Wasn’t steampunk coined as a satire to cyberpunk? It’s always been a bit more shallow than a look forward into corporate dreamworld where the little guy gets left int he dust and only has their freedom.
I mean retro-futurism is more a narrative device than a subculture, and it has a place beyond aesthetics but I didn’t know people referred to it as a subculture in itself.
Steve Jackson made buttons?
That ship done sailed already
No, I had it made at a convention.
Buttons, t-shirts, laser cut decorations of the Ogre …
My GURPS Cthulhupunk is about 2 meters behind me, along with the rest of my GURPS collection, of course.
Well, the WW2 German stuff was inspired by older fashions, and quite a few modern military styles have elements from German WW2 designs. It all crosses back and forth. The German helmet designs from WW1 were light years ahead of anyone else in utility and protection. But for a long time, even after we had been copying the materials technology, we were hesitant to copy the shape because it was too distinctly “German”, even though it predated the Nazi era.
We work on a lot of the original textiles, and the quality of materials was fairly high until late in the war, but the design was very hard to beat. I can’t tell you how many times I have examined the construction details of some piece of kit, and really been amazed at the cleverness of design and construction. One of the things they did was standardize components, so parts fit on different items. that fulfilled two purposes: Parts to fix or mount one thing can be taken from a completely different class of thing, so fewer types of spares are needed. Also, if one factory got bombed, whatever it made was probably not unique, so there were alternate sources.
Well, I went off on a tangent again. At least I did not do a bunch of paragraphs on how wartime shortages lead to material innovations. Like plastics.
Give me a break. That style of coat have been used in many a world’s military for over a hundred years, from the US and Britain to Russia and everywhere between. The ones in the link are much more fitted, as many women’s clothes are. But while the Nazi’s still claim the Swastika, they don’t get to claim the long wool coat.
That Japanese group got in trouble because of some of the embellishments were a bit too close, but even their costumes didn’t look like actual Nazi uniforms.
But military aside, the long wool coat is a fashion staple.
Notanazi
Notanazi
Notanazi
Yeah, I had the exact same thought, as well =P …
I bought one of their coats a while ago. The size does run a teensy bit small, but only so much that I can’t wear a super big sweater underneath it - it’s fine over thinner clothing. And I can’t complain about the quality, apart from the zipper which I replaced myself. I’m wearing it for the third winter in a row now and it still looks gorgeous. It’s very warm, too!
I used to wear a West German military surplus coat along the lines of the top picture. In many ways, it was a lovely thing. It weighed three times as much as any other overcoat I’ve owned, probably deserved an armor rating and was warm in blustery sub-zero (F) conditions. But people did react to it. I never quite enjoyed wearing it again after an old family friend a Frenchwoman who had lived through the German occupation, just sort of looked at it. I said, “It is kind of German looking, isn’t it?” She made a face and said something along the lines of, “Same damn factories.”
I have an American Autoduel Association lapel pin somewhere. Couldn’t find images of it, but it’s similar to this patch they still sell.
Yeah, it’s called LARPing 
I understand people’s reaction to someone wearing a German coat, but the irony is that a really large number of fashion trends, items and accessories are directly tied to military styles that the civilian market adopted. Also it wasn’t like you were glorifying anything or making a specific statement other than “I like how this looks and it’s warm”.
Froze my ass off at Incurlik Air Base in Turkey until I bought a surplus Russian Army fur cap in one of the local stores. My AF boss did not greatly appreciate my wearing it on the flightline, but damn that thing was warm!
No lie, I would wear that.
Because the West Germans are still Nazis?
I used to have a surplus Swiss coat that sounded a lot like yours: heavy, impenetrable to cold, and not even one of the ones that was based off of German patterns. (Because, let’s be honest, a good amount of the post-war Swiss stuff was.) Just by virtue of being big, obviously military, and grey, it got reactions. I stopped wearing it for that reason.
As for the coats in the link: dieselpunk is apparently now the term for clothing that looks similar to designer labels that local stores have had for years. Good to know.
Not at all. My older family friend was fine with Germans as best I could tell. What she didn’t like is the continuity with WWII-era uniforms. (I’m not talking about SS black here, just the resemblance to Wehrmacht gray.) I know enough about her particular exposure to the occupation to believe that her sensitivity was unfeigned.
Say hello to Winkiepunk.
