This is a question I ask in every single blog I have… I hadn’t thought about writing this yet, but the other day I was driving and saw a pregnant punch-buggy (a.k.a. a Volkswagen bus) from the late 80s/early 90s sporting these flower decals on the front. I was appalled! “Those don’t go on that year pregnant punch-buggy!” I cried out. Yeah, I actually had a moment about it…

Retro, as it’s defined, means: relating to, reviving, or being the styles and especially the fashions of the past : fashionably nostalgic or old-fashioned. Any era can be retro, really… It all depends on your tastes and which era you relate to the most. So, again, I pose this question… How do you retro…?

I retro in the 70s style… Lots of warm colors like yellow, brown, orange, olive green… God yes, it was ugly as fuck, but I love it!

Actually, I think everything from the 70s as far as decor, color schemes and mismatched or ugly ass clothes were based on a dare… But it’s what I grew up with. My parents built our house in ’74 and I’ll never forget the decor… Gold walls with green and gold sculpted carpet and the area above the kitchen cabinets was wallpaper sporting cabbage roses in orange, gold and olive green on a dark brown background. Our rec room had orange walls and a sculpted carpet of mint and white with orange and black flecks. Yeah, it was based on a dare, I’m sure of it…

The plus side (yes, there was one) was that colors were warm, none of that modern gray and black shit… I don’t like that look. I also don’t like cool colors in a home. It makes me feel unsettled. I prefer warm colors. They make me feel comfortable and cheerful. Which is why my home has said colors and decor. It’s just more warm and inviting, I think.

I also have a deep love of 70s music. As far as originality, the 70s had it all, man…

Not to mention vinyl… I’m a vinyl fanatic. I literally have over 700 LPs and 45s (no joke). You just can’t get that warmth from a tape, CD or even an mp3 that you do with vinyl. You also can’t find a lot of obscure tunes unless you find it on vinyl. And I find a lot of obscure stuff!

And the 70s had some incredible muscle cars, like this 1973 Mustang. Isn’t it gorgeous?!

I’m… not a normal girl… Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had this love of cars and I wasn’t afraid to climb in an engine and get dirty. I’m the only girl I know that loves to go to car shows and drools over the cars, even ones from the 20s! But nothing beats a beautiful muscle car…

Not everything in the 70s was great (to some). A lot of the clothes were in these hideous patterns and not matching your patterns was no big deal. Personally, I kind of liked it, and I love bell-bottoms. Hell, I’ve got a picture of my father in this ugly satin shirt of light slate blue with weird patterns of burgundy and darker slate blue that he wore with burgundy, polyester bell-bottoms. Scary pictures… Hahahaa… I have a lot of scary pictures like that.

The 70s were also a time for fads…

One of the more popular was roller skating or roller disco. There were things like pet rocks, mood rings, leisure suits *shudder* and, of course, afros. Even white girls rocked the afro look. Big, frizzy hair… You could have a bad hair day in the 70s and not one person would notice because that was the fad back then. Everyone looked like they were having a bad hair day! If only that fad stuck… I spend entirely too much time straightening my frizzy, curly hair…

Butterflies and flowers were pretty big in decor…

This butterfly is one I bought a few years back. It’s actually meant to be outdoor decor, but it was so perfect and retro that I said “fuck it” and hung it in my house. I also have a smaller one that has wings made out of a very sturdy glass. I know this because someone accidentally knocked the small one off my wall and the wings didn’t break. But it was certainly a heart stopping moment…

Another staple of that retro 70s look is the starburst or sunburst clock.

I actually have one like this one pictured on the left, but the face of it is a dull golden color. It used to hang in the home I grew up in and now hangs in my home.

I’m lucky it does… At some point, the clock stopped working and my mother thought it was time for an update. She was going to throw the clock away! I literally cried and begged her to let me have it, but she was adamant that it was going out for trash. So, later that night, I snuck down to the end of our lane, picked it up from on top of a pile of garbage bags and hid it in my closet for years before I finally hung it in my room. Amazingly, when I plugged it in, it began working again and has run ever since! I love that clock so much!

Clothing patterns, like Simplicity, were another popular thing if you were a good seamstress like my mother…

I remember those horrifying trips to Piece Goods… I think she took me along so I could see first hand what hideous material she was going to use for whatever clothing she planned to make for me. Once, she even made matching Christmas outfits for me and my sister, a patchwork corduroy of reds and greens she made into pants and a vest, my sister in a green turtleneck and me in a red one. I have pictures to prove that as well. Scary pictures…

Bell-bottom jeans, platform sandals, decorative mushrooms, owls, starburst clocks, butterflies, warm colors of browns, oranges and yellows, clothes that don’t always exactly match, records, clothes that don’t always exactly match, funky decor, funky clothes… That’s how I retro…

I think most of us have some type of taste for items or fashion of a bygone era. It doesn’t matter which era it is… If you have a penchant for things from another decade, a time that’s from the past, then you, too, know how to retro. If you’re old (like me), maybe you feel nostalgic for 70s or 80s things. If you’re younger, maybe you prefer the 90s. Actually, it scares me when younger people are in love with the shit that was popular around the time I graduated high school. It makes me feel incredibly old! So, I want to know…