Steampunk leather mask with porthole

Ukrainian steampunk maskmaking collective Bob Basset has just posted their latest: a sweet, fetishy little number with glass-and-brass portholes. I own two of their earlier efforts now, and they're among my most favorite objects.
Steampunk mask. Leather, cuprum, glass. Стимпанк маска. Кожа, медь, стекло.


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This is a good example of what I absolutely don't get about the steampunk aesthetic-- even in a fictional world where something like this might have use, you'd have rather talented people creating these very crude objects that suggest neither time nor available materials were an obstacle.
It's like... willfully bad design.
On the other hand, that Cthulu mask they did was freakin' amazing.
looks Raputan.
I must ask, what is the deal with you and fetish masks? In the traditional sense, in that it is an object that you feel has power or you are simply obsessed with, or do you have a sexual fixation for them? I'm not really sure I want to know, but you keep mentioning them, and that you own them, so let's have it.
I believe Abe Sapien will miss this.
I had a visceral reaction to seeing this mask, & another much worse one when I read the word 'fetishy'. I honestly feel like I was touched inappropriately.
To be honest, if I saw this comin' at me outta the dark, I'd need a fresh set of Depends.
Does this not remind anyone of Karl Ruprecht Kroenen?
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1981913088/ch0028978
Only with less swastikas...
C3PO
I don't think it's really meant to be good design. It's just meant to look interesting. Art can be ugly... and even then, not everyone will find it ugly. (nor will everyone find it to be art, but that is a nasty can of worms to open up).
@#7 - I also thought of Karl Ruprecht Kronen - not Abe Sapien.
I thought of him in his "museum ninja fighting mode" and not of him in his SS regalia, though.
Got a black Cthulu mask from them.
Looks absolutely fanastic and really unnerves anyone who sees it.
Not to everyones taste, but perfect for halloween.
Steampunk Gimp
aaarrrggghhh
they don't make gimps like they used to
Fetish
4. An abnormally obsessive preoccupation or attachment; a fixation.
It's not necessarily sexual, people.
@7, 10: Ditto. I thought of Kroenen.
@13: I think half the issue here is how does this mask indicate any kind of obsessive fixation? Or indeed, how can a single object indicate fixation? Wouldn't it be better indicated by a whole collection? Considering this, I think it's reasonable that people jumped to the conclusion that Cory meant "sexual fetish."
That said, does everything unusual and made of leather have to be labelled "fetishy"? If this was made of cotton or felt, would be it described as "fetishy"? I doubt it.
Check out the photo blog linked to in previous posts on this group. That backpack they made is AWESOME.
Hah! Clicking through, I recognized the larger of the two eyepieces. It's a repurposed eye-lens from a ubiquitous soviet-era gas mask. I have one of my own in a closet somewhere. I thought this dang thing looked slightly familiar on one side.
Can't say the rubber mask looks any prettier, in fact I think I prefer the somewhat disturbing leather to the definitely disturbing greyish latex.