I am convinced that there is a constant market for nostalgia. As time moves forward, so does the period for which we are nostalgic. In the 1970s (real), we saw a whole bunch of stuff about the 50’s: American Graffiti, Happy Days, and Grease. The 1980s gave us New Wave, but if you look closely, the B-52s were just rehashed supersonic beach movie pop from the 1960s, but with the contrast knob on the TV turned all the way up. Grunge? Neil Young did it in the 70s.

The pattern? there is a gap of 20 years, give or take 5 years, between the actual timeline and that for which we are nostalgic. This isn’t hard to figure out why– the top consumers in the market are the 35-45 year old middle class. And being middle class, they (we) constantly yearn for those halcyon days of our high school/college, when we still had dreams and music was “real”. Marketing this nostalgia takes two forms:

• placing the setting of the movie in high school proper with some sort of time machine/youth machine (Zac Effron, Freddy Prince Jr, Tom Hanks, Freaky Friday)
• keeping a modern timeline, but styling everything from the nostalgic period (Big Chill, Jackie Brown, Ocean’s Twelve, Royal Tanenbaums, or any Steven Soderberg movie)

John Cocktoasten would wear these

Which brings me to my point: I found some sneakers made by Calvin Klein on our sister website shoesteal.com that are clearly made for a 1970s Steven Soderberg movie. These shoes are for sale right now, and have modern soles and everything, but the styling is– well– they belong on Chevy Chase as he fakes his way into the tennis club in Fletch or Caddyshack, or Brad Pitt in a ultra-non-hip-that-it’s-hip outfit in Ocean’s Fifteen.

I think I’ll pick up a pair. I’ll put them on the Underhill’s charge account.