I like these movements, and I find them to be conservative. The heart of Progressivism is the belief that “progress” is inevitable, along a path laid out by progressives. This is a creative reimagining of that path. It doesn’t condemn the past as being backwards, it respects it, and celebrates good parts of it, and reimagines the present and future along new paths. The present is a fork in the road, and our direction is always up to us.
I asked them if they saw this as an ongoing influence for them and they replied oh yes, you should come out for Victorian Days, the Steampunk handcar competition on the old railway is an amazing thing to just watch. So, it actually does have an element of reverence for history, inherently conservative whether those participating realize or even agree. The Victorian era holds a level of charm, fascination and reverence there that the Revolutionary War holds for us here, sort of gestational, the beginning of what they know and love of their home.
Of course, being so popular in and about Silicon Valley it's been fused with that touch of wackiness of which northern Californians are so inordinately fond. I suppose it could be termed “Techno-Victorian” for those who don't quite grasp the whole thing, even though it's been around for going on several years now.
Southerners aren't all that likely to embrace it, the Victorian era was by and large a dark age for us, outside the few booming carpetbagger towns that arose. A high Victorian tower house or commercial building is an oddity here, it's just uncommon because of the general postwar economic collapse.
But, we worked up several things for them to provide a gentle entry, fashionwise, into this scene or movement, however you might describe it. They're very excited about their belated efforts, and optimistic.
Me, it's fun to look at but I don't see it possessing any widespread appeal outside northern California and the Pacific Northwest. For their sake and ours, I'd love to be wrong about that, though.