What is Vintage?

[nevada1]

What is your definitions for Vintage, Retro and Classic?
Here in the U.S. an automobile is considered Classic at Twenty years old. So I would accept that as a good definition for our use in this forum. But Retro and Vintage seems alot more vague.
I consider Retro to be anything from the 50's and newer. And Vintage to be from the 40's back. does it depend on our age or can a line be drawn?
What's your opinion?

[drjescocia]

Nevada:
You ask a good question, but I think the moderators actually have it close to right. I would say vintage represents a different aesthetic. To me there is little doubt that the porn of the 70s and 80s (maybe even into the early 90s - but not for me) is profoundly different from that of today. Sex especially in the late 1970s was seen as emancipatory, and many of the narratives either in photo shoots or in film depict women realising their own empowerment through sexual experience. Its not dominance, but rather their own liberation as women. Today porn's with its "donkey punches" and brutal "anal pounding" is all too violent for me. yes, there was violence in early porn but that seemed to be a fetish. Today it is the mainstream if not the dominant feature of porn. It is not for me. This is why I love this site. But would say vintage is about an aesthetic representation of sexuality that is for everyone. It is a fantasy about sex, not its raw and rather brutal display is HD. I will P*nth**se's steamy and rather fuzzy highly erotic photography from the 70s and 80s over tattooed, pierced and HD jizzbombs anyday.

[Cheekymonkey]

To me, Vintage represents porn shot on film (mostly 16mm) vs. video which is warmer in tone than video and requires professional lighting and professional crew. The female stars tended to be pretty and glamorous, had faces made up and hair professionally done. Vintage movies (though not all) had storylines and required some acting and learning of lines in between coupling (some actors were decent and relished taking in character roles). Some of the better females acted for the camera during sex and many did not do it purely for the money as it did not pay that much back then and scenes tended to be more tender and sensual and the women (and men) looked like they seemed to enjoy it all more back then. All very different from today's gonzo/ amateur style - handheld jumpy camera, performers having to identify themselves and answer dumb questions by the cameraman/ gonzo director, followed by arrival of male talent, followed by aggressive sex (with ubiquitous copious anal penetration) culminating in the predictable pull out standing over the kneeling female with mouth agape, waiting for the money shot,with tongue out like a bird waiting to be fed or else with trepidation. Vintage women whether they were 'acting' or not appeared to love the ejaculate and literally lap it up. Today's all seems so 'forced'.

Classic, to me, would be from the 'Vintage era' shot on film and a movie that has attained legendary status for example - Debbie Does Dallas or Behind the Green Door (not my favorites but some of the better known) or perhaps a rare loop featuring porn's 'royalty'

Retro I consider to be from the 50s or 60s - grainy/ maybe shot on 8mm - some may be black & white - including the Betty Page cheesecake loops and softcore and mild bondage and naked wrestling featuring Candy Samples and Uschi Digart (for example) and not the hardcore S&M with masks, nipple clamps and assorted torturous devices).
If I am in error here or there is any elaboration I am grateful for the education.

[Artsey]

Classic to me is composed of elements of classical art. Classical art has mathematicly definable concepts (eg. form, line, perspective, balance, even story telling). But as not all elements of mathematics have been discovered (consider the recent and complexity of the discovery of M theory) not all mathematical elements of classical art have been discovered. So there can be "modern classics" in esthetics too. These would be those modern works which adhere to classical concepts and also newly discovered classical concepts.

Retro I would define as those which adhere to distinctive elements of an era of pop culture design (mini skirts, boufant hairdoos, poodle skirts, headbands and bellbottoms etc).

Vintage I would define as those which have a significantly lower technical quality of imagry due to significantly lower level of imaging technology. Of course the line defining "significantly" is arbitrary. For example an 11 megapixel camera definitely takes a better picture than a 9 megapixel camera but the differance is not significant. While an early 750 kilo pixel is far worse than an 8x10 BW classic image it can still be "vintage digital" because a 750 KP digital camera is a "modern vintage" camera for obvious reasons.

By the way I do keep some "vintage internet" images and videos even though I have recent copies of much better quality. This reminds me of how far image quality and technology has come and gives me that little nostalgic dopamine increase triggered by the stimulation of those brain cells storing those files as brain memory.

[effCup]

Originally Posted by Artsey

Retro I would define as those which adhere to distinctive elements of an era of pop culture design (mini skirts, boufant hairdoos, poodle skirts, headbands and bellbottoms etc).

I don't mean to pick on Artsey, but I think that above view of "retro" perhaps simply means/includes all eras & everywhere? Which elements of, say, the 60s or 70s were not of their time? Maybe the word "distinctive" is key, but how does one tell, & especially so at the time? Which elements of the 2010s are going to be(come) "distinctive"? Can we tell?

