Vintage Clothing

After viewing yet another special on a major cable network making the same mistake as so many people (and MOST televised shows) do, we can hold our tongues no longer. Certainly we understand what most people mean when they point at Vintage clothing or older Collectibles and say "..how retro" but this is not correct.  Retro items ARE NOT Vintage.

Many of you will think this subject minor but if your involved with the business it is as important as any other business's terminology. Stick with us, we're sure you will be convinced.

Whenever we are working at a booth or show and people look at our Vintage clothing and make similar remarks we politely engage them and point out subtly that these items are the REAL THING and not retro.

Retro is defined as reviving a style that is suggestive of a style of the past. With the scarcity of many vintage styles, retro examples do indeed exist but they are distinct from the vintage originals. There are actually a small percentage of these people that really do not realize the difference.

To us this is not unlike someone in the Antiques business having people identify their items as Collectibles. Even though these definitions are not as clear cut, most people recognize the difference and would never interchange these descriptions.

Since the Collectibles business, as it's own and distinct entity, is fairly new we believe that such distinctions are critical. Further, I think it is the job of those in the business to educate the general public not only with regards to the markets and Collectibles but also but also about its terminology.

There is simply too much misinformation (or partial information) about the business from the media without basic terminology misunderstandings but it continues to happen on both cable and network channels.

Things don't get changed unless you say something so we will continue to say EVERYTHING!