Popularity of Vintage
- Started
- Last post
- 44 Responses
- prophetone0
i think in these times of toss away furniture and clothes etc. some people, not most, look for things that are unique and not like the rest. maybe to relive the past or to be hipsters. also vintage in many ways is cheaper. a teak dining table on craigslist might be $$ but to have one made nowadays would be $$$$$$$.
- SteveJobs0
i've always thought the answer was much simpler. everthing is cyclical.
you get tired of your shiny or trendy new dresser/jeans/car/etc. the only way you can go is backwards. generally the more in-tune (read: obsessed) you are with the relevance of any given item and the scale you use to measure its relevance, the faster you'll rotate through the cycle.
- SteveJobs0
i have a friend who has a very interesting take on fashion, particularly with those nearing and beyond their 40's. he says their style is generally indicative of the best period of their lives. for many, that is their college years and as a result you'll see a lot of people who are seeminly stuck in the grunge era or maybe the hair band era. i always think of this when i see the old guys wearing the hawaiian shirts and khaki shorts - the guys who reaaaaly like to put margaritaville on the jukebox.
- vaxorcist0
vintage can be a strange thing.....
I liked my 60's and early 70's cars.... don't have them anymore, but some cars about 15-20 years old these days can be perfectly usable and not so different from newer ones.... like an early 90's Integra....
I loved my vintage 70's Marantz stereo reciever...
and I'm considering getting this...
- Tungsten0
For me it usually comes down to the craftsmanship, and a classier more well thought out design.
vs.
- Josev0
^ I think that has little to do with vintage and more to do with good design. There are also well-designed cars being made today. The Aztec is famously known for being designed by committees and marketing teams.
Btw, do you own that? They're mechanical nightmares and have huge problems with rust corrosion.
- Josev0
Maybe the popularity of "vintage" is a backlash against Modernism. I'm a strict modernist from a philosophical standpoint but am beginning to question it.
I thought the comment about Ikea was a ltitle harsh. Some of their goods are not as durable, unfortunately, but the idea is good. Being in my 40s I remember what cheap furniture looked like when I was younger. Ikea is miles beyond that.
- abettertomorrow0
Another side of this is that it happens to be very cost effective to resell already established brands and ideas. Think about hip hop sampling old pop songs, or the endless number of Hollywood remakes/sequels. Recycling old ideas is safer and easier than coming up with new ones.
- randommail0
Do we all agree that this happens mainly in America?
And if there are symptoms of this elsewhere, that it's due to America's influence.
- abettertomorrow0
the latest example of this, Charlie Sheen
- seriously what's up with all his stupid 80's slang?HijoDMaite
- reinitialize0
----- get rid of stupid chinese (button blocking) thread bump -----
- jaylarson0
i think bob dylan was on to something when he talked about nostalgia being death.
- pr20
Ikea is actually a perfect example as in essence it's meant to look well designed but is made of such inexpensive materials that it's guaranteed not to last. What we are being sold is not the piece of furniture but the appearance of the furniture. The Ikea pretends that one can have it all: good design for very little money, but in the ends you get a good looking piece of crap. Incidentally the old stuff used to be done much more substantially because back in the day people bought items by seeing AND touching them (in the store as opposed based on shinny adds from the internet or magazines) thus to sell they had to create objects that felt substential and in turn were of quality. Of course then it gets more interesting as in Ikea we can touch the object and we can feel that we are dealing with a piece of shit, yet somehow the mesmerizing appearance of how well it fits in their "rooms" allows us to forget?
- vaxorcist0
I loved my old Marantz 2275 because it sounded soooo warm, so different from a newer technics amp I also had, and so much different from the bose ipod dock...and the knobs were cool, different...
I walked by a bunch of stores with fashion images of models wearing current clothes but sitting on/in old cars of a certain pseudo-history-that-never was.... kind of like the mid-20th-century romantic world of displaced european aristocrats that seems to be what lots of fashion brands are selling... see Banana Republic, etc...
- abettertomorrow0
Like Josev suggested, any mass-produced good offers a trade off. In some ways, the Ikea product is arguably "better" because it enables more people to have affordable bookcases or couches or whatever it is they sell.
At the same time, the efficiencies of scale and low price come with a trade off in terms of durability, craftsmanship, etc, leading to a certain amount of nostalgia for vintage goods.
- CanHasQBN0
I see the infatuation with the vintage aesthetic mostly in younger people. I think this obsession with the past may lie in their inability to push forward and create the future. They want to be perceived as interesting, cultured, casual, rough around the edges, and someone with a story to tell. But they're just collectors of objects that truly interesting people have made.
I also feel that the inclusion of every culture into America has diluted every single one of them into an overall state of
- not even you give a shit about what you're saying... awesome.odds
- CanHasQBN0
overall state of
- ???HijoDMaite
- why do my posts keep getting cut off???CanHasQBN
- because you're posting drivelodds
- wait for it...SteveJobs
- SteveJobs0
state of overalls
- CanHasQBN0
of
- ..................HijoDMaite
- CantHasQBNSteveJobs
- of nothingnessabettertomorrow
- mikotondria30
overall state of "; DROP TABLE 'qbn_posts'; ?
- They probably won't fall for that one.mikotondria3
- doesn't have sa priveledgesSteveJobs