I flicked through an old Country Life magazine last night. One small inset of content struck me. The word ‘vintage’ appeared an annoyingly prevalent 7 times. This tired, over-used expression has left me feeling somewhat cheated recently.
Something is described (inaccurately) as ‘vintage’ when it looks as though it has seen better days. I have noticed that new “made-to-look-old” items are sold much quicker on ebay if the ‘V’ word is liberally used within the description. Interestingly, often things portrayed thus, are nothing of the sort. ‘Aged’ Converse for example. Made to look as though they need to be chucked out – when actually they still smell as new and rubbery as a factory-fresh Lexus. Old ‘looking’ furniture that has been made brand new in some workshop in Slough and then aged with a bit of wax and a bag of nails. What is this all about?

We are all wanting a story, a meaning and a history and so we even attribute that to things we own and buy. Clothes, handbags, sofas. All have a higher price tag if they were once something else, pre-owned or look somehow different to their original intention.

Call me old fashioned, (not vintage, please!) but I don’t always see the point. I like new things to look shiny and… well… new…and old things to look aged and a bit knocked about. I don’t want something new to look as though it needs to be cast into a black sack and donated to the nearest cat charity. That’s just confusing. Surely?

The latest trend to ‘up-cycle’ is a passion for me and it seems for many others, but often the product created looks as though it could fall to bits at any moment if breathed on slightly asthmatically. I like things that last. I hanker after a welding torch of my very own you see.

My favourite item in my kitchen is my mixer. It belonged to my Grandma who I think used it every day, some 30 plus years ago. It still works just as beautifully today and I’m sure that’s why my cakes are so successful. I don’t think my mixer is vintage. It is just plain old!

It is funny that we have decided to place value in aged, re-cycled, organic, up-cycled things all of a sudden. There is good in that. It means we are not throwing as much away and are thinking about a second life for some of our items. But it can sometimes be misleading. It seems to me that unless you are building bespoke Reed beds to naturally handle your bowel outlet, sitting in chairs made from welded shopping trolleys and eating organic meat from farmers who arrange for their cattle to be sung to since birth, you’re not really all that hip. Funny isn’t it?

The truth is that I love genuinely old things. Just as much as new. In fact, more. I once had a kind of furniture business with a friend. It was a brilliant wheeze. We found old bits of antique broken furniture and turned them into amazing things (that didn’t fall to bits) and I painted or varnished them to help them last. We just re-used what was already wonderful to make it more useful. But we didn’t try and ‘age’ anything. We didn’t add antique pine finish to a new table, or “distress” furniture. (Interesting word that.) Because that is sort of like lying.

One of the things I want people to say about ME is that I am authentic, or genuine. I want people to look at me, know me, hear or read my words and think, “Now she, right there, she is speaking the truth.”

There is a lot of fakery in our world. (Some of it as subtle as a stone washed item of cheap new denim.) But be aware that all that glitters is not scrap metal.

The enemy is a master of disguise. He wants to give us appetites for things that don’t last, don’t matter or that are destructive and harmful. Constantly finding ourselves wanting the next up-cycled lampstand forward slash hair-dryer holder made from an old trombone and two chewed dog bowls, actually counts. It is harmful to want what we don’t need or have money for. It is harmful to desire things above our desire for Christ. It is harmful to call things something they are not.

If something is new it is new. Not vintage. Even if it is painted cream and disturbed summarily with a wire brush.

Lets seek to be genuine people today. Not just seem.

(Incidentally, the beautiful tennis racket mirrors in the inset above, are genuinely old!)