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Modern retro had its first run in the '70s, looking back at the '50s. Some of it was Happy Days/American Graffiti" nostalgia, and some of it was what came to be known as cheese: making fun of the banality of the 50s consumer culture, old TV and so on. I got tired of that crap, largely because the people giggling at the past were creating cultural institutions that were equally as banal as the ones they derided: Duran Duran, anyone?
I've got no problem in resurrecting an old style because you think it's attractive. There is a certain coolness in finding something good in a thing or style that everyone else has dismissed.
But this whole retro thing is artificial. If something was truly good 30 years ago -- not just stylish -- it's good now. People should be aware enough to know that, not just wait for someone to tell them.
And frankly, every new style or motif or school of art stands on the shoulders of those that came before it. I'm a big art deco fan; art deco applied modern graphic arts techniques and the streamline aesthetic of early 20th century technology to classical themes of mythology and nature that have been around for millenia, and also built on the decorative arts innovations of the Beaux Arts movement which immediately proceeded it. You see very little art deco retro because