My Desperate Plea to Bring Back Steampunk

Corsets adorned with gears. Cravats laced with cogs. Outfits ornamented with leather satchels, brass compasses, and skeleton keys. And not complete, of course, without a pair of bronze flying goggles perched atop a velvet top hat.

Was it just a fringe aesthetic? Or something more—a political ideology garnished with lace and brass? A romantic rejection of discrete, disposable technology in favor of a golden age where machinery was revered, distinct, and decadent.

Maybe a Steampunk revival is exactly what we need.

Besides, let’s be honest—it looked cool as hell.

Invention

A fusion of Victorian opulence and industrial grit, steampunk has its roots in the burgeoning science fiction genre of its time. As steam engines revolutionized the world, writers like H.G. Wells and Jules Verne imagined new possibilities set in futures powered by pistons and brass, crafting fantastical adventures like The Time Machine and Around the World in 80 Days. 

The term steampunk itself didn’t appear until the late 1980s, when sci-fi author K.W. Jeter jokingly coined it as a twist on the then-trendy “cyberpunk” genre—think Blade Runner, Tron, and gritty neon-soaked dystopias. Where cyberpunk imagined the future through circuits and decay, steampunk looked back—envisioning what might’ve been, had we never moved beyond steam.

In that way, steampunk is a genre of retrofuturism: a way of imagining the future from the vantage point of the past. Of course, none of these aesthetics knew what they were at the time. It’s only with hindsight that we can categorize their style and ideology—once modern, now obsolete, reframed as a future that never was.

1982's Blade Runner showcasing retro-futuristic cyberpunk style. Image sourced from Pinterest

With the understanding that steampunk is, at its core, a design-centered aesthetic—can we really call it punk?

After all, the term “punk” has been warped beyond recognition since its politically charged debut in 1970s fashion and music. What once stood for radical nonconformity, rebellion, and anti-establishment ethos has, in many cases, been watered down to mean little more than “edgy” or “different.” These days, “punk” often gets slapped onto any subculture with a grungy look and a little DIY flair.

So is the “punk” in steampunk just decorative? Maybe. But maybe not. Perhaps beyond the gears and bustles there is a quiet, yet firm, rejection of sleek minimalism— of temporary tech, of the frictionless modern world. Steampunk dares to romanticize inefficiency— to not only tolerate, but revere opulent, stalwart machinery. To believe in form as much as function. In a modern world fixated with the discreet and disposable, that might be the most punk thing of all.

The Golden Age

In the early 2000s, steampunk quietly threaded its way through online forums and cosplay conventions, growing from a niche fascination to a full-blown subculture. Its momentum eventually culminated in SalonCon—a convention named in cheeky homage to the intellectual parlors of the Victorian era.

The first SalonCon was held in 2006, almost poetically timed with the imminent release of the iPhone. While the world braced for the sleek and seamless, a counterculture gathered in corsets and cravats, choosing brass over glass.

Steampunk Cosplayers. Photo by Dominique Linel (CC BY-ND 2.0) via Flickr

Designers like Dior and Galliano took note, and almost overnight, the DIY costumes once sewn together by hobbyists were gliding down the runways of Paris and New York. The 2010s were suddenly awash in chic waistcoats, sepia tones, and high-fashion goggles.

Steampunk seeped into pop culture across mediums. Its neo-Victorian fingerprints can be found in films like Hugo (2011) and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes (2011), and video games such as BioShock (2007) and Alice: Madness Returns (2011). Even musicians got in on the action—Slipknot’s Sid Wilson famously donned a brass-goggled leather mask crafted by Ukrainian artist Bob Basset in 2013.

Christian Dior. Paris Fashion Week 2010. Image sourced from Pinterest

Still from Alice: Madness Returns (2011). Image sourced from Pinterest

The movement’s rise wasn’t just aesthetic—it was quantifiable. In 2013, IBM used social analytics to forecast steampunk’s ascent into the mainstream, noting that online discussions had increased elevenfold between 2009 and 2012. But the same report also predicted a wave of mass commercialization: “Steampunk will shift from low-production, high-cost ‘craft’ manufacturing to mass production.”

Isn’t that the antithesis of steampunk? A movement built on craftsmanship, creativity, and mechanical reverence—reduced to mass-market kitsch. The ideology became lost, and lovingly constructed costume pieces became replaced by plastic knockoffs hanging on racks at Hot Topic. The very soul of steampunk, once forged in ingenuity and rebellion, became consumed, commodified, and prepackaged for Halloween.

Losing Steam

Though steampunk has largely fallen out of the public eye—written off by some as an outdated embarrassment, lumped in with galaxy-print leggings and (please, I beg you) fanny packs—its fashion and philosophy continue to thrive in quiet corners of the internet.

And as our world shifts from high tech to hyper-tech, from touchscreens to artificial intelligence, I can’t help but wonder: will we find our way back to the simple gadgetry of steampunk? Will the pendulum swing back once again, to romanticize a promised future that never was? Or will some new countercultural style rise up to take its place—iPunk, perhaps? (You heard it here first.)

Maybe nostalgia isn’t a flaw—because sometimes, to move forward, we need to imagine what could’ve been. Maybe it’s our way of building the future, gear by gear.

And seriously, I need those bustled skirts to make a comeback.