"What an 'authentic' VSF adventuress should look like" Topic

When Robida link link tried to depict 20th C. fashion, he extrapolated from what was then the uttermost 'innovative' / 'modern' / futuristic dress: the bicycle rider attire.

link = tinyurl.com/3egylo6

Having to combine the requirements of sportswear with *decency*, the trousers were awfully baggy and totally shapeless.

For everyday use by an active 'futuristic woman' not having to ride, Robida added a kind of open skirt, making the whole more elegant and indeed far more feminine

Thus, if Victorian Science-Fiction is Anticipation Scientifique / 'the Future' *as seen by people of the time*, a VSF adventuress in miniature should look like Robida's drawings. Less sexy than many Steampunk chicks, but *authentic*.

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VSF figurines manufacturers, not that for male military unifoms
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link Robida gave the 'ultra-modern' bicycle rider loose-fitting breeches and knee socks to his most 'futuristic' troop types: air machine-gun

and tank crews

chemists

airboat crews

I like the outfits in the fourth image, would like to see some miniatures in that vein.

I am glad to see this. I am SO tired of alleged Victorian adventuresses depicted as Goth chicks in corsets and goggles.

While these ideas may be more authentic, the main problem with Victorian and Edwardian ladies' fashion is that it was ing hideous.

If we're in an alternative universe with steam-powered dinosaurs and crap, I say damn the authenticity and have the ladies dress like s. It's meant to be fun.

Surely that second one is only a swearword in Ned Flanders' house.

(P.S. Those last four pics aren't showing up for me.)

diddly, what word?

(P.S. Those last four pics aren't showing up for me.

Ditto.

With Terrement on this one.

While you are quite correct Plynkes using that framework why be restricted to the Victorian/Edwardian era at all?

Indeed. I dunno. It all seems like fantasy gaming to me, so I don't quite see the point in getting uptight about such trivia as whether to have hot-pants or petticoats. Once you've got Star Wars toys running around your tabletop any Victorian flavour it might have had has already gone for me.

If the technology, history, even the basic laws of physics are different, why can't some of the fashions be, too, if it's what folks want?

The basic laws of physics have not changed. We simply have not discovered them yet.

However, I do agree with Plynkes that they should not dress like Ethne Eustace, who has nothing better to do than hand Harry Feversham a white feather. If Ethne ever had an adventure…

It is all a matter of personal taste and so argument is pointless fun.

I still say African exploration attire is most appropriate for a dino hunt : )

I have to say, I want my Victorians to look Victorian. I also want their mad devices to look Victorian, and especially they should feature finely-made polished wooden struts, fine leather and a lot of gutta-percha. As if I knew what that was. More brass fittings, less giant rivets. No 40K lumps with chimneys glued on.

I am quite tired of the steampunk vogue, which is the thinnest veneer of Victoriana smeared over the tattooed ennui of goth.

No 40K lumps with chimneys glued on.

Harrumph. MY Cyclops Class Steam powered land cruisers are 3rd ed 40K Rhinos, with SMOKESTACKS glued on. NOT "chimneys". The rivets are tastefully done.

That would be "fewer" giant rivets, Senor Squint. Not "less". I can only assume that your Grammar Tutor was even less than scrupulous in presenting his credentials to your Guv'nor than you usually are.

I hasten to agree with you about "punk", though. It is a loathesome concept.

Mexican Jack Squint:
I am quite tired of the steampunk vogue, which is the thinnest veneer of Victoriana smeared over the tattooed ennui of goth.

Howard Johnson, er, Whitehouse is right!

While I don't have a problem with the 'Punk' concepts (ie, anti-establishmentism), it really doesn't fit very well in a Victorian-era adventuring concept. The people that had the time and money to adventure were the upper classes, not the unwashed anarchists!

I have nothing against unwashed anarchists – in fact I applaud their presence. Nothing to ginger up the ruling classes quite like an unemployed bottle-scrubber shooting at a cabinet minister at ten in the morning!

But anarchists are proper dingy characters in someone else's hand-me-downs and home-made bombs. Steampunk anarchists are hopeless poseurs in cloaks and buckles and f*&^%$# goggles around their bespoke top hats.

I'm agin it.

I'm with Howard all the way on this one!

Howard Johnson is right!

Though, I do have a lot of the offending items. My personal favorite item being made right now is Colonel O'Truth's HMSW Gargantua, which is abso-freaking-lutely gorgeous.

