As history always repeats itself, so too does fashion and the trends that accompany it. ’Retro cool’ is highly appealing as consumers become weary of the current generic choice of consumer goods, and nostalgia can hit a culture for a certain period of time before becoming saturated and eventually superseded by the next trend. One element of retro cool I am currently interested in is the collection of vintage radios…but I don’t know why (but I’m sure playing Fallout 3 has something to do with it). There is also a subculture of people who buy and restore these relics of a bygone age.
To me, these radios represent a lost era in mass communication, a time when radio was THE most popular media for mass communication, and all completely analogue. Today nearly every method of communication is digitised and solid state devices are shrinking in size (and doubling in power according to Moore’s Law). These vintage radios are huge in comparison, filled with glass tubes, transistors and large obsolete batteries (even the ‘portable’ ones). There’s something humbling about this though, they feel weighty, valuable, solid and dependable. They have stood the test of time, and still have an element of ‘cool’ about them. I can already imagine the Miles Davis tracks flowing from the speakers...
I love the look of old radios and buy them whenever I see one at a table sale or similar. I usually end up hiding external hard drives in them so they look cool and are also useful at the same time!
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