Why Retro?

Today, while scrounging around my dads office waiting for him to finish a meeting, I found an old Loony Tunes mint container. I was immediately attracted to it. I picked it up and studied it, only to become even more amused by its simpleness. How could a cheap metal box with a few cartoon characters on it be so interesting to a 17 year-old? The more I thought about it, the more I wondered why people like old things so much.

I've never realized how strange the attraction to retro things are. People are gravitated to things they played with as kids, or that their parents and grand-parents did/wore, for a reason nobody knows. One explanation is the power of nostalgia. Maybe when I saw the box, my memories of watching Saturday morning cartoons ignited, and I was brought back to a simpler time. A time when my biggest worry was what was for desert that night.

Nostalgia may the explanation for the box, but not for the phenomenon of wearing retro clothes. Even the richest of celebrities, like the rapper Maclemore (right), love old things. His top song this year was even a ballad of love for retro items: entitled thrift shop. One would expect that a man worth over 15 million dollars would splurge and buy new clothes, yet he is often seen dressing like the photo below. As an fexaminer.com article states, Maclemore's "home is decorated with thrift store taxidermy, furniture and lamps. In his closets hang fringe jackets and outerwear of purple, red and blue leather". This multi millionaire hates spending "50 dollars on a tee-shirt" as the thrift shop lyrics tell us. 

I don't have a good reason for this crave for the past, but I hope I see people wearing Vineyard Vines sweaters and salmon colored dress pants in 30 years!