The famous sitcom That 70’s Show aired in the late 90s. And as great as the music scene was back then with all our Green Day, R.E.M, No Doubt, Cranberries and the lot, we still loved listening to Zeppelin and Morrison back then. Speed up to today, and our retro fashion is wayfarers of the late 80s and early 90s in sun glasses, the crop-tops, the undercut hairdos, they’re all renditions of whatever saw the prime twenty to thirty years ago. – On this principle, we all can expect our children to be loving whatever we have today, (even if we don’t love it ourselves, for having known the true classics which triumphed the test of time)
Of course, there are always exceptions. But the pattern seems quite convincing. If looked at it closely, two groups have similar choices that they like to wear, or listen to, or watch, or are fascinated by, or find cool. The teenagers, and the late 30s to early 40s group. The teenagers follow what is absolutely trendy for them with the contemporary fashion or hip culture, leaving room for the other group to follow what used to be hip and trendy in their teenage times. Generalizing it would give us That 70s Show being offered to and loved by the teens of the late 90s, and being offered to and loved by the audience who actually was in their teens in the 70s; thus cultivating both the market shares (which would obviously be humungous when combined) – Apply it on the wayfarers, when today’s kids find it trendy in today’s time what used to be trendy when Tom Cruise wore it in Top Gun, in their parents’ teen-era.
But throwing something like this on mere coincidence doesn’t make sense. Because it’s not just the generation shift, what about the people who lived during these two periods. What do they like? The ones in the mid 2000’s? (The example is simple. GTA: Vice City, covering early 80s and released in mid-2000s) However, this skipped generation will have it’s own time, just like the one before it had, and the one after it will. – The grouping is similar and simple: at one given time, the population in their early youth that catches the most attention are the teenagers, and the population that is most progressive professionally and perhaps most rapid in their finances are the late 30s to early 40s ones. Hence these two groups have a connection, trend and money. Hence they are offered just that, teenagers to bring out the trend (hence paving for the future teenagers when these will be in their late 30s and early 40s), and the adults who have nostalgia that would allow them to follow a fashion that is comfortable to them, or that doesn’t demand them to change, for they mustn’t, since they have the money, and the customer is always right.
So, leaving something like this on mere coincidence doesn’t make sense. And of course not, where it may have been just a coincidence once (like father like son e.g.) but a certain age group matching the tastes of another certain age group is most lucrative for someone who wants to profit by it. Selling the same product to both means doubling up the market. So in the 90s, you get to sell the same music records to two age ranges, is a win-win. In the 2000s, another two matching groups arise and selling a 10 year newer than the previous product again to the two age groups is yet another high in the sales department. All you have to do is label it retro. The adults will love it for their comfortable nostalgia, the youth for it’s vintage appeal, and the 20s and under-teens will buy the run of the mill stuff until it’s their time; when the same corporate earns the top dollar yet again by the ‘old is the new NEW!’ tagline.
However sinister this capitalism may seem, it does have it’s bona fide genuineness to it too, for one: it definitely may be comfortable for a designer to take the inspiration from an innocent nostalgia, and for two: there’s only so much you can do with sun glasses and shirts and trousers and music and movies before becoming too avant-garde for the socially acceptable norms. Yet owing up to it’s less insidious explanations, it must really be working wonders in the pockets of those corporate trend-setters, I bet.