A good example is Smeg’s ‘50s-inspired kitchen appliances. That said, you can also find new furniture that was made to look retro, intentionally referencing the trends of this era. Antiques are typically defined as being at least 100 years old, whereas retro furniture mostly dates from the 1950s to the 1980s. To distinguish what retro furniture is, it’s important to point out what it’s not. Their appeal is fairly subjective, and while some pieces might be conventionally attractive, others are liked for the nostalgia they evoke or the fact that they’re deliberately kitschy.

The category of retro furniture is less specific than a certain style, like mid-century modern or French provincial, and more overarching to describe pieces that are decidedly outdated but appealing today because of their outdated-ness. That’s because the idea that something is so retro simply means it is obviously or purposefully date-able to the recent past.

However, there’s one category of furniture I’m pretty sure most of us can easily identify, and that’s retro. There’s contemporary design and then there’s modern, you’ve got traditional and transitional-the nuances of each style, although important, can be hard to discern without a decent amount of research.

To the untrained eye, identifying the specific style or era a piece of furniture is from is not always easy.

1970s space age furniture