Last weekend I had written a few blogs with the hashtag retro. Retro, vintage and antique has always been my interest and that's how I started with a blog about the candy Ulevellen, candy chain and also a spoon vase. But something inside me said something wasn't right about my blogs. Not so much about the content of the blogs, but I especially had doubts about adding the hashtag retro to my blogs. It wasn't right. I started thinking and thinking about the words retro, vintage and antique.

You know it you walk in a thrift store or in the city and see such a nice little shop with all, yes, retro stuff. Hey, how nice “retro” or “vintage” it sounds, but is it retro what you see? Isn't it vintage or antique? There is indeed a difference in what is retro, vintage or antique. And then you also have curiosities and brocante.

I decided to delve into it and sort out the differences and delve into retro and also went to see if I might have real retro stuff at home and truly I definitely found some retro stuff. I looked even further and discovered that I have retro, vintage and antiques in the house.
Watch and read along what retro is!

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At retro, a new product is designed and produced that has the looks of an item from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. They actually look back to that time and do not make a copy of the old product, but they are inspired by that old product. They also use the term retrospective, which means looking back at the old. So retro stuff is not old stuff, but new products in an old look.

Retro stuff can therefore also be found in modern interior stores and certainly not always in a cycle, which is thought. No, you're more likely to find vintage items or antiques in a cycle. Retro style can be found in all kinds of products. Think of clothing, music, including record players, radios, furniture, visual arts, bicycles, car models, retro scooters and helmets, homeware, games and game consoles, lighters, accessories, postcards, wallpaper, gadgets, funcook machines, such as popcorn machines, hot dog machines gumball vending machines, for example.

Retro products were designed and produced from the 1980s. We see in the late 90s to the present that retro has increased enormously in popularity. Sometimes you see the word vintage on retro products, but that's actually not right and a retro product should certainly not be labeled as vintage. why? I'll explain that below in the section What is vintage?

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Vintage is a collective name that goes with various products, such as vintage clothing, for example, which is extremely hip and is bought a lot. It's sustainable and authentic. But also think, for example, of wine of a good year or other items, such as furniture and home accessories. If we want to use the term vintage, the product must be at least 35 years old.

Usually a product is vintage if it was made between 1920 and 1990. So this is why you should not call a retro product that is newly made vintage, because it is not an old product, but newly produced. Difference between retro and vintage? Another important difference between retro and vintage items is the finish of a product. Retro products often use cheaper materials, often also plastic and the material of a vintage product is often a bit better quality.