Steampunk style--what is it?

As tempting as it is to begin my residency here at SPWS as fashion reporter with a verbose and pretentious tirade about style philosophy, I believe my audience is likely informed and intelligent enough to already know enough about the genre to grok the basics.

Let me make this quick so we're all on the same page: I will address steampunk fashion as a style of dress that has nostalgic elements lifted from the 19th century (and other time periods, not limited to the past) married to speculative nods toward the fantastic, cheeky, or romantic. I think we can all [mostly] agree on this vasty description.

So, with that out of the way, let's talk nuances. Let's talk about one of my favorite style motifs, one that belongs equally well to the mainstream as well to a plethora of subcultures: STRIPES. There are entire books on the pattern, including a fantastic read by Michel Pastoureau called The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes. Pastoureau considers the stripe as an optical illusion of sorts that "clarifies and obscures the view, disturbs the mind, confuses the senses". Marvelous!