Hat's are a major accessory item in any Steamer's wardrobe
Nikki's Red Topper |
One of the things I love most about being a Steampunk is the opportunity to own and wear a wide variety of mad hats. Especially toppers and now a stove-pipe.
I've added this page so that I can show off some of mine and Nikki's hats but also to give some ideas to anyone who's thinking about decorating their new hat. |
Nikki loves red. So when she saw a red topper on sale at Lincoln she had to have it.
Decorating it we used a set of beautiful goggles I brought a long time ago from Steampunk Design on ebay. These were the ones that inspired my own early attempts to make goggles. Nikki used a scarf brought from a charity shop and some ribbon with little medallions hanging on it from Dunelm, the feathers are from Hobby Craft. The piece of jewellery on the back, a "woggle" with a lovely old lantern design, was brought at a local craft fair - though I think they're mass produced. The result is a very distinctive hat that really blazes colour and style. |
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The Steam Master's Top Hat
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This time I went to town on this. I brought a very old Eastman Kodak camera lens patented in 1887 with the intention of building it into a set of goggles, but it was too big for an winding barrel I had so I managed to fined an old brass candle stick in a charity shop. It was exactly the right diameter and cut down nicely into two pieces. Luckily a magnifier lens I brought in The Works was also a perfect fit. The main ring of the camera lens cover is part of a brass door stop cut down. The inner cover of the magnifier lens is made the same was as the shields on the Gunner's goggles. The telescope was brought in Past Times and mounted on to a base plate using some odd brass plumbing fittings I had laying around. The rest of the fittings, the Discombobulator, etc. were made from clock and watch parts I already had. The strapping was made from an old hand bag brought specifically for the project. These goggles are really nice, the look fantastic, you can wear them and see though the lenses but they weigh a ton!!
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The Steam Gunner's Hat
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I commissioned this beautifully made leather shako from Owen Humphreys. I always wanted one. It has gone through a couple of incarnations all with the heavy blast goggles and decorations added by me.
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The Baron's Top Hat
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I always wanted to do a voodoo inspired top hat especially to go with my Mississippi River Boat Gambler's costume. This one is a basic stove pipe with a small resin skull, cut and repainted by me, I mounted a stone pendant I had in my jewellery collection on the skull along with a black feather. The removable fabric cover, which laces up the back, is in a glow in the dark print. I also added playing cards from a card game that included the correct symbolism. Friends brought me a blow pipe and darts when they returned from holiday so I included that too. I decided to finish it off, in a most respectful way, to use the veve of the Baron Samedi in decorating the top.
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