Retro&Vintage
Where the traces of our aesthetic tastes leave their imprints on Granny's carpet
Velvet pumps, patinated leather boots, gleaming Formica furniture, colorful wallpapers, or a hefty oak table.
Each era left its own distinctive visual traces; which one is your favorite? Because, let's be honest, these days almost everyone finds an iconic hat or shoe, a characterful picture frame, or a history-laden desk somewhere in the department of the past. A piece of clothing or an object that carries this very particular, cozy sense of comfort that a shiny new item simply lacks.
But what is it about that old stuff that makes us love it so much? And above all, from when on does it have that something about it? And is that "when" perhaps a different one for each person?
I remember all too well the moment when it became clear to me personally that what seems obviously outdated to one person is pure gold to another:
It was one of those moments when my mother, as clichés would have it, was venting about her mother-in-law, my granny.
This time it was about her interior decor, more precisely about one very particular carpet. It was a long, brown hallway runner patterned with orange diamond shapes. That very carpet is and remains, for all eternity in my eyes, the symbol of my grandmother’s somewhat sepia-tinted, excessively tidy apartment, which reeked of cigarette smoke and red cabbage. And so I liked that carpet partly for sentimental reasons, but also simply because I thought it was genuinely retro-cool.
From her point of view, my mother’s, there was nothing more hideous than that piece of linge de la maison. Had it been up to her, all carpets that had been unleashed by the stylistic efforts of the 60s would have deserved a swift demise in a waste incinerator.
Since my work as an artist, as well as my personal taste in matters of decoration and fashion, is strongly shaped by nostalgic themes, my interest was piqued. All the more so because I wouldn’t actually describe myself as a nostalgic person (no thank you, I really don’t want to live in the past; I like my computer and human rights, just to name a couple of examples).
From that point of view, it must be something else that draws me to old things or retro styles. And perhaps there is even an explanation for why my mother, on the other hand, finds them almost repellent—but which one?
So I did a bit of reading, and one thing quickly became clear:
An across-the-board consensus runs like a red thread through couture, jewelry design, hairstyles, architecture, and interior design alike: I’m not the only one who’s into Grandma’s carpet—vintage and retro are absolutely in vogue (well, I had noticed that already).
But there is more: in fact, the questions of why and from when have not only been discussed but also studied in a variety of scientific contexts. The answers to these interrogations are fascinating, and I admit they often made me smile a little, about myself and about my mother.
If you are reading this article, you may well be a big retro fan yourself, or perhaps vintage shopping at flea markets and on eBay is one of your favorite weekend activities. If so, these next pages will let you take a closer look at your own affection as well.
So here is an overview of what I learned from online magazines, studies, and Wikipedia. Let's begin with the definitions, so we actually know what we're talking about:
So what now—retro or vintage?
To better understand how we weave both old things and new ones in the style of past eras into our everyday lives, we first need a clear definition.
Vintage vs. Retro, often mixed up, muddled, or confused, are two terms that theoretically describe different phenomena.
As vintage
(English: “old-fashioned,” “old,” “classic,” “from a specific period”—Wikipedia),
We describe an object that comes from the past but is not considered outdated; instead, we see it as historic and valuable. An old pocket watch, for example, is vintage, whereas an old plastic wristwatch is usually considered just shabby. The exact definition, however, is not clear-cut; everyone has their own personal idea of what counts as vintage and what remains just junk. Our opposite reactions to Granny's carpet make that very clear (more on that later). But first, one more important question:
So what is retro then?
(Latin retro “backwards,” retrograde “turned backwards”—Wikipedia)
Retro theoretically describes something that revives a style of the past without actually copying it. For instance, when the plastic watch mentioned above imitates the colors and shape of a popular 90s Swatch, yet its technology meets today’s standards, say as a smartwatch, which would suddenly make it interesting again versus our vintage pocket watch. In practice, however, I think one must add something: nobody would call a piece of furniture modeled on the Victorian style and containing modern elements retro. There is a strong general connotation of the word retro with styles of the last century.
All in all, this would make Granny's carpet vintage… But I would still like to describe its style as retro—even if that wouldn't be correct according to my own definitions.
The boundaries between the terms are apparently not impermeable. Instead of retro, one could also say “in a vintage style,” meaning in an old style. That would, for example, fit the above-mentioned Victorian-looking piece of furniture.
It seems to me that an object originating from an era we strongly associate with the term retro (Granny's carpet or a vinyl record from the 70s, for example) is often labelled that way as well.
At the end of the day, I think most of us have a general sense of which term is more appropriate. After all, our everyday use of language shapes these designations far more strongly than any theoretical definition.
So much for terms and linguistic subtleties—but what about the feeling? After all, the first question was:
why do I actually love vintage?
Many renowned magazines have recently addressed the topic as well, as I discovered: for example, in December 2024, British Vogue published an article titled "The Biggest Vintage Trends of 2025, According to the Experts," written by Emily Chan, which leaves no doubt that, when it comes to clothing, old is in.
