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News reaches us of the sad death of a true legend - Evel Knievel - who has passed away aged just 69, after suffering health problems for several years.
An ever-present on TV screens in the 1970s, Knievel is best remembered by children of the era as much for his toy replica as his jumps. And with that in mind, we present this tribute to the great man - classic jumps recreated by the classic toy stunt set.
We'll miss you Evel.
While children plead for and parents stress over whatever this year’s ‘must have’ toy is, remind yourself of the toys that caused a stir back in the 1980s. "Just Can't Get Enough: Toys, Games, and Other Stuff from the '80s That Rocked" is full of memories of the fads and crazes from that decade.
There are chapters devoted to Care Bears, Scratch n Sniff stickers, Strawberry Shortcake, the Garbage Pail Kids, Alf and He-Man. Each section explains the concept (The Story), the products and its cultural relevance and impact (What Did It All Mean?), which makes it sound more intellectual then it is!
For anyone who grew up in the 1980s, it will no doubt raise a smile or two, but for anyone already a grown-up by then, its contents’ appeal will be as mystifying as today’s obsessions. It is available on Amazon for under £7.
Fancy a denim jacket with real heritage? You need the Lee 101J 1966 jacket.
This is a replica of the Lee 101J from 1966, made famous by The Beatles, who wore these very same jackets in that year for a Scandinavian photo shoot. The jacket is made from premium Japanese denim and has an adjustable waist, two button-fastening chest pockets and the Lee tab on the chest pocket.
Yours from Oi Polloi for £159.99.
Gap has taken time out from making casual clothing for middle-management to dress up a Vespa LX50 scooter in stripes.
As far as we know (and please tell us if we're wrong), this is only available in the US and only for a limited time or while stocks last (December 23rd 2007 at the latest according to Gap). The bike itself is nothing different to the standard LX model with a 50cc engine and throwback looks - although its asking price of $6,000 (£3,000) is much higher.
Whether it's worth around $2,000 (£1,000) more for the stripes, I'm not sure. If you think it is, get down to your Vespa dealer sharpish.
Joseph Joseph have undoubtedly cornered the market in worktop savers and we’ve featured a couple of their designs before. The range now also includes two retro kitchen appliance designs; the Mixer Workshop Saver and the Espresso Machine Workshop Saver.
These designs use 1950s style pastel shade but with a bold drawing style that stops them from looking twee. Like all of their worktop savers, these come with a lifetime guarantee against breakage which is good except that with so many great designs to choose from, an excuse to buy a couple would be welcome.
The Perfect Pad is selling both these designs and others priced £12.99.
Barry Murphy returns once more trawl the TV and radio guides (so you don't have to) to find anything worth tuning into this week. All listings are for UK terrestrial TV, Freeview and national radio, with the shows running from Friday 30th November to Thursday 6th December.
Highlight of the week
Brazil, Brazil - Tropicalia Revolution. BBC 4. Friday 30th November 9.00pm (Repeated Saturday 1st December 10.00pm)
The second programme in the series covers the military era in Brazil, from 1964-85, and discusses the role that musicians played in leading the fight-back – and how they suffered as a result. The era began with the left-wing protest movement headed by singers like Nara Leao, that was matched against rival styles that ranged from the passionate singing of Elis Regina to the rousing pop songs of Jorge Ben – with television song contests developing into a battle-ground between supporters of different styles.
All this changed in the late Sixties, with the emergence of the experimental tropicalia movement, determined to shake up Brazil just as military hardliners took control of the government. The programme chronicles the careers of the tropicalia stars, from Os Mutantes to Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, who were both jailed and exiled to Britain (and includes never shown footage of them both performing at the Isle of Wight festival). It describes the military censorship campaign against such leading musicians as Chico Buarque, Milton Nascimento, and even Jorge Ben. And it shows how black musicians in Bahia state responded by developing new, and often militant black styles like samba-reggae.
Want to play just like The Beatles? Well, there's little chance of that with Selcol's Beatles New Beat guitar.
