A steampunk in her fantasy outfit on the market square of Ludwigsburg during the town’s Venetian Fair, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany
Some background information:
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American frontier, where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.
Steampunk features anachronistic technologies or retrofuturistic inventions as people in the 19th century might have envisioned them and is likewise rooted in the era's perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, and art. Such technologies may include fictional machines like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Other examples of steampunk contain alternative-history-style presentations of such technology as steam cannons, lighter-than-air airships, analog computers, or such digital mechanical computers as Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine.
Steampunk may also incorporate additional elements from the genres of fantasy, horror, historical fiction, alternate history, or other branches of speculative fiction, making it often a hybrid genre. It can refer to any of the artistic styles, clothing fashions, or subcultures that have developed from the aesthetics of steampunk fiction, Victorian-era fiction, art nouveau design, and films from the mid-20th century.
Steampunk is influenced by and often adopts the style of the 19th-century scientific romances of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Mary Shelley, and Edward S. Ellis. Its fashion usually combines elements of Victorian dress, fantasy, and technofantasy imagery. The influences of the Victorian era may include bustles, corsets, gowns, petticoats, suits with waistcoats, coats, top hats, bowler hats, tailcoats, spats or military-inspired garments. Steampunk-influenced outfits are usually accented with several technological and "period" accessories like timepieces, parasols and ray guns. Furthermore, aspects of steampunk fashion have been anticipated by mainstream high fashion, the Lolita and aristocrat styles, neo-Victorianism, and the Romantic Goth subculture.
Many of the visualisations of steampunk have their origins with, among others, Walt Disney's film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (from 1954), including the design of the story's submarine the Nautilus, its interiors, and the crew's underwater gear; and George Pal's film The Time Machine (from 1960), especially the design of the time machine itself.
A genre very similar to steampunk is dieselpunk, which combines the aesthetics of the diesel-based technology of the interwar period through to the 1950s with retro-futuristic technology and postmodern sensibilities. However, while steampunk Dieselpunk draws on the hiss of steam as well as on the Victorian and Edwardian aesthetics and cosplay, dieselpunk is focused on the grease of fuel-powered machinery and the Art Deco movement.
Every two years, the town of Ludwigsburg morphs into the Venice Carnival for three fun-filled days. Many residents and visitors disguise in Venetion costumes or as steampunks, wearing 18th and 19th-century gowns and capes, masks, fans, and hats. Beyond that, 2,000 artists present a spectacular array of entertainment, from acrobatics, stilt walking and fire juggling to music, drama, comedy, dance and singing.
The highlight of the so-called Venetian Fair is the Parade of the Performers from Ludwigsburg Palace to the Market Square on Friday. It is the curtain raiser – the prelude to three days of non-stop fun. Dressed in extravagant and spectacular costumes, the entertainers parade across a gondola bridge: a magic moment that transports the spectators – both masked and unmasked – back to 18th-century Venice.
The history of the Venetian Fair in Ludwigsburg traces back to Carl Eugen, Duke of Wuerttemberg, who resided at Ludwigsburg Palace. He visited Italy four times between 1753 and 1775. In particular, he fell for the city of Venice and its carnival. That’s why he decided to organise a Venetian Fair every year during his life, with free admission for everybody who wore a mask. After his death, the Venetian Fair fell into oblivion. But in 1992, the town of Ludwigsburg revived this tradition and has been celebrating the Venetian Fair every two years since then.
The city of Ludwigsburg is located about 12 km (7 miles) to the north of the much larger city Stuttgart near the River Neckar in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. It has about 87,000 inhabitants and still a city centre with a mainly Baroque appearance. The Residential Palace of Ludwigsburg is one of the largest Baroque buildings in Europe to survive in its original condition. It offers visitors an insightful tour through the centuries – from Baroque to Rococo to Neoclassical resp. Empire.
Today, Ludwigsburg Residential Palace contains three museums – besides the well-preserved interiors, which are also open to the public: the Baroque gallery, which is a collection of Baroque paintings, the porcelain museum and the Baroque fashion museum. Two smaller palaces complete the royal estate at Ludwigsburg: the hunting chateau Favorite (built from 1713 to 1728) and the castle set on a lake Monrepos (built from 1764 to 1768).