In February 2025, both the French magazine Le Journal de la Maison and the British Homes and Gardens published articles on vintage-trend interior design, which I can only recommend (links in the sources).
I have read many, many, many publications. At the end of the article, you will find links to my favorites as well as a few personal shopping recommendations (not influencing, just some lovely browsing sites for vintage- and retro-style furniture and décor that I discovered during my research and am happy to share with you).
According to journalists and researchers, the question of why is to be answered primarily on a semiotic level: after all, isn't a vintage hand fan or a retro suitcase also a symbol, in addition to its aesthetics?
Yes, apparently it is above all that: a symbol.
But what do retro and vintage stand for—roughly speaking?
In all the articles, publications, and entries I could find on the subject, the authors agreed on which aspects are associated with earlier styles:
- 1. Quality items — made before mass production, perhaps even handmade.
- 2. Identity — something not produced in a factory in the Far East but clearly tied to a specific culture (or at least broadly to a Western one, in this case).
- 3. Ecological values — second-hand instead of overproduction and pollution, and thus less exploitation of workers in production countries.
And all of this ultimately resonates in the feelings these things evoke in us:
Security, warmth, and even belonging. They convey a sense of uniqueness and individuality. We sense that they have a history, and perhaps they even let us share in that history a little ourselves…
So in the end, it’s nostalgia, after all…
As it turned out, my beloved rug was not only retro-cool and a sentimental link to my Granny but also an object that represented a kind of sustainable lifestyle for me: something that lasts, something you can’t order on Amazon, something that wasn’t produced in Taiwan, something that I can indulge in, cozily and pleasantly self-satisfied in my hipster identity.
Since others have already covered the why in sufficient detail, I’ll keep it brief here and move straight on to the next question: When?
When is a style no longer outdated but retro—a piece of clothing no longer worn out but vintage?
As I was pondering and researching this question, a particularly striking example came to mind, one that my fellow millennials will probably be able to relate to: the resurgence of the 80s, which have become highly fashionable again for some time now.
My childhood and teenage years in the late 90s and early 2000s were strongly marked by an intense rejection of any stylistic affiliation with the 80s.
There was nothing more hideous than epaulettes, nothing more embarrassing than a mullet, nothing more dated than disco. And then, slowly but surely, the faded echo of David Bowie and Madonna reverberated back into our lives, from mustaches to colorful tracksuits, growing louder and louder. When Pierpaolo Piccioli presented his ready-to-wear collection for Valentino in 2018, he transported a nostalgic world back to the future—and there was no trace of 80s cringe.
A documented phenomenon:
In fact, during my research, I discovered that there are many theories and studies on the subject. Here is my personal, simple summary:
It takes people about 20 to 30 years to grow up and rebel against the previous generation. Whatever remains of the fashions from 20–30 years ago is then elevated to the realm of classic styles with a nostalgic cheer.
Here is a brief overview of the ideas that inspired me to make this statement:
1. Nostalgic appreciation only arises once enough time has passed for memory to become softened.
For example, Fred Davis writes:
"The past must be far enough away to allow… sentiment to overlay the harsher actualities."
(Fred Davis, Yearning for Yesterday, 1979)2. Nostalgia functions selectively: it erases what is unpleasant and preserves what is iconic about an era.
Svetlana Boym writes:
"Nostalgia is selective memory… [It] excludes the pain and focuses on… perfection."
(Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia, 2001)3. Temporal distance makes an ironic appropriation of earlier styles possible, and irony makes what was once embarrassing wearable again.
Susan Sontag writes:
"Camp sees everything in quotation marks."
(Susan Sontag, Notes on ‘Camp’, 1964)4. A style becomes “beautiful” only when a new generation reevaluates it and reshapes it aesthetically.
Karl Mannheim explains:
"New generations reinterpret the cultural heritage… in accordance with their own formative experiences.", 1928)5. The culture industry reinforces this cycle economically: a style becomes relevant once the generation who experienced it in childhood is grown and financially able to buy it back.
The Guardian writes:
"Nineties kids, now adults with disposable income, are driving the comeback of the brands and tastes they grew up with."
(The Guardian, Nostalgia Marketing Report, 2025)6. Fashion follows a cycle of opposition: one rejects the aesthetics of one’s parents in order to make one’s own identity visible.
Dick Hebdige writes:
“Youth subcultures express their opposition to the dominant culture through style.”
(Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, 1979)
Conclusion:
A style does not turn from "old-fashioned" into "vintage" by accident.
Only temporal distance makes nostalgic idealization possible—a kind of maturity, so to speak.
The generational shift that reinterprets older forms and the cultural filtering of what is considered worth remembering make past aesthetics appealing again.
In combination with an ironic re-appropriation and the economic possibilities of an age group reaching financial independence, the typical 20–30-year cycle emerges in which something once rejected suddenly returns as desirable and stylistically defining.
One point in particular caught my attention here: what Dick Hebdige writes about rejecting the aesthetics of one’s parents finds solid confirmation in a much more recent study, which also helps explain the how.
