I first saw the "live" steampunk culture about five years ago, and I still remember the feeling, as if I had ended up in a parallel London of the times of Jules Verne, steampunk women made the strongest impression on me then - not only because they looked cool, but also because this image has real inner strength. This is not just a hat and a corset, this is a real heroine, a scientist, an adventurer, an inventor, and not just a young lady at a ball. In fact, steampunk for women was born at the intersection of Victorian aesthetics and industrial science fiction. Therefore, you need to combine elegance and mechanics. I would advise you to start with the image: think about who your heroine will be - an airship pilot? A watchmaker? A spy with a mechanical eye? From this it will already be clear what elements will be needed. For example, I started with something simple — I took an old vintage dress from Avito, repainted it, added a metal chain, screws, made a tool holster out of leatherette. Then I added glasses (it’s better to make them yourself — take old welding glasses and decorate them with brass parts), bought gears on AliExpress (there’s a sea of cheap fittings there), and bought gloves at a second-hand store. It’s very important to avoid monotony. Sometimes I see girls who just put on a corset, a fluffy skirt, a gear on their neck — and that’s it. But that’s just gothic with mechanics. Real women in the steampunk style are always history, functionality, and character. I once lost a costume contest because my look was “too beautiful” — and the winner was a girl with a locomotive repairwoman costume, everything was dirty, sooty, but — perfectly in style. So don't be afraid to get dirty, add real nuts or fake grease. It adds realism.