Retro

When did it start? I dont ever remember retro being in the mind in the 90's or the 80's when I was a kid. It was always forward thinking. At some point, Youth could only look to the past to be cool. 

It's made ersatz art. 

I sound like a grumpy old man. Im not saying there isn't good shit. I just dont ever remember the thought of a retro mind set and maybe the world was better for it. 

Decades all look the same now.. It all melts into the next. 

  On 12/26/2022 at 11:31 AM, marf said:

When did it start? I dont ever remember retro being in the mind in the 90's or the 80's when I was a kid. It was always forward thinking. At some point, Youth could only look to the past to be cool. 

I think it’s because ‘retro’ refers to the years you are mentioning. At that time it was ‘new’ so wouldn’t have been called anything different.

People still referenced ‘the good old days’ back then and were probably talking about 30 years prior etc.

People are always whining about the good old days. , but Im talking totally ripping off fashion, music, aesthetic. And making a quasi shittier version. It started somewhere around the early 2000's with Tumblr and the skinny jean wearing hipsters I reckon. Ironically the music wasn't half bad. I liked the Strokes. Totally ripped off Vu, but I think that is the germ of the retro thing. The idea of not thinking of something new but completely copying something from the past. Instead of just being influenced. You hear musicians from the 60's and 70's talk and it was the music of the day or slightly earlier that really got them influenced, and they wanted to be themselves.

Is it important? Not really.

I remember buying a (new) shirt in the mid to late 90s with 60s psychedelic patterns that resembled the carpet/wallpaper in Alex's room in Clockwork Orange. It was my coolest shirt by far at the time! While not massively widespread, I think retro was definetly a thing in the 90s. A kind of fetishisme for kitschy things, i.e stuff in classic 60s & 70s style. There were also things around that never went out of style like vinyl records and various iconic furniture such as the 'egg' chair and stuff like that 

It's a cycle of counter-culture/ the grass being greener on the other side. Because you were raised in a certain period, everything seems normal or maybe even bad because you take it for granted. Your kids then look back on that difference between their own time period and that of their parents and find the mysticism of a by-gone era alluring. Maybe life is getting more and more convoluted or whatever and each generation looks back to their parents' generation for a bit more simplicity in life. Who knows.

I've noticed that fashion looks back 20 years whilst coexisting with new ideas and styles. 90s fashion was big in the 2010s and now 2000s fashion is big now in our new decade.

  On 12/26/2022 at 11:31 AM, marf said:

Decades all look the same now.. It all melts into the next. 

This is not true whatsoever.

50s shit was huge in the 80s

was the renaissance retro ? asking for a fren

I saw The Foals a few weeks back and they brought along an opener called Glove

I went into my own head a little bit during the set and imagined this metaphor of aesthetic packages as costumes. This band is putting on a Wendy O jacket with Romeo Void boots and a New Order hat, etc.

"Retro" is the shorthand but the key is youth. Those of prime reproductive years in their peak blossom raid the closets of the past to signal fitness and ingenuity. It seems that it's an unofficial law that you have to return the outfits however. Nature will rebuke you and you'll be as incongruous as J. Howard Marshall fondling Anna Nicole Smith if you try to don the old garments