As far as fashions go, I think African safari attire is probably best for a lady adventuress. But that fourth picture (the last four did not work for me either, by the way) would be a good 'full dress' version.

Corsetted and gartered demimondaines are all well and good, but they should be kept in the sporting house where they belong.

The pictures of military scenes appeared initially (because they were still memorized in my browser buffer? Indeed the links work once you have opened the full documents (which deserve to be seen if you don't already know these two short publications of Robida).
Anyway they come from the links provided immediately before them in the OP:
La Guerre au Vingtieme Siecle, 1st version (the war between Australia and Mozambique!)
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(scroll down for chemists, then for air machine guns)

La Guerre au Vingtieme Siecle, 2nd version
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Scroll down:
tank crew at: II Les blockhaus roulants
Chemists at: IV Le Corps Medical Offensif
air crew at: VIII Le voltigeur aerien N°19

I think the image of the HG Wells character on Warehouse 13 represents and ideal Vicotian adventuress.

"African safari attire is probably best for a lady adventuress."

A pity then that African safari attire postdates the Victorian period. So some anachronistic 20th Century fashions are more acceptable than others, I guess. :)

Not entirely, Plynkes. The Foundry figure of Mrs French Sheldon is based on an American woman of that same name who bossed her way through East Africa in the 1880s dressed in a tailored safari costume of her own design.

A picture in the Army and Navy stores catalogue from 1900 shows this:

Note several women's versions of the pith helmet, including one fetching helmet with a sort of ruffly bow.

Frankly, I doubt that when Mary Kingsley toddled through west Africa or went off to serve in a hospital in the Boer War she said "I need to raid Beyonce's lingerie drawer for something to wear."

Ha! I got the whole "Safari style comes from the 20s and 30s big game hunters and not the Victorian explorers" thing from an article written by a guy named Whitehouse.

That'll teach me! :)

But we're not talking about Mary Kingsley anyway, we're talking about women who live in a world of Star Wars toys with rivets glued to them fighting "Prussians" (not the German Empire, mind you, but "Prussians") and plastic dinosaurs from the Early Learning Centre. What Mary Kingsley wore has nothing to do with anything. Authentic ain't in it. It was the very first casualty of the war. Day One. Oh Hell, I'm just repeating myself now. So I'll stop.

Toodles! :)

Read that article again, Dylan! It talks about Norfolk jackets and pith helmets and the Kitchener khaki style – although the full Hemingway look with a zillion pockets and leopardskin hatbands is later.

(Incidentally, that article got me quoted as an authority on safari dress in an issue of GQ some years after I wrote it!)

Seriously, you can anything you like in your VSF world. My own preference is to have a great deal that is exactly accurate, just so the wilder additions seem more, well, convincing (or, alternatively, more ludicrous). Read my 'Mad Misadventures' series of novels for smart 12 year olds to get a sense of what I mean.

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Start here –

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Ah right. You see when someone says "Safari Style" to me I think more Daktari than Lord Kitchener, so I guess we were talking at cross purposes.

Personally, my taste in VSF doesn't stray very far away from H. Rider Haggard (and even then I prefer the more "historical" Quatermain stories: the ones all about Zulu history and witchdoctors and stuff), with the occasional goofy Doug McClure picture thrown in for a bit of fun. But I do love to debate and discuss on the internet so. :)

The lots of pockets look is well pre-Hemingway – Speke was well known for wearing a vest of his own design with numerous pockets while exploring the Nile with Burton.

Mexican Jack Squint:
My own preference is to have a great deal that is exactly accurate, just so the wilder additions seem more, well, convincing (or, alternatively, more ludicrous).

This.

Well I'm ashamed to say I'd not heard of Robida. Really interesting stuff considering the time period.

Here's what I mean by Safari attire:

Trousers, probably khaki.
Boots.
Linen or cotton blouse.
Belt with pistol.
Wide brimmed hat or pith helmet.
Jacket optional.

While late 19th C. bicycle rider attire may not be 'sportswear' enough for adventuresses, Robida's idea to turn *men*'s contemporary uniforms 'futuristic' by the addition of typical bicycle rider breeches and knee socks

(sometimes with leggings worn over the socks ) could make 'authentic' VSF miniature soldiers?

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All the Adventurwe a Victorian woman needs…

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If she's from Barnsley…

Now that, sirrah, is funny!

Glad my wife doesn't frequent these boards.

Looks like my Granma's coal kitchen stove from way back when I worn knee pants.