Retro Furniture
It is probably easier to refer to retro furniture as that of the 60’s, where the style of furniture is often referred as ‘funky’ and ‘cool’.
The style ‘G Plan’, introduced in 1952 quickly became popular and was widely used with much enthusiasm.
G Plan can be simply explained as a ‘mix and match’ concept as the manufacturers in 60’s regularly produced limited range of retro furniture, the customers were then more or less encouraged to buy consecutive sets of retro furniture that could go well together with the original sets. The result was often satisfying as different retro furniture could exist harmoniously in any given space.
This was considered a breakthrough because previously home owners were forced to buy really expensive sets of retro furniture all at once. With G Plan, they could buy any number of retro furniture at different times and didn’t have to worry about them not matching.
Scandinavia was the leading manufacturer of the G Plan retro furniture range which was always modern but never avant-garde. Swedish pine known as summa was widely used to make retro furniture, therefore, pine became like an iconic material for retro furniture. The darker, tola wood from Africa was also used, especially in the more modern designs.
The late 1960’s the trend of using disposable items became temporarily popular and retro furniture is not exception. Cardboard and blown-up chairs were introduced to the market as some younger people preferred to change their retro furniture every few years instead of getting stuck to a set for a lifetime that could prove to be outdated later. But according to many surveys, most people still thought solid wood retro furniture had higher value, more durable and was a much better investment.
Today, if one wishes to find retro furniture, they can be found quite easily especially in charity shops, garage sales, car boot sales and weekend markets. G Plan retro furniture usually have gold stamp on its base as well as some red stamps. If anyone would like to acquire authentic G Plan retro furniture, they would also probably need to verify that the stamps are also genuine. |