This is an original piece of Fab Four memorabilia, dating back to 1964 and now extremely rare. Because lets be honest, no-one ever looks after their toys. Officially licensed and measuring 32 inches in length, the guitar has just four strings, a logo and some mock autographs to the face.
So can it be used to play anything at all? Well, it does come with a lyric sheet and chords for five songs, so it probably can. It also has its original coffin-shaped cardboard box, albeit with some slight wear and tear. Not the kind of thing that appears all that often - so the price of £750 is probably about right.
Find out more at the 991 website
We have covered Dodo Designs previously - and although this No Singing, No Dancing, No Swearing chalkboard isn't the work of that particular company, it is very much in its style.
Yes, we're talking mock Victoriana with a modern twist, this time a sign for the room of your choice, featuring the text 'Please, no singing, no dancing, no swearing, this is a respectable house'. And with a chalkboard underneath for you to add new rules, new abuse or just a few reminders of things you need to pick up.
Available online, you can pick it up for £6.95.
Looking like a cross between the Ikea Fado light and the Flying Saucer light fitting we featured some time back is this Retro Glass Pendant fitting.
We're talking serious 1970s here, not least with the shade of brown used in the glass. Aside from that, this has a fitting almost identical to the Fado in chrome and those distinctive clear circles that are sure to create a strange light effect in your living room.
Available online, this can be yours for £32.40.
Find out more at the Direct Light website
Ideal for an office - especially one that uses a lot of pencils - is this Pencil Bench from Boex.
It's a bench that was created as an experiment, to see if it was possible to turn an everyday office object into a piece of furniture. And it was - although it took 1600 pencils, each individually sprung for your seating comfort. And if you're short of a pencil, it's not a problem, as each can be removed and used. Oh yes - and it has a smart dark wood frame too.
The Pencil Bench has won various design awards over the last year, but hasn't yet gone into commercial production. Although I'm sure they will make you one if you ask nicely.
We have a Cifra 5 clock in the living room - a really smart piece of 1950s design by Gino Valle. This retro chrome flip down clock isn't in that league, but it follows a similar principle.
It uses similar flip down technology, but rather than the usual boxed-in look, this new clock from ChinaVision has the numbers hanging from a chrome stand. If it's anything like the Cifra 5, it could be slightly noisy, but that's a small price to pay for something that looks so good.
No price as yet, keep checking the ChinaVision website for an update.
Find out more at the ChinaVision website
Via Tech Chee
The TAG Heuer Monaco isn't the company's only updated classic on the market, you can also pick up the latest version of the TAG Heuer Grand Carrera, a watch first introduced in 1964.
This 60s timepiece was inspired by GT racing, but has been consistently popular as a smart watch with a very readable display. This latest version uses twin discs to replace the usual hands on the chronograph dials to make it even more readable, as well as having discs finished with Cotes de Geneve decoration and polished bevelling.
Not cheap as you might expect, with prices starting at £1,995.
Find out more at the TAG Heuer website
Something a little different from Rothschild & Bickers - these Victorian-style Tassel lights.
Apparently 'inspired by Victorian decadence', the lights mix the modern with the vintage and indeed, vintage working methods as all the glass in the lights is hand-blown.
A choice of colours are available, all with matching tassel and with a choice if shapes, including the longer one above and a more flat design if you haven't got a particularly high ceiling. Prices start at £230.
Rather than re-tiling your kitchen or bathroom, you could give your old tiles a makeover with these Tile Tattoos from Mibo.
You simply stick these retro designs over your old tiles - in a matter of minutes, you have transformed the room. And these heavy-duty, four-inch stickers are also resistant to water and moisture and don't leave a sticky mess when you grow tired of them.
Six designs in total, including the two above, they sell for $16 (£8) for a set of six. You can pre-order now for January 2008 delivery.
Find out more at the 2 Jane website
As the name might suggest, Heirloom creates furniture to last, that you can pass down through the family - but they make it for children.