We notice 50s/60s/70s/80s fashions, etc. today because they're in our recent-ish past/memory, &/or we're reminded of them by fashion's (NB, not just clothing but all pop. commodification) continual re-cycling/re-invigorating/parodying of that recent past--one can debate whether it's a 20-30 year cycle/whatever but those cows will still come home.

We're simply (usually/mostly) blind to the elements of our current era that will be subsequently viewed as classic/characteristic/distinctive of its time, after sufficient chronological distance has passed for that perspective/parody to occur. Maybe that means they weren't classic/etc. at the time, but only became so in hindsight/retrospect? So maybe the stuff we remember as classic/characteristic of its era is simply the stuff we've reminded ourselves of by re-cycling it? Hmm, but have 80s-style leg-warmers, for example, really already been re-cycled, or is that still just around the corner?

In an odd sort of way, the really interesting is perhaps that which doesn't get re-cycled/re-used. Why/not? Perhaps that "hidden"/obscure past is the "real" classic/past, in that it remains truly of its (i.e. one & only) era? Except we'd probably just say it was right not to be re-used because it was dross... until such time as someone proves us wrong by re-cycling it in sufficiently useful/re-imaginative way.

I don't have the answer(s), nevada1, but great question to pose/make one think.

To me retro seems assoc. with that pop. fashion "wheel" of re-use/parody, i.e. ~20-30 years, depending. Retro means not wholly of its current era; its present tense. It is intrinsically engaged in the performance of retrospective re-use. Yet paradoxically/ironically, to be "retro" such re-use must never be entirely faithful; it must remain of its own time to some (however limited) extent. A 70s paisley wallpaper is of its time. A 2010s "retro" 70s-style paisley wallpaper must retain sufficient "distance" from the 70s, must simply "reference" that 70s style rather than entirely "be" that 70s style, in order to be "retro". There is a reflexive distance, an "in quotation marks" element, required for something to be "retro".

[Greenman]

If you are talking about Vintage cars the benchmark is any vehicle that is 100 yrs old-so if you took part in the London-Brighton car rally you could enter a vehicle younger than that. As for models I suppose vintage should start from when the first ever naughty pictures were produced-when that was I don't know but for auctions I would say early 19th century. I would think Classic should be attributed to anything that has been around a considerable time, gained a fanbase or become widely popular over a period of time-that can apply to anything from books, music or films shown time and again to an audience that wants to see them like 'The Great Escape' 'Mary Poppins' or even 'The Sound of Music' all of which have stood the test of time and are still popular today.

[effCup]

Originally Posted by Greenman

If you are talking about Vintage cars the benchmark is any vehicle that is 100 yrs old-so if you took part in the London-Brighton car rally you could enter a vehicle younger than that.

Younger? Don't you mean older?

For most items of material culture (e.g. furniture) "vintage" is indeed associated with 100+ years or "older" than 99 years, but I think there were so-called "vintage" car rallies in the 1970s where the threshold was perhaps only something like ~50-60 years, at the time. I don't imagine that a vintage car rally in, say, 2040 will restrict vehicles to 130+ years. Yes, OK, making several assumptions there.

Humans tend to be inconsistent/improvisational/pragmatic regarding such (human-created) "rules"... a bit like vef, where the threshold between "vintage"/"classic" and "modern" is end-of-1997 for mags. & models, but end-of-1995 for discussion of those same mags. & models:

"Classic & Vintage Magazines Scanned magazines. Maximum date of the content allowed to be posted here is 1997."

"Vintage Erotica Talk Talk about vintage erotica right here! Maximum date of the content allowed to be posted here is 1995."

[billybunter]

An antique is an object that is at least 100 years old. However, as far as i'm aware a motor vehicle that is at least 25 years old is vintage. You don't need tax-road fund license, if it was made before 1973.

[effCup]

The ever-unreliable Wikipedia says:

"a car built between the start of 1919 and the end of 1930 known as the 'Vintage era'. There is little debate about the start date of the vintage period—the end of World War I is a nicely defined marker there—but the end date is a matter of a little more debate. The British definition is strict about 1930 being the cut-off, and is widely accepted while some American sources prefer 1925 since it is the pre-classic car period as defined by the Classic Car Club of America."

"A classic car is an older car; the exact definition varies around the world. The Classic Car Club of America maintains that a car must be between 20 and 40 years old to be a classic, while cars 45 years and older fall into the Antique Class. In the UK 'classic cars' range from Veteran (pre first world war), Vintage (1919–1930), Post-Vintage (1930s). Post second world war cars are not so designated."

[victor meldrew]

Vintage covers a multitude of sins or what an individual considers vintage to be, wether it be a bottle of wine, wisden cricketeers alamanac, a car or even model railways, Wrenn being a prime example.