In a series of articles, Fashion North explores the importance of corsetry throughout fashion history. Here, fashion design and promotion student, Lily Ellen Rodell, explores steam punk fashion, pirates and corsets.
This fashion moodboard is inspired by pirate style and the Steampunk subculture. It’s a facet of fashion you don’t see much of in mainstream fashion by designers or collections. It is usually confined to fiction fantasy stories and events, where people dress up in character. As a student I love all things medieval and old history, with a big focus on skeptical figures, such as witches and pirates.
I am not the only one. There are many fans who love the fantasy that a woman can be fighting and empowering while wearing the feminine touch of a corset and skirt while also combining a tomboy appearance.
As a young girl, these inspirations stemmed from the media with films such as Pirates of the Caribbean and A Pirate Fairy (a movie from the Tinkerbell franchise), and have continued to inspire fashion interests for a long time.
It would be great to see more representation of this in the fashion industry rather than a fantasy costume saved for spooky season one time a year.
History: Piracy and fashion
- The Golden Age of Piracy is said to be between the years of 1650 and 1750.
- The origin of a pirate comes from the coastal farmers and tradesmen that were struggling to make ends meet and were forced to go out to sea
- At the time highwaymen were a huge part of everyday terrorism – men who robbed travellers, and pirates were the ocean version; robbing others on the sea,
- Women in the medieval and renaissance era on the ocean were seen as bad luck and a woman being on a ship after it had set off would upset the God of the Sea.
- A female pirate, if they existed, were likely to have been sexualised and, likely, would have worn sensual clothing. This would would have furthered outraged decency among the public during the century.
- When the concept of a fictional fantasy heroine on the sea was created, the outfit was essentially of its time, but far more sensual with shoulders and thighs on display. These ideas are even pushed now through fiction fantasy of steampunk fashion, inspired by the Victorian industrial era where femininity is combined with practicality.