And luckily for us, they make it with rather smart mid-century looks. The pick (for me anyway) is this Ellinor rocking chair by Catharina Engelholm, which is available as a one or two-seater. A nice mix of wood and leather, it has a great curved wood feet (available in walnut or birch) and a spill-resistant leather cover for the actual seat in eggshell white. There's also some hard-wearing cushioning made from jute, horsehair, wadding and cotton fabric.
No prices as yet, but you can drop the Swedish company a line about retailers and cost.
Apologies for any problems you might have encountered using Retro To Go over the last 24 hours - the good news is that we are now back to normal.
We had serious problems with the back end of the site, which we hope are now sorted out. Obviously this has meant a lack of new content, but we hope to catch up over the next day or so.
If you encounter any further issues, please drop us a line.
Let’s face it, you probably are too old to be playing with toy cars, but that doesn’t mean you can’t drink out of mug decorated with pictures of them.
Ella Doran’s Toy Cars mug is made from fine bone china with a brightly coloured toy vehicles driving across a striking red background. Ella Doran is a British designer whose work uses cleverly manipulated photographic images to give distinctive results, with this mug being a good example.
The mug can be bought from This is Glint for £7.25
It should be obvious by now that we love a retro robot motif, so we were pleased to find another source of great Robot print children’s clothes, designed by Swedish designer, Mini Rodini.
Available to buy through the Nordic Kids website, there are currently two robot designs available. For around £23, there is long-sleeved t-shirt with various pink robots, available for ages 4 to 7, but our favourite is the Leon the Robot t-shirt, which features a picture of a manic looking robot. This t-shirt comes in sizes from 12 months up to 7 years and costs £19.99. Sadly, it doesn’t come in adult sizes…
Visit Nordic kids to buy online.
It seems the high street has gone Bauhaus crazy as this is the second item of clothing we’ve come across this week that alludes to the design movement.
The Oasis Bauhaus Print Drop Waist Dress is a little silk number in pink, red and black with an all over print of squares and semi-circles. It also has some beading detail consisting of black circles and squares. As well as being a pretty dress, there can’t be many dresses around with such high brow references!
It costs £65 and can be bought in stor or from the Oasis website.
It has been a while since we last featured a mirror because there isn’t often that much of interest around, but this mirror from Mirror Mirror is worthy of a mention.
They are calling it simply the Retro Black & Silver Mirror but it could be described as an Art Deco mirror as its stepped shape and contrasting colours have characteristics of that style. It costs £235 and is made to order.
Enquiries can be made via the Mirror Mirror website.
Here's a smart piece of design that also packs a pocket-friendly price tag - the Furni 80s-style white LCD watch.
This unisex watch has been produced in association with Cool Hunting and features that white plastic strap, LCD screen with black and green surround, stopwatch, alarm, 12/24-hour clock and water resistance.
And for that definitive 80s touch, it even has a Duran Duran lyric engraved on the back. Get it now while you can, it's priced at $24, which is a ridiculously cheap £12.
A modern and unusual take on the classic Sputnik style from BoConcept - the Tulip pendant light.
The Tulip Pendant lamp is packed with white 'trumpet-shaped' shades from the silver core, each shooting light in a different direction from your ceiling.
Although the price of that lighting effect is pretty hefty - just in the stores now at £649.
Find out more at the BoConcept website
Every generation of footballer since the 1970s has been blessed with bad taste in hair, so it's no surprise to see them honoured with the Footballers' Famous Haircuts t-shirt.
Yes, this all-time XI is pulled from all over the world, including Bobby Charlton and David Seaman from England, not to mention the likes of Roberto Baggio, Socrates and Johann Cruyff from the rest of the world.
A dark brown 100 per cent cotton shirt with coloured print, it retails for 29.95 Euros (around £21).
Find out more at the Sportus website
Steel Cake is a new watch company out of New York, the brain child of designer Matthew Burnett and co-founder James Nelson. And their initial range of watches includes this rather smart 70s-style Tank watch.
