Is Retro Cool Or Costly?

From fashion to photography, we break down the appeal of going back in time

-  Niraj Kakade

If Back to the Future heroes Marty McFly and Doc Brown were to travel back to the future today, they'd notice things akin to the time they've left. From mom jeans to chunky sneakers to grainy Instagram reels, there's been an aggressive push to dial back the clock to simpler times. But what's been fuelling this retro frenzy?

An interview published by Red Bull (yes, really) between writer Mark Bailey and Tim Wildschut, professor of social and personality psychology at the University of Southampton, UK, narrows it down to a feeling of nostalgia and familiarity. According to Wildschut, "Individuals who experience nostalgia have higher levels of happiness and a stronger sense of purpose"; two things that were skewed during the Covid pandemic.

No surprise then that as we started to step out of quarantine zones and into an increasingly uncertain world, the need to go back to something familiar became overwhelming. People yearn for simpler times, and the numbers prove it too. For instance, vinyl records made up 1.7 per cent of physical music sales in 2011. This number rose to 50.4 per cent by 2021. Similarly, Polaroid, which was on the verge of shutting shop in 2008, has made a comeback, recording a reported profit of $750m per year.