El Investigador Publishes 11th Edition
El Investigador #11
The Spanish language steampunk magazine El Investigador released its eleventh edition this month. It’s pirate themed but with a retrofuturistic twist.
Says Araceli Rodríguez, editor, “We see the pirates as if they were heroes, villains having fun and brave adventurers, but that’s only the romantic side.”
A pirate certainly wasn’t worried about his appearance. During the voyage there was no way to take a bath, only with salt water from time to time. When they ran out of food, they ate each other, lost limbs, suffered from scurvy or fever in the best case. How many who call themselves “pirates” in the retrofuturist scene are aware of this?
It doesn’t matter whether you travel by sea or sky, the magazine says, although we’d like to pretend that airship travel is spectacularly comfortable. Not the pirate life, in any event, as El Investigador reminds us.
They have a review of Mireile Calmel’s Lady Pirate: Les valets du roi in their latest edition and one of the Victoriana role-playing game as well as an article about ghost ships such as The Flying Dutchman. Download for free and enjoy!
This week in fashion 16.1 – 22.1.2012
Boots from Forever 21
This week the finds seem to mostly be on the Asos shop. Which is really coming through for those in need of dieselpunk or goggles style sunglasses.
Or bags. Such as this leather old boy satchel, perfect for Steampunk, especially if you’re portraying some kind of messenger. And then there’s these two satchels in a sort of almost distressed type of browns, one a vintage style satchel, the other a vintage style school bag. Both affordable and pretty epic in my opinion. And ok sure, it’s no Cambridge Satchel Company or Zatchels, but at least it’s affordable and has the right look (something that can’t [always] be said about those two leading satchel companies). Mind you if you can afford to spend money on a real leather school bag style statchel, the Zatchels Junkyard collection and the Junkyard Barrel Bag collection may be something you want to look into. And of course there’s the saddle bags too.
Now I own a Cambridge Satchel and I’ve seen (and touched) the Zatchels in real life (as they sell some at the Antwerp Urban Outfitters) and from what I gather is that the CSC bags are made out of thicker and less flexible leather. Does that mean they are actually sturdier? I wouldn’t dare to go that far as my Fossil bag is made out of lighter and more flexible leather than the Zatchels bags and that’s still a hell of a sturdy bag. Frankly seeing both are in the same price range, I’d choose purely on the basis of the design and colours should you want to go with something from those two shops.
I found a lovely pair of brown boots at Forever 21 last Saturday. They were less than € 30, which is really cheap, they’re very comfy and they look nice. Whether they’ll last long or not I wouldn’t dare to say, but they do make for excellent convention footwear! I’m going to be wearing mine with my steampunk Whovian costumes for sure. They’ve also got some nice brogues and then these boots which are pretty good for more post apocalyptic and distopian outfits. Like I’ve said before, if you’re going to get footwear just to wear at conventions, you may as well get a comfy pair at a place such as e.g. F21 and not spend a lot of cash. If you’re going to wear them practically non stop, you’re better off investing in a pair of quality footwear. I hear a lot of good things about Fluevog, personally I couldn’t comment as my steampunk footwear is by Kickers and Schuh.
Photo by Bert Van den Wyngaert
Our own Hilde Heyvaert of the House of Secrets Incorporated was interviewed on Decimononic last week, a fine jewelry and accessories community where she talked a bit about The Gatehouse, steampunk fashion and jewelry.
Hilde write a fashion column for every single one of the Gatehouse Gazette‘s twenty-one issues between July 2008 and November of last year. Asked why she got involved, she told Decimononic “it would be really cool to have a column that helps people getting to know some of the substyles of steampunk and dieselpunk and help them with ideas for outfits and costumes. Especially if they’re on a budget.”
We often see spectacular steampunk outfits online but the average genre enthusiasts, who hasn’t got a fortune to spend on costumes, tends to be forgotten. Hilde never did in her articles for the Gatehouse Gazette.
You can download all of the magazine’s back issues on our website by the way. They’re free!
As an independent costume and fashion designer, Hilde’s familiar with the struggles of jewelry makers who read Decimononic. Her advice? “Make sure your work is visible in the community, be on Twitter, Tumblr, Etsy, LiveJournal. The more exposure, the more people will get interested in your work and buy it.” And, “Don’t be afraid to ask steampunk blogs and magazines whether you can get a feature on them.” The Gatehouse Gazette covered many designers during its run and we’re still interested in hearing from people here at the blog.
J. Edgar theatrical release poster
J. Edgar, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was released in the United States late last year but we hadn’t had a chance to see it yet in Europe until last week. The biopic about the former FBI director, directed by Clint Eastwood, is a great history piece but ultimately disappoints because there isn’t much of a storyline.
DiCaprio absolute submerges himself in the role and excels as “the most powerful man in America.” The costumes, the décor, the lighting all enforce a sense of nostalgia that should appeal to dieselpunk enthusiasts. The movie shows a lot of history from the anarchist hysteria of the early twentieth century to the 1930s War on Crime to fears of Communist subversion in the 1950s and 1960s.
Throughout it all, Hoover tries to make himself into the ultimate defender of law and order, the only man who stands between America and moral decay. Coupled with his struggles as a chaste homosexual who’s never quite able to commit to the man he loves, it makes for an intriguing picture of the controversial crime fighter.
The plot, unfortunately, is far less illuminating. Perhaps the problem is that it tries to do too much. The strength of other great biographic films of recent years, including The Queen and The King’s Speech was that they depicted just a small part of an historic figure’s life. Through it, the viewer is able to get to know the person much better than a film that aims to cover half a century of American history can.
DiCaprio is struggling for attention with event in this film. If watched as a docudrama, it’s spectacular. As a motion picture though, it falls short.