Rebellion apparently acts as a driving force in fashion cycles—which brings us right back to Grandma's carpet and my mother's scrunched nose. Perhaps (probably) there was even a second rebellion at work here, the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law dynamic. And yet, that alone does not explain it. At least not if you believe the Journal of the Royal Society, and I think you can.
In 2019, a remarkable study was published there under the short title "Fashion and art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition: quantitative evidence from music styles."
As the study shows through the example of music, a change in style is triggered neither by the ruling elite nor by the masses, but by a rebellious outsider group that opposes the dominant culture with a new style.
As a punk-rock-loving, Emma Goldman-inspired eco-revolutionary, this doesn't surprise me in the least.
So my mother didn't just find the carpet hideous; she was basically engaged in stylistic landscaping: tearing out the old so that the new can sprout.
I, on the other hand, turn to the archives of the past to breathe a touch of modernity into it and forge new styles from it—after all, our cultural hamster wheel keeps on turning. (And in the meantime, I modestly dream of inventing the next Art Nouveau.)
So, in conclusion, there is only one question left unanswered:
Is the love of the old something new? When did the cycle begin?
To place today's retro movement in its historical context, it is worth taking a look at the past—well before the 1960s, the era of our carpet.
The "à la manière de" style—A retrospective of art history
(Neurokoko-Interieur, New York, 1855 (Rekonstruktion), Metropolitan Museum of Art - Photograph by Andrew Balet)
As early as the 19th century, people enthusiastically collected old fabrics, quilts, and ornate embroidery—precisely what we would label as vintage textiles today. At that time, however, it was more of a hobby for collectors and interior design enthusiasts. Back then, this return to past styles was not called a retro trend but historicism—a fashion and architectural phenomenon of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in which artists cheerfully plundered earlier centuries (sound familiar?).
Neo-Gothic, Neo-Renaissance, Neo-Rococo, Neo-Classicism, historicist variants proliferated in architecture and interior design.
The historical turnaround came at the beginning of the 20th century with Art Nouveau (one of my declared favorites right next to Art Deco). Inspired by medieval and naturalistic forms, spectacularly reinterpreted rather than copied, something truly new was created.
Looking back and revisiting earlier styles is therefore not a 20th-century invention.
However, our modern interpretation seems to have originated around the 1970s.
In an article in the November 2024 issue of Interdisciplinary Cultural and Human Review ("Vintage revival: Exploring nostalgia and retro aesthetics in contemporary fashion"), Irina Ugrekhelidze describes how historicism experienced a revival in fashion—and how retro fashion came into being:
She makes it clear that historicism gained momentum again as a fashion trend in the 20th century and that Yves Saint Laurent breathed new life into it in the 1970s with references to the 1940s (although such tributes had existed before).
Retro fashion is therefore a kind of modern historicism, even if, strictly speaking, historicism describes an exact reconstruction of an era and retro is more of an aesthetic revival.
How ironic that the retro trend is itself a retro trend, so to speak.
Now that all the questions have been answered, back to Granny's carpet: even though the 20-30-year cycles theoretically shape our style, my mother remained steadfastly retro-proof in this case. Even after five decades, the brownish aesthetics of the 60s failed to win her heart.
Whether it's a rug, a dress, or a candlestick, every object in our everyday lives becomes a nexus between personal biography, rebellious identity formation, and the erratic rhythms of style history. And I have to say: that reassures me in a strangely comforting way. Because we are not merely the product of cycles, systems, and endless loops, our taste also arises from individuality and rebellion. And that has even been scientifically proven.
So we can sit back and relax in our leather armchair or wicker chair and make ourselves comfortable in our uniqueness, enjoying the certainty that although we are part of a larger system of cultural influences, whether we like Grandma's carpet or not ultimately depends on each person's personal taste.
So we can sit back and relax, in our creaky leather sofa or iconic wicker chair, and savor our uniqueness. It's nice to know that although we are embedded in larger cultural systems, our taste always remains somewhat peculiar.
Whether you like Grandma's carpet or not depends ultimately on each person's very personal taste.
Sources:
Favorites & Shopping:
• La Cafarfe; Mode rétro 2025 : quand les réseaux sociaux réinventent le style
• MISTER WILS; Le retour du rétro : le style vintage pour 2025
• BCONNECTED Blogartikel: Zwei ikonische Stühle mit einem modernen Twist
Other sources:
• Fred Davis, Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia (Free Press, 1979).
• Svetlana Boym, Nostalgia and Its Discontents, The Hedgehog Review, Summer 2007
• Susan Sontag — Notes on Camp (1964)
• Karl Mannheim, „The Problem of Generations" (1928/1952)
• Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, 1979
• The british Vogue; Article: The Biggest Vintage Trends Of 2025, According To The Experts
• The Guardian; "Vintage, retro, antique: what's the difference?"
• Marie claire: Our Experts Predicted the Top Fashion Trends of 2025—Now, They're All Coming True
• ELLE: The Newest Thing in Fashion Is Very (Very) Old