Steampunk Costuming Made Easy – What is steampunk? How to make a steampunk costume inspired by your favorite character. In other words, how about a little steampunk.
For Halloween this year, my family decided to dress up as Disney Pixar’s Inside Out Emotion. There are 5 different emotions that fit my family composition (3 girls and 2 boys). Since many people have made these costumes before, we decided to put a new spin on the theme. We made steampunk inside.
Steampunk Costuming Made Easy
Now that I’ve used “steampunk” as both a verb and an adjective, what is steampunk? Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that uses steam-powered industrial machinery from the 19th century, technology and design inspired by the Victorian era. I love this description of steampunk: “What the past would have been like if the future had been faster.”
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Steampunk clothing is typically the style of ladies and gentlemen of the Victorian era. With things like dresses, corsets, gowns and petticoats for the women and waistcoats, coats, top hats and suits with bowler hats, tailcoats and spats for the men. Or you can go with military-inspired clothing. Steampunk clothing typically includes various technological and Victorian accessories such as watches, umbrellas, flying/driving goggles, and ray guns. Modern accessories such as cell phones or music players can be used in steampunk costumes if they are made to resemble objects from the Victorian era.
Simply put, making steampunk costumes is fun. You wear old-fashioned clothing and add some fun accessories, preferably made from brass. You can check out our women’s steampunk clothes and men’s steampunk clothes in these posts. But if you want to take your steampunk fantasy to the next level, steampunk a specific character.
See your character’s image reference and watch the movie. Differentiate the character in the colors and prints used in his clothes. For example, Inside Out Joy has blue hair and a casual gold/yellow outfit. Some of the dresses have turquoise star shapes.
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Brainstorm ideas that embody the character. Jai is very positive and literally shines in the film. He loves to be happy and bright.
Think of clothing and accessory ideas that reflect your character and ideas. As we exchanged ideas, we thought of things that would make people happy. The idea of happy music made us think of creating headphones for clothes. Blowing bubbles is something that spreads joy as the bubbles float, so we needed some kind of bubble gun.
To light up the dress like the character Joy, we can add copper wire battery LED lights under the ruffles of the dress. (We really like adding lights to our kids’ Halloween costumes because it helps them stand out when they’re trick-or-treating at night.)
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Gather some images from Pinterest or Google Images to create a mood board of how you want your outfit to look.
Once we had that mood board, it became the road map for us to follow as we created the outfit and accessories.
You can see how my daughter’s steampunk outfit turned out. A few things changed, but overall it helped us get a vision of where we wanted her outfit to end up. Soon I’ll be posting tutorials on how we made the different parts of her outfit.
How To Steampunk A Costume
I applied the same ideas to create mood boards for the other characters in Inside Out. Here they are.
Each person ended up with something a little different because each family member has their own style. Steampunk style really allows you to customize your outfit and fit you and your personality. Plus, it’s fun to take your favorite character and turn them into a Victorian ensemble with some cool accessories. You can absolutely DIY a thrift store steampunk costume if you keep an eye out for unique pieces and things you can repurpose! The amazing thing about the steampunk style is that it often takes pieces that are junk and turns them into treasures. When creating our steampunk costumes for Halloween, we’ve found this to be true many times over!
Every year, the whole family enters a treasure chest or display of goodies. Sadly, last year was 2020 and our regular chest or treat didn’t happen, so we put some steampunk awesomeness in our garage. We are all well dressed, even my long-suffering husband. Thrift shopping was my main source for all our costume supplies, and I’m showing you how we put together our thrift store steampunk below, costume by costume. I’ll even take a look at our candy delivery system, affectionately dubbed “Steam Punkin'” at the end of the post.
Steampunk Fantasy Women’s Costume
You can easily buy 75% of steam punk clothing from thrift stores. For both genders, really, but here’s what to look for in a women’s outfit.
Think Victorian-era colors in a black, brown, maroon, and dark green color palette. If it’s the humorous type, it will probably work. For our dress, I opted for a floor-length black skirt that was a little too formal for me. For my daughter, I bought a calf-length brown rocking skirt. It’s probably a little more modern than it should be, but it worked really well with the overall outfit.
Sorry for not having good pictures here, I failed to capture the looks for the tutorial at the time!
How To Diy Sexy Steampunk Costume
With really long skirts, you can play around with them a bit. Try pinning and a ribbon on one or both sides of the skirt to show off some leg…or leave it on the floor!
Sounds crazy, right? Listen me. I really wanted a hustle for my skirt. I looked on Amazon for one that was already made (like this one) but they were too expensive.
Exactly the same look I pulled off with a pair of drapes on a ribbon tied around my waist. Just for reference, these curtains are the shape I used for my engagement.
Make Your Own Steampunk Fashion On A Budget
I used a dress form mannequin to hold the hustle, but you can use a willing friend! I folded the long part of the curtain over several times and sewed a quick stitch or two to keep the material in place and secure. The skirt part curved around the sides to meet at the mid-back part and the gathered element created a perfect swirl in the parting. And it only cost me $3!
This shows that it’s always worth looking at materials in a different way to get the job done.
Can you wear pants for your women’s wardrobe? absolutely Think about the slim fit, the leggings are great. Stripes and the same muted colors look great! The pants will look amazing when you slip a pair of boots over them.
Steampunk Girl Robin Hood Style Costume
In this beautiful palette of somber colors, look for peasant blouses and tops with lace collars or sleeves. Something with a really high neck would be great too! If you’re looking for a little inspiration, think of the Victorian era.
Corsets are big on steampunk clothing, which we did a great buy on Amazon. You can find a good quality dress for around $30-$35. When we were looking for our thrift store shirts, we had in mind what the corset top would look like!
Protip: Leather. When you’re looking for steampunk clothing, one of the things you should really look for in a thrift store is a nice leather belt. Layer them in layers or make headbands or armbands out of them. Good leather can be expensive as a raw material, so spending a buck or two on a pre-cut strap is pretty cool! leather belt
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Leather belts are an amazing polishing touch to a steampunk outfit. Costumes are really about the little interesting details. A well-placed belt will completely tie the entire outfit together. I tied a wide, thick belt around my waist – the intention was to make a little pouch to hang, but I never got around to it. My daughter started with two belts, one of them I embellished a little, but when it came time to take the photo, she threw the dress piece in the air.
Of course, steampunk hats will be the hardest thing to find at the thrift store alone. There’s also that whole used hat issue that might seem a little weird. But for the last couple of years, our local Goodwill stores have had piles of brand new steampunk hats with tags for purchase. Could you DIY this? Yes, but it wasn’t worth it for me to spend time and collect materials for twelve bucks.
Of course, Amazon is always a good source for steampunk hats, but I’ve seen some that were more affordable recently in Party City and even at Walmart during Halloween if you happen to have one.
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As I mentioned earlier, a good steampunk outfit is all about the little details, so you’ll want to accessorize. Good luck
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