Canada's insider blog

So Justin Bieber is becoming a bit of a bad boy.

First the spiky hair and now he’s sporting a leather and metal arm piece by Canadian Steampunk artist Ian Finch-Field of Victoria.

Yes, the same Victoria where they drink afternoon tea and eat crumpets. That’s not as unlikely as you might think because Steampunk is all about Victorian-era fashion and technology. So what better place for a Steampunk artist to live and work than the city named for Queen Victoria herself?

Finch-Field never set out to put Victoria on the map as Steampunk central, but the gauntlet he made for Bieber is generating so much talk, that might just happen.

MTV calls Finch-Field “a leather magician”. He creates works of art from veggie-tanned leather and brass. Throw in a few rivets and studs, an LED light, a vintage pocket watch and a compass and you’ve got a fashion accessory that makes even Bieber look like a heavyweight in the movie Arthur Christmas. Bieber sings the theme song.

Finch-Field figures he spent 30 hours designing and creating the gauntlet – for a cool $3,000.

Gauntlets aren’t the only things he creates for the Steampunk crowd. Check out the wrist-cuffs, breastplates and pouches he sells through Etsy.com under his SkinzNhydez label.

Better yet, visit Victoria, Steampunk capital of Canada, or is it the world?