For this week's Steampunk Saturdays post I have finally managed to get around to photographing my current most worn steampunk outfit featuring a western inspired dress from Spin Doctor.



Since I bought the dress, I've worn it to several different events and I really enjoy wearing it. I always wear it with my vintage western/Victorian style boots which I knew would be just perfect for steampunk outfits even though I wasn't attending any events when I bought them.

It was a bit nippy getting these photos so I'm not too sure how much more wear I'll get out of it this year, but I have worn it with a blouse underneath so that does help to make it just a little bit warmer.

A post shared by @helenmaegreen on Oct 4, 2017 at 4:18am PDT

I have a few additions and improvements in mind for the outfit for the future, including a gun (thigh holster maybe?) and saddlebags (something like this) so I have something to put my stuff in when I go out. I am also contemplating options for some additional jewellery - I usually wear the dress with my cog necklace but forgot to put it on for these photos. Here are some grainy mobile phone snaps so you can see what that looks like.




Eventually I'd also like to upgrade my goggles as I've seen some amazing real leather and brass options which would be a really nice addition. That being said, I'm still really happy with my DIY ones for now.

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Autumn mirror selfies. #ootdsocialclub #ootd #vintagefashion #vintagestyle #1940s #1950s #vintageblogger #sharesies #autumn #fall

A post shared by @helenmaegreen on Oct 18, 2017 at 8:29am PDT

Last Saturday Iain and I headed over to the Subaquatic Steampunk Weekend at the Submarine Museum in Gosport. This was our first steampunk event that we have visited as a couple, so we were very excited about being able to dress up.

We started off our day by watching Victor and The Bully play their set, which we really enjoyed. We hadn't heard of Victor and The Bully prior to getting a flyer for the event but we checked them out on Youtube and really enjoyed their sound.



Here's a song we particularly like, called "The Devil's Got My Soul". Not all of their music has quite such an electroswing sound to it but it's all good, and you know I love me some electroswing anyway!


We also had the opportunity to see Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer, whom some of you may have already heard of due to his also being known amongst the vintage community. Mr. B does "Chap-hop", which is sort of a Hip Hop parody (in this case played on a banjolele). If you enjoy Mr. B, you may also like Professor Elemental.



I think Mr. B was probably my favourite bit of our day out. He's very funny in between songs, not to mention his songs themselves are amusing. It's hard to choose a favourite song of his to show you (I strongly recommend checking him out on Youtube) but here is an acid house remix which was phenomenal:


We also had a great time looking round all the vendors. I didn't take many photos at all of the shopping (sadly really, because there was some wonderful stuff for sale). We both could have spent a lot of money but in the end we only came away with a top hat for Iain's costume. I also didn't take very many pictures of the other steampunks because I am always too shy to ask if I can take people's pictures, but if you are at all interested in steampunk I recommend having a look at other people's photos from the event on Flikr as there were some absolutely incredible costumes.











As for our own outfits, we did put them together on rather a tight budget but I think overall we did pretty well.We will both be upgrading these over time, but as with dressing in vintage clothing, it's something that you need to slowly build up and add to as you find pieces in the right style and size. I love a good charity shop scavenge, it's all part of the fun.














We were also captured a few times by other photographers. These first ones are by Steve Spurgin.









And this last couple are by Ross Underwood.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am skint. Not horrendously so - but thanks to my various insurance payments which were all due this month plus a few more expensive activities than usual, I am going to have to be a bit careful for a while about how I spend my money. However, since September/October is "back to school" time for me, I usually like to have a few new outfits so that I look extra professional and hopefully mildly terrifying when I start teaching the ickle freshers*.

So what's a girl to do? I decided now would be an excellent time to issue myself a few challenges so I feel like I have some new outfits without having to spend very much (or possibly any) money.

I hope I'll get the opportunity to have a play around with a few different challenges as I have several in mind, but to begin with I decided I'd start out easy and compile a bit of a capsule wardrobe with the aim of creating as many outfits as possible from a set few items.

I remembered the gorgeous Miss Victory Violet doing a similar thing a while ago so I referred to her posts to see how many individual items she had used. Since she seemed to do very well with 10 items I decided to pick out 10 items for my own capsule wardrobe and see how many combinations I could come up with.

*I am just joking. I don't want to scare the freshers. I get freshers flu every single year though, so frankly they can keep their germs to themselves.











Above are the 10 items I selected. I have:
1. Navy blue pencil skirt
2. Navy blue flared skirt
3. Light blue button-up blouse
4. Navy blue striped bardot top
5. Floral jersey top
6. Blue floral peplum blouse
7. Blue checked vintage dress
8. Blue floral "Elizabeth" dress from Dolly and Dotty
9. Purple cardigan
10. Grey cardigan

Because the intention was to create as many combinations as possible, I chose things that I hoped would be good for mixing and matching, thinking carefully about the colour palette I was working with. Using blue as my main colour seemed sensible since I already own and wear so much of it! It was also a good opportunity to use some items that I don't wear often enough, like the blue pencil skirt (which is a bit lumpy because I made it myself - I'm not the best at sewing but I give myself points for trying) and the lovely peplum blouse which for some reason I just never reach for, plus it buttons up the back which is a bit awkward when I'm getting dressed by myself.

I didn't place any restrictions on my accessories or shoes, simply selecting whatever I fancied to match each outfit.

Here's what I managed to come up with:

















If I've added up correctly (don't count on it - maths, like sewing, is not one of my strong points) then I have 24 combinations which isn't too shabby for a first attempt! I will definitely be trying to wear at least some of these over the coming weeks.

Let me know in the comments how you think I did and which is your favourite outfit. You can also see a couple more combinations I could have made here and here. I hope I may have given you some ideas for how you can mix-and-match items of your own (I certainly gave myself some great ideas for the future) and maybe I'll do this again sometime, although I want to try my other challenge ideas as well.