The term "retro" applied to stylistic trends in music, film, and fashion in the 1990s, that were characterized by their iconic or kitsch use of the past. Stemming from the late 1960s concept of "retrochic" developed by the Paris avant garde, retro fashion embraced the use of revival or period styles from certain counter-cultural examples of alternative consumerism. Although retrochic began as an impromptu anti-fashion, it soon blossomed into a profitable, commercial style known by fashion critics as "the nostalgia industry." Retro become associated with a playful, postmodern nostalgia where the past is used as a storehouse of fashion. But what distinguished the retro fashion of the 1990s from older forms of revivalism, was the cavalier and eclectic disregard for the past. Designs and styles were used without sentimentality or discrimination; the aura of a previous style inspired revelry more than reverence. Retro was a form...