I'm guessing 'Tank' because of the amount of armour on display here, with the watch face squeezed into a very chunky stainless steel bracelet and brushed steel surround. The watch has a quartz movement, is water-resistant to 100m and has a smart traditional face.
Available online, you can pick one up for $215 (around £110).
Leica - makers of the first 35mm camera - are still making extremely cool kit and for me, the Leica D-Lux 3 is top of the pile.
It's not the most expensive Leica, nor is the most retro in looks (although it undeniably has a look of the past), but it is a compact camera you can pick up and use, but with advanced features you would expect to see in the more serious SLR cameras. That includes 10MP resolution, widescreen photo format, image stabiliser, RAW image output and a range of manual options to perfect your photo-taking technique.
And as an added bonus, it comes with a 60s-style leather camera case, made specifically for the D-Lux 3 and just about the most stylish case on the market Which makes this camera the coolest one you could ever carry around. Expect to pay around £450 for camera, case and memory card in a choice of black and silver.
Never has a product name been so accurate - this is the Book Shelf - made from an old book.
Well, what looks like an old book. It isn't for two reasons - firstly, it's not a genuine book, see the author's name of 'S.E.L.F. Shelf' for a clue to that. And secondly, this vintage-like book is actually solid and ready to fix to your wall as a 'floating' shelf, with the screws and plugs included.
So fix it on the wall, then pile your other books on top. Very eye-catching and not expensive - just £19.99.
Find out more at the I Want One Of Those website
The name Bugatti is more associated with the open road than the kitchen, but judging by this retro-styled toaster and espresso coffee maker, the move into the home looks to be a good one.
The espresso machine has the looks of a modernist piece and a rather cool retro dial, as well as a powerful 15-bar pump for milky drinks, a cup warmer on the top and the ability to use either coffee pods or ground coffee. The Volo toaster has a motorised lifting system, wide slots and a serving tray.
Both come in a range of colours (so you can match up) and both are available now. Expect to pay around £170 for the toaster and £450 for the coffee maker.
Find out more at the Bodie and Fou website
Think of an electronic drum kit and you think of the 1980s - the drummers from period horrors like Spandau Ballet of Dead Or Alive producing some flat beats from even flatter drums. Those early kits faded away - but now the techno-drum has returned, courtesy of the Traps E400.
And it is much-improved, looking more like a real kit, but with less weight and with the option to do some silent drumming - just plug in your headphones. The kit includes two cymbals, a hi-hat, three toms, a snare drum, bass drum and the stool. So just about everything you need for making a racket.
Not a bad price for a full drum kit too - around £450.
Teenage dreams of being a rock god may have given way to a steady job, family and vital decisions about crockery, but you can still inject a bit of rock n roll glamour into your life with this set of Rock and Roll China.
Made of white porcelain with a cool black print, the series comprises of a mug and two sizes of plate in a choice of four designs; drums, guitar, amp or microphone. The smaller plates are particularly nice as they feature a rock n roll phrase around the edge.
Okay, so buying plates probably doesn’t come high on most hedonists’ to do lists, but for those of us outside of that world, these are a small consolation.
Prices start at £11 for the 20cm plate up to £14 for the larger plate from Pussy Home Boutique.
Bauhaus: you’ve visited the exhibition, you’ve admired the architecture, you’ve coveted the furniture – all that remains for you to do is get the t-shirt. Ever reliable when it comes to printed t-shirts, Urban Outfitters is currently selling the Bauhaus Tee.
The print consists of triangles, lines and geometric shapes that were beloved of the movement, although I would have expected the use of more primary colours to be more in keeping with the style.
It costs £28 and is available to buy online now.
It's not easy to find Christmas decorations with character on the high street, but we think these Paperchase Glitter Layer Starburst Christmas decorations could well fit the bill.
These star-shaped decorations have a distinctly 1950s feel, as well as enough colour and glitter to brighten up the oldest of Christmas trees. And let's be honest, they've got to be better than those cheap silver balls.
Yours from the store or online for £4 each.
