Talk:Vintage (design)

Utility of this page

It seems to me that neither of the references cited on this page lead toward its ambition of giving a stable definition to "vintage." As the various links to other Wiki pages here demonstrate, it's a slippery term that is used in slightly different ways in various quarters of the design field. It seems to mean older design objects that express qualities that are generally agreed to represent the best aspects of a given period's or maker's design. (And thus distinguishing them from all the other design of that period or maker, which is implicitly not vintage.)

Etsy may load in rules to protect its buyers from things that may not actually be from the period they seem to represent, but their legalistic use of the term doesn't address questions of taste or connoiseurship that are generally implied when something is described as vintage. Similarly, Apartment Therapy's use of the term in the cited article speaks to qualities of the used furniture market in this particular moment, which is dominated by mid-century modern, but not an overarching definition of the term across various aspects of design.

I'm not convinced that a time-bound or rules-bound definition of a term that mainly expresses taste and judgement will helpfully inform an understanding of vintage as it is used within various sub-fields of design and collecting. KR26740 (talk) 01:15, 3 October 2017 (UTC)