Vintage (design)

In terms of design, vintage generally refers to any artificial object or objects that are representative of or dating from an earlier period of time.^[1]

Terminology

There can be debate over whether or not an item is vintage. Some vintage enthusiasts may say something as young as thirteen years old is vintage, whereas others (such as the e-commerce website Etsy)^[2] require an item to be at least twenty years old for it to be considered vintage; however there is no legal definition of the term.

The terms vintage, retro, and antique are oftentimes used interchangeably. Retro (also known as vintage-inspired) refers to new objects that are designed to resemble other, genuinely vintage objects that are at least 15 years old or older. Vintage then refers to the original (old) objects the new designs are based on. Antique, on the other hand simply, refers to objects that are considerably older, and there can be debate about that as well. In most areas, the legal definition of an antique is an artificial object that is at least a century old.^[3] A related term is antiquity, which has various definitions in archaeology, art history, and legal regulation of the art trade, and generally refers to human-made objects many centuries old.

References