Sand By The Ton - Review 1

Steam Society goes to Sand by the Ton, fashionable hedonism ensues:


Last weekend Sand By The Ton rocked the bay area, and seriously surpassed my expectations. It was off the charts in terms of elaborate madness and mega awesome music. It was particularly bizarre for me since I'd been awake for no less than three days and manically working the whole time. The event was like something out of a delightful nightmare, with a huge San Francisco-style indoor carnival, two story indoor burlesque house performance stage, the world second largest Tesla coil, 5 swimming pools which looked super gross, and of course, sand literally by the ton.

Tesla Coil with 30" lightning bolts. Hard to tell from the angle, but that coil is HUGE and the second largest in the world. I was probably 80" feet away from it in when I took this shot.


The warehouse was so much bigger and intense than I could have imagined, and I had a totally excellent time. It was a bit self-indulgent since I spotted several of my designs being worn by participants, and I was debuting a new custom outfit which was worn by one of the headlining DJs while he played the best set I heard all night. I haven't taken close up detail shots or well-composed editorial shots of the outfit, but keep an eye out for them in the next week or two, since this is an outfit I'm going to feature in my 2009 lookbook. The pictures I took there were not super high quality and I spent most of the time tring to get my camera to cooperate with the rave-tastic lights flashing everywhere.

In the crowd, from the back:


In the Opulent Temple DJ booth during performance:

The crowd. I was swimming through the crowd taking photos, and most people are taller than me, so its hard to tell just how HUGE and EXCITED this crowd was.


Being worn in the crowd I spotted my GNR Slash Steampunk Top Hat, that I made a while ago as a custom order , and managed to snap a blurry pic of it.

Can't live without one of your very own? I have one last Adult Small left in gray and black right here. And here's another photo that a someone else took. Hat is on the far left.

That's my quick synopsis. I have more pictures/videos/etc, and I'll be posting them next week. Lots of new stuff up for sale in my store, come over and check it out!

Circus-Themed Feature

I really liked this spotlight collection that I was featured in today, so I took a screen shot to show you. It's called Circus Fun!, by PaperPlatapus. It will be live on the etsy site until Friday morning, so you can check it out here until then. My White Furry Burning Man Goggles were included, which you can take a look at by clicking on the photo of them below. Props to some of the other awesome featured artists.

A few of my favorite new items - Retro Tech Collection

Just a quick update showing off a few of my favorite new items that are up for sale in my online store. A lot of my favorite jewelry items are ancient vintage-y pieces of technology with a futuristic twist. These are a few of my favs from my new summer 2009 collection called Retro Tech.

Bronze Robot Working Clock Necklace (better than both the pusher and shover robots, yo)


Pulp Adventurer's Hot Air Balloon Race Necklace ( Hot air balloons are the oldest form of human air travel technology)

Vintage Brass Clock Winding Key Necklace


Rockstar 3D Drum Kit Charm Necklace


Explorer's Steampunk Flying Compass Necklace


Uber Elite Gypsy Opulence Necklace. One of my ultimate all time favorites, combining brass and copper with a techie brass chain form a vintage erector set. (Peter take note)


Also, I want to add a shout out to S and O productions for featuring me in both an etsy treasury and blog. Thanks Sarah! I'm also currently featured in this eyewear collection treasury. Thank you!

Wearable Technology or Bust

It's finally heating up here in San Francisco, and things are getting busy for Steam Society. First off I wanted to let you know about a few cool articles and websites I've been featured on so far this month. I'm happy to announce that Steam Society is now a listed member of Bust Magazine's shopping directory of female-owned businesses, listed here on their website.

Now this next feature is actually really cool. One of my futuristic techie necklaces was used as an example of wearable technology at the bottom of this article and interview about self-proclaimed geek and fashion design Diana Eng, who was a contestant on Project Runway and the author of the books Fashion Geek and . The article includes a tutorial on how to make this following necklace using LED lights as glowing gemstones. Not really my aesthetic style (obviously) but I love the concept of integrating technology in places it doesn't need to go.


My copper android lotus flowed necklace was used as an example of related items, and you find it in the first row of featured items at the end of the article page. This necklace IS my aesthetic style, note the differance.

Sand by the Ton - July 11, 2009

This weekend Opulent Temple and Big Art Studio will bring you a massive beach-themed mega party called Sand by the Ton. They aren't kidding, there really will be 200 tons of sand trucked into the American Steel Warehouse in Oakland where the event will take place. Crazy awesome lineup, including some of the bay area's best DJ, as well as some of my favorites. Best of all, I'm designing some brand new custom items that will debut that evening. Speaking of which, I've got to get back to work on that. If you are in the bay area, plan to be at this party.

Fashion Nerd