Fancy a change from silver or chrome? These colourful Bluff lights from Habitat could be what you're looking for.
Available in fennel green and rowan red, these pendant lights are made of aluminium, then powder-coated in your chosen colour. And they will provide a superbly stylish 70s vibe in your home.
The Bluff lights retail for £45 each.
Find out more at the Habitat website
Not just childhood nostalgia, but a game too - the Trumpton chess set.
I'm guessing 'chess' is a rather loose description, there doesn't seem like enough pieces on the board - and the board itself might throw the seasoned chess pro. But there's no denying the hand-crafted pieces are eye-catching and I'm sure there's a game in there somewhere. And if there isn't, well you can always use it for display.
Available online, it's yours for £29.99.
We do love our wood-finished technology - and that includes this Attic retro-styled radio and speaker.
And the title just about sums up what it does - this wood-bound speaker (which is also available in black) offers an AM/FM tuner with a clean/consistent sound, courtesy of AroundSound technology. And you can benefit from that sound if you plug in your iPod or MP3 player - as it doubles up as a speaker system.
Add to that the retro looks and vintage-style dials and you have a nice little audio unit that retails for just $98 (around £49).
Find out more at the Urban Outfitters website
Dodgems or bumper cars, whatever you call them, they have been permanent fixtures on our fun fairs for over 50 years. And now you can have two in your living room.
David Simpson is the owner of the car above and its partner (which you can see over the page). Ignore the Lambretta badges, both of thse cars are 1955 Gebr Jhle bumper cars, made in Bruschal in Germany through the 40s and 50s before being exported extensively to the US for early amusement parks.
These cars have been lovingly restored into the quirkiest seating you'll ever find for a living room. And if they'll fit your home or flat, the owner is looking to sell - get in touch with us if you want the seller's details. Think you have something even more quirky in your home? Let us know and we'll happily print it.
Continue reading "Full-size vintage bumper cars for your living room" »
Remember Bunty? Or just feel nostalgic for 70s fashion? Either way, you might like this Bunty 1974 canvas print.
It's taken from Bunty magazine, specifically the 12th October 1974 issue and under sanction from original publisher D C Thomson. The cut-out wardrobe from that issue has been reproduced and printed onto 100 per cent cotton canvas, then stretched onto wood, ready to hang.
Sized at 510 x 104cm, it retails for £104.
We scour the world for interesting retro objects - in fact, we found these Miatou 70s-style table lamps in Tel Aviv.
But thankfully for you, they are available online. Just two of the designs shown here, but all follow the same 70s-style shape, with a range of striking shades to choose from. The base in handmade ceramic, while the shades are 100 per cotton, with the lamps standing at 30cm tall.
You can pick one up for $39.90, which is a very reasonable £20. Shipping is $15 (£7.50).
After we featured the mod and punk-themed skateboards, we were pointed in the direction of something similar - these classic rock skateboards.
All are officially licensed and sold without wheels, giving you the option of hanging the boards on your wall as quirky art or using as they were intended. The boards have plain uppers and designs on the rear, including the likes of The Ramones and Jamie Reid's Never Mind The Bollocks and God Save The Queen Sex Pistols artwork.
They retail for around £45.
Made from recycled and recyclable paper board, the Factum Chair in Chintz has perfect environmental credentials, but is also incredibly practical too.
It can be unfolded quickly to give you an extra chair as need, particularly useful around Christmas time to seat extra guests. When not in use, it folded way flat for easy storage. And we can’t overlook its delightfully kitsch chintz pattern, which makes it more cheerful than your average foldaway chair.
All of this for a bargain price of £28. It is available to buy online from Objects of Design.
The doyenne of punk fashion, Vivienne Westwood, has designed a range of rugs, cushions and wall-hangings for The Rug Company.
Most reminiscent of her famous punk aesthetic is the VW Flag Rug, a tapestry Union Jack design. Sadly, the price is light years away from punk values, costing £1,950. The design is repeated in a cushion at a slightly more affordable £275. Both are made using the traditional French tapestry style Aubusson, which may contribute to the high costs.
If you have money to spare, you can see the whole range online at The Rug Company.
Just out in time for Christmas is a two-disc DVD set of The Who's finest moments coupled with rare footage of the band and band members - Amazing Journey: The Story Of The Who and Six Quick Ones. And we have three DVD sets to give away.
Directed by Paul Crowder, Amazing Journey tells the story of the band through the music, footage, new interviews with the band, celebrity fans and musicians, plus recently-discovered concert footage, kicking off with I Can't Explain and ending with the band's most recent tour and recordings. There's also an additional Six Quick Ones disc, which focuses on each individual band member, the mod scene, the pop art movement and more rare footage - including film of the band as the High Numbers at the Railway Hotel - the earliest footage of the band known to be in existence.
If you want to be in with a chance of winning a set, just enter your details at our sister site Modculture, following the link below. The winners will be drawn just before Christmas.
Those nice fellas at The Flipside managed to secure not only the use of a print of Smashing Time, but also a personal appearance by the delightful Rita Tushingham! In case you haven’t run across this little belter of a film before, I’ll summarise:
Two girls from the North of England, Yvonne & Brenda, come down to London in search of ‘The Scene’, which they’ve heard is located somewhere around ‘Carnaby Street’ and we follow their hapless journey from the drive of St Pancras Station, forty years before the glittering refit that transformed it into a sight worth seeing, but here, begrimed with eighty years of soot, and in disrepair, to Camden Town, the result of asking a drunken gentleman of the road the way to that more fashionable street in W1, all the way to that dreamy thoroughfare of fashion, to the more upmarket of West London’s boutiques, fashion shoots and Yvonne’s thwarted pop career, then the long walk back to St Pancras and home.
Just in time for the really nasty weather (or at least cold and slippy) weather are these Dorothy Perkins leaf print wellingtons, sold in conjunction with the Woodland Trust.
A choice of two retro-styled designs, in a red or black, with contrasting trims and solid/hard-wearing soles. £5 of the price of each pair will go to the Woodland Trust - and £5 will plant a new tree in the UK.
Available now, they retail for £20.
Barry Murphy returns once more trawl the TV and radio guides (so you don't have to) to find anything worth tuning into this week. All listings are for UK terrestrial TV, Freeview and national radio, with the shows running from Friday 23rd November to Thursday 29th November.
Highlight of the week
BBC4 launches it's Brazil, Brazil season on Friday 23rd November with the start of a three part series which explores the evolution of Brazilian music. The series starts in the days of slavery, when an estimated 4 million Africans were forcibly moved to Brazil, and traces the development of samba from the poor black areas of Salvador and Rio, where it was initially banned, to its fusion with European styles and its move to the mainstream.
The first programme, titled Samba to Bossa, follows the career of samba's most successful and glamorous international star, Carmen Miranda, and the growth of the samba schools that dominate the Rio carnival. It traces the fight-back by musicians from the poor Northeast, who used a rival style, forro, to sing about the harsh realities of their lives, and shows how politics helped the development of a sophisticated new samba-jazz fusion, bossanova, from the Fifties, that was to bring international success to Joao Gilberto and Tom Jobim. The programme ends with the military coup that ended the optimistic, easy-going bossa era.
The 27th anniversary of a death might not be the most obvious date to be heralding, but nonetheless Proud Galleries are using this as the raison d'être for their upcoming photographic celebration the life and career of John Lennon. Not that they need an excuse with what promises to be such an interesting show.
"Remember Love: John Lenon" features iconic images by Dixie Dean, Terry O’Neill, Barry Plummer, David M. Spindel and Jurgen Vollmer, but perhaps more intriguing will be the exclusive display of photographs by Tom Hanley and Polly Moseley, whose work offers a more intimate and personal portrayal of the legend. Tom Hanley had enviable access to the Beatles throughout the 1960s and his photographs show the young Lennon behind closed doors in Parisian hotels and the Ap
