Retronaut

A - FULL WIDTH

Retronaut

The past is a foreign country.
This is your passport.

B - LEFT

The Retronaut website is an online warehouse for time capsules. With an impressive repository of images - old photographs, ad campaigns and magazine articles among others - Retronaut allows you to delve into the past, holding an extensive collection that's enough to satisfy even the most avid vintage vulture.

What follows is an interview with founder, Chris Wild.

Where did your passion for retro come from?

The past has always seemed to me as exotic and beguiling as an unexplored country. It was the impossibility of travelling back in time that led me to ask how close I could get to the experience. I found images and clips that seemed to dissolve away the barriers between the present and the past.

How did Retronaut start?

I couldn't find a site that allowed me to surf time the way I wanted to. I wanted to be able to dive into different decade. Retronaut lets me do that, giving me and those who join a platform to explore time.

B - LEFT

Which is your favourite decade/theme?

I love early colour photography. We often imagine the past in black and white, because most of us have family photographs in black and white. In fact the first colour photograph was taken in the 1870s. The first commercial colour process was the Autochrome in 1907. These early colour images - like this seem to show not the past but another version of now, like this picture of Russian children from 1909.

Which material/decade receives the most interest on your site?

People especially love exploring the 1960s and 1970s, as well as material from WWII.

Why do you like CultureLabel?

CultureLabel brings an elegance and simplicity, and a curatorial eye, to the many and varied products across cultural institutions. It's great that CL has been able to synthesize so many forms of cultural retail.

What are your three favourite CultureLabel products, and why?

I have always been a big Bowie fan, so this print by Mick Rock of Bowie as Ziggy in 1972 is very cool.

I love this image of Tower Bridge from 1910, by Alvin Langdon Coburn.

And my son Zebedee loves dressing up as much as I do - he often sports one of these caps from the National Railway Museum.

B - RIGHT

"Enlightenment and wonder"
- The Guardian

"Retronaut harnesses the hidden power of the internet - time-travel"
- The Times

"Forget Doctor Who"
- BBC

"Strap on your time travelling goggles and prepare for the years to dissolve away..."
- Vintage Seekers

B - LEFT

Image Credits

Image of Piccadilly Circus in 1949, taken by Chalmers Butterfield.

Russian children from 1909 by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii; Library of Congress

Steve Jobs, 1984, by Norman Seeff.

This image: Chris Wild speaking at Lost Lectures, September 2012

Hide