Retro or Classic?

[Matt Deckard]

Retro is a PT cruiser
Classic 1947 Pontiac
Retro Johnny Rockets
Classic Musso & Franks

I don't want to confuse vintage with classic... I want to differentiate the two.

What do you think?

 

[Lady Day]

Put down the gun, we can talk this out.

I think classic is something that is timeless, where as retro is something that is associated with a specific time period in general, but can be revived from time to time.

Retro

Classic


LD

 

[Salv]

Put down the gun, we can talk this out.

I think classic is something that is timeless, where as retro is something that is associated with a specific time period in general, but can be revived from time to time.

...

LD

Surely retro is something new designed to look like it came from a past era. The Eames chair in your first picture may be a newly made model but it was designed in 1948. The Knoll chair in your second picture was designed in 1954 but is not as radical a design as the Eames chair so appears more timeless.

So this Tom Dixon Vac chair would be retro:

...but the Eames chair would be classic.

 

[Lady Day]

I get what you are saying, but I also think you have to put into context the time peroid in which you are applying the item. Those chairs are indeed retro in their mimicking of the past and their manufracturing being of the contemporary era, but by association the first chair I listed is retro as well.

I didnt say retro/classic was fair in it categorizing in which time it was made. I feel its all about association.

The classic chair is classic because it follows classic foundational elements of design (straight lines, angles, solid shapes etc.). You could make a modern versiion of that chair and it could still be classic by design.

LD

 

[Salv]

I get what you are saying, but I also think you have to put into context the time peroid in which you are applying the item. Those chairs are indeed retro in their mimicking of the past and their manufracturing being of the contemporary era, but by association the first chair I listed is retro as well.

I didnt say retro/classic was fair in it categorizing in which time it was made. I feel its all about association.

The classic chair is classic because it follows classic foundational elements of design (straight lines, angles, solid shapes etc.). You could make a modern versiion of that chair and it could still be classic by design.

LD

If classic is synonymous with traditional then you're right, but I'm not sure that it's correct to call the Eames chair retro just because contemporary chairs mimic the style. Personally I think the Eames lounger and ottoman from 1956 are classic designs, but with their bent plywood shells they are very much of their time:

 

[Lady Day]

If classic is synonymous with traditional then you're right, but I'm not sure that it's correct to call the Eames chair retro just because contemporary chairs mimic the style. Personally I think the Eames lounger and ottoman from 1956 are classic designs, but with their bent plywood shells they are very much of their time:

I think this chair is classic. We are talking about something that will have no fundamental right or wrong. Something will always brake the rules. And to me, the first chair I posted feels more 'retro' than classic.

LD

 

[Salv]

I think this chair is classic. We are talking about something that will have no fundamental right or wrong. Something will always brake the rules. And to me, the first chair I posted feels more 'retro' than classic.

LD

I still feel that the term 'retro' should apply to contemporary designs made to appear older, but I'm not so worried that I'll get into a fight about it

It's a great chair, however it's described, but I prefer the look of the shell in the original fibreglass:

 

[Quigley Brown]

I would think a lot of those designs couldn't be reproduced to look exactly like the originals anyway since they are probably licensed or whatever.

Fiestaware is still being made...just not in the original colors.

Oh....this is too confusing!

 

[Salv]

I would think a lot of those designs couldn't be reproduced to look exactly like the originals anyway since they are probably licensed or whatever.

Fiestaware is still being made...just not in the original colors.

Oh....this is too confusing!

The Eames designs are still being made by their original licencees: Herman Miller in the US and Vitra in Europe. I think there are Health and Safety and environmental issues which prevent the companies using fibreglass, so they use plastics instead.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My two cents..

I've always thought of "retro" as being more of a pastiche of past design rather than a precise recreation of it -- the PT Cruiser or the New Beetle or any number of Steve Madden shoe designs being examples of that. Such designs give the impression of the past, but they aren't bound to it.

"Classic", on the other hand, would be an item that's been produced continuously, in its original design, for so long that it transcends style trends. Think of a Waring Blendor, which hasn't changed since the thirties while remaining in continuious production. That's a classic design.

 

[Quigley Brown]

For some reason I think that retro means stuff from the 1950s (a friend refers to it as 'tacky deco'). And if your home is 'retro' it means you have both original and reproductions to give the feeling that's you're living in the 50s.

 

[scotrace]

Retro & Classic

It can't be this simple.

 

[Senator Jack]

What an oxymoron: Danish Modern is Classic.

The work of Eames, Miller, and Nelson can undoubtedly all be classified as classic. Even Nelson's Marshmalllow couch is now a classic, despite it still appearing to be modern.

As is the Bertoia Bird chair:

I'm not much for the term 'retro' and it sort of grates on me like the word 'kitschy'. (I happen to like this stuff for what it is.) Today's designers think they may be harkening back to classic modern design but without the quality of the original models they're just left with imitations. Go pick up one of those 'retro' deco toasters and compare it to an original. If the new one has the same quality, then I'd consider it classic. If it's cheap and flimsy: retro.

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Feraud]

I agree to differentiate the two.
I did a quick dictionary reference of the words and have come up with this.

Retro is relating to the past not necessarily historically accurate.
Classic conforms to well established standards & principles.
I prefer Classic but have been known to delve into Retro if necessary.

Btw Matt, great avatar! Reminds me of Willis in Last Man Standing..


O.k.. back to topic!

 

[jake_fink]

I think we have to accept that "retro" is something contemporary that looks backward, since the word itself means "backward" as in retroactive, retrospective, retrogressive.

So a chair or car designed today to remind us of the past or in the style of the past, even as a complete duplication of the past, is "retro".

Classic gives me a problem. In art history, in literature, classic (or classical) is often a movement or a period of entrenched formalism, while romanticism, the baroque, etc, is a period of experimentalism. In that case, any period in which design is produced according to pre-established forms is classic. The baseball hat may, therefore be called classic. I don't think that's what we mean, though. Colloquially, we can say that some peice of experimental work of the past, whether this:

or this:

is "classic" though it's not classic in the sense that it is classical. "Classic" fills in for something like "memorable" "important" or "I like it". I think "classic" can mean timeless, in the sense that certain looks or combinations are timeless - with only slight variations. Hence, a classically cut suit, as in scotrace's example, or a classic cocktail, the martini versus the Moon Monkey, say or a Tidy Bowl.

Vintage is easy. It means that the conditions were perfect that year and the product produced is likely to be of superior quality. (Unless you are on ebay, in which case vintage means (it was made sometime before this morning at 8 am).

 

[Lady Day]

So a chair or car designed today to remind us of the past or in the style of the past, even as a complete duplication of the past, is "retro".

Yes, but I also think, that the item that the imitation is imitating becomes retroby association. I feel retro fades in and out, classic is timeless. Original retro can become classic, and vice versa. See how confusing my mind is!? I gotta go sit down.

Im trying to put this on the terms of how the 'mainstream' and general consciences (not the educated of taste) would put this. Maybe there in lays my flaw.

LD

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

Retro is a PT cruiser
Classic 1947 Pontiac
Retro Johnny Rockets
Classic Musso & Franks

I don't want to confuse vintage with classic... I want to differentiate the two.

What do you think?

When I hear "retro", I've come to expect some previously unseen combination of old style with modern, where as when I hear "classic", I expect to see something more accurately vintage. I think the PT Cruiser / 47 Pontiac comparison is good.

Also:

Retro: (1970's "updated version" of the 1940s)

Classic: (1946, also being made as CD repro's)

Swing High,
- Cousin Hepcat

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is "Classical." Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" is a classic.

 

[Wild Root]

Retro is reproductions... classic is the real deal!

A retro Philco 90.

A classic Philco 90.

"Retro"

"Classic"

=WR=

 

[Senator Jack]

Funny thing is, I don't consider Johnny Rockets to be retro. I think they got the 'feel' exactly right. This is excerpted from a column I wrote about retro and vintage:

'I sometimes am of this feeling when I happen to go into a fifties-style diner. Some of them – all right, most of them - are decorated too garishly for my taste, and with their neon clocks and pictures of Lucy and Ricky hanging about, as well as an unlimited fund of all things Betty Boop, these retro-diners are no more than illustrations of the past, as though they were put together by a museum curator who has no definitive reference to source material and has to rely on suppositions pieced together from various odd and end facts. ‘We believe cavemen to have lived this way, and, as for man atomic, well, perhaps something like this.’ On to our next display, please.'

Because Johnny Rockets is tied to Coca-Cola, they do have all the vintage ads up, but aside from that there is nothing that I'd consider fraudulent. I COULD do without the singing waiters, and the prices could be a little more vintage, but I have to say that I do like sitting at the counter and having a classic American lunch.

Regards,

Senator Jack