To get the rage over people mixing up vintage and retro??

[user1477282676]

It gets on my nerves! I live in Oz but before I came here last year, I saw this a lot in the UK too...especially in charity shops!

Notices saying "Retro Cabinet" on an original 50s cabinet etc when it should say VINTAGE!

Retro is imitative of vintage. Vintage is an original vintage piece.

I was in a charity shop today and a woman took an ornament over to the counter. The ornament was obviously 1960s original.

"How much is this please?"

"Ten dollars. It's retro."

NO IT"S FUCKING VINTAGE!

The shop always labels original pieces as retro!

Sorry. I know there's a pedant's corner but really!

[BarbaraofSeville]

But then I get wound up by people calling afternoon tea high tea.

Afternoon tea = dainty sandwiches, cakes, scones with clotted cream and jam and pots of tea, all fancy like, served mid afternoon.

High tea = Something hot, simple and stodgy like macaroni cheese followed by tea and cake, served at 5/6 pm as an early evening meal.

They are not the same thing and the terms are not interchangeable.

[TheFirstMrsDV]

I am most upset by finding 80s stuff on vintage rails

[lampfromikea]

I've never come across retro being used the way you say it should OP.
As a PP said, I tend to think of retro as something from 50s-70s.
Vintage seems to have been hijacked by anything twee and flowery (Cath Kidston style shite for example) and I can't seem to get past that in my head.

I can't seem to find it in me to describe furniture as vintage either. It doesn't sit right in my head, but I think that's just me.

[maggiethemagpie]

So the little bird range by Jools Oliver of 1980s inspired childrenswear would be retro? And an original piece your mum had saved from that era, vintage?


I never knew that - I thought vintage was pre 60s and retro 60s-90s, and that new stuff was just 70s/80s/whatever-decade style.

[Gottagetmoving]

I don't care...it is usually all shite anyway.
Now, people saying stomach instead of abdomen,..or saying they have a baby in their stomach ( and they do say that)....YUK!

[VintagePerfumista]

Whilst the OP is correct vintage, (at least in perfume, which is, as you might guess, where my interests lie) means over 20 years old. Retro just means "in a vintage/old style etc.

I'd never have thought to be wound up about it though. I have about 9 million various "vintage" searches ongoing on ebay, and when I see obviously non-vintage listed as such, I just scroll past.

I shall remember in future to get humphy.

[Ilovetorrentialrain]

Good thread OP! One thing I find a bit odd is often when people say 'vintage' they mean 1940s/50s retro style. As if vintage can only mean that era.

If I had a Mini from 1970 it would be a vintage car. 1970s being the vintage.

[NewtScamandersNaughtyNiffler]

I didn't know that's what they meant and I guess if I thought about it would have said the same as Luna

I'll also have forgotten again by tomorrow

[BadKnee]

Sorry to have upset you OP but as you see from some replies - some people don't actually care!!! (Shock, horror!)

[pipsqueak25]

i've learnt so much from mn - a real education, seriously mean that !

[JoffreyBaratheon]

"Shabby chic" is way more annoying.

[ILoveDolly]

It does annoy me because retro is a style and vintage is a statement of age. So from a buyer's point of view it is very important

[VintagePerfumista]

Shabby chic just means a homemade cushion cover that in my youth would have been made by my nan and sold on the bric-a-brac at Brownies but now sells for £98 on Etsy or NotHS and has been made by some middle-class "crafter".

[blueshoes]

OP, are you being a pedant or the word police?

[ILoveDolly]

Way to dismissively run down people's livelihoods there VintagePerfumista. If I could get 98 pounds for my sewing I'd be happy instead of actually trying to price things to reflect how much time and skill they took, only to have people looking down their noses at my skills because apparently I should be undercutting the Chinese sweatshop you probably got your cushion covers from.

[RortyCrankle]

Puts hand up - I don't give a shit - it's hardly life changing is it.

[Hillfarmer]

Vintage is just a pretentious way of saying second-hand or old.

[FeliciaJollygoodfellow]

They're selling 'vintage kitsch' glasses on eBay at the moment - £25 for 8.

Except they're 70p each from ikea at the moment. Like literally, I bought some last week. They're not even vintage ikea!

That's all. Had no one to rant about this earlier so you'll do

[VintagePerfumista]

Oh give over Dolly.

I buy loads of stuff on Etsy/ebay etc.

But some of the "vintage" (or more generally "shabby chic" stuff is risible.

[VintagePerfumista]

Hillfarmer- quite. Like "pan fried" adds £20 onto your pork chop bill.

[Hillfarmer]

Totes with you vintageperfumista - also 'oven-roasted' completely gets my goat. I mean what the hell else are you going to roast something in? Plastic bucket?