintings 'Monarch of the Stones' which Kit seemed very pleased to receive. A lovely lady!

Me and Kit taken by Mr. B

After perusing the wares on display (and buying a few) in the shops and at the fayre we had to get back on the road.
We were staying in a Travelodge in Wincanton which was a 40 minute drive from Glastonbury so we had a short nap before getting ready for the ball!
I decided to go steampunk for this event and over the previous month I had been raiding charity shops and eBay for anything I could use for my costume. I also made some wings to wear (it was a faerie event after all!) but decided against wearing them because a) they were only made from Cardboard and would get broken, b) they were too big and would have been a nightmare to navigate through the throngs of people in the hall.

Me and Leon, Steampunks!

Everyone looked amazing! It was a shame it was so busy as I didn't get to see everyone's amazing outfits. There was a lovely mixture of fantastic creations. Faeries brush wings with pirates, mermaids, Ents, goblins, Celtic maidens and other Steampunks.

Celtic moon look positively lovely!

With Esther Remmington in her gorgeous costume made by Martin of EBG Leather and Sarah Aiston, my faerie arty friends. (Only of the bottles of drink was mine, promise!)

We danced the night away to the Dolmen and with sore feet I hobbled back to the car with a huge grin on my face. What a night!

Sunday morning was a dull and wet and my plan to walk up the Tor and visit the Chalice well gardens was put on hold. Instead we went back to the hall and talk to more of my artist friends, including the lovely Linda Ravenscroft, Tamara Newman and Sue Clyne. I also brought a silver bracelet from the very talented Terry English and the new book by Emily Carding called Faery craft which features many of my friends.
All too soon the day come to an end and we had to get back on the long journey home, tired but very happy.

I didn't take any photos so I would like to thank Esther Remmington and Sarah Aiston for letting me use their photos!

Steampunk and the Mainstream

Last night was a veritable feast of the eyes for the closing ceremony of the Paralympics. In the beginning VT I was interested that the first person on screen look slightly steampunk and then came the vehicles! Giant mechanical beasts, a ship and a clock with huge working gears. Oh my yes THIS was steampunk.
Even the graphics on screen had gears, steam and cogs. To say I was excited as the spectacle unfolded would be an understatement.
The amazing creations were from an art group known as The Mutoid waste company who started in the 80s and specialise making fantastic sculptures from old cars and influenced by the film Mad Max.

  

It is always interesting when a subculture ( yes Steampunk is a subculture) is depicted in the mainstream. We have yet to have a full blown representation of Steampunk in the mainstream. Closest we got so far is a few movies with mechanical elements such as Wild Wild West and Stardust to name a few.
The closing ceremony was so original and exciting to watch even though most of it was a Cold Play concert.

Also did anyone else notice the pagan elements? The show it's self was a festival of the flame, (fire festival) Flame throwers were used to scorch a circle with symbols on to the grass.
The spirits of the elements were called (calling of the quarters) and a huge sun mask which looked like a green man burned high above.

Well done Kim Gavin, I was presently surprised and well done to all the amazing athletes, the volunteers and everyone else who made this a summer of sport to remember.

A Steampunk event

Today I went to one of my first Steampunk event at The Historical Chatham Dockyard. It was a bit of a foul day in terms of weather and I have a very painful sore throat too :(
The event was part of The Medway Festival of Steam and Transport and there were many fine examples of steam engines and classic cars, it was just too wet and cold to stand around and look at them :(

Luckily the Steampunk village was in a dry engine shed and they had plenty of things to see, buy and entertain the casual onlooker.

There were many fabulous stalls selling all sorts of Steampunk goodies ranging from whole outfits to Goggles.

I got to watch my first ever Tea Duel which was highly amusing and would have liked to have taken part if I had known what Tea Duelling was before hand!

I should have watched this video.

 Tea Duelling in action!

This was then followed by a fashion show where we got to see some of the highly elaborate and beautiful Steampunk attire.

Sorry for the poor qualities of my photos, I only had my phones camera to take pictures with.

I didn't get a photo of me but I know one of the stall holders did so I will be looking on Brass Goggles to see if she will post it up there.

A rather enjoyable day, just a shame about the weather and my sore throat. can't wait to go to more Steampunk events in the future!

oh yes before I forget there was also this cute little wannabe VW camper there too :) We followed it on the way home but it was on the back of a trailer.

Steampunk mini top hat

On Monday 9th April I am going to my first Steampunk event at the Chatham Dockyard in Kent.
As part of the Medway Festival of Steam and Transport their will be a Steampunk village with artisans selling their wares and a fashion show! If only I had know sooner I would have seen about having a stall there but as it is I am going to go dressed in my Steampunk finest.

http://www.thedockyard.co.uk/NetsiteCMS/pageid/1024/Steampunk%20Village.html

Last year for the Canterbury Faerie Festival I made lots of mini top hats for sale and I even sold my own Steampunk top hat which I am wearing in this photo shoot.

The mini top hats I made.

Steampunk photo shoot and the pocket watch mini top hat I sold.

So I had to make another one!

I had run out of the buttons that I used on the first pocket watch hat but I quite like these square ones.

The little pocket watch was made out of air drying clay and then painted. 

Would you believe these hats first started their lives as Styrofoam cups?

I am really looking forward to this event and will be blogging about it when I get home. Trains, classic cars and Steampunk? I can't wait!

For those new to Steampunk here are some links to find out more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk Steampunk Wiki

http://www.abneypark.com/ a Steampunk band

http://brassgoggles.co.uk/blog/ A great blog and forum

1000-Steampunk-Creations-Neo-victorian-Fashion, gear and art book My art is featured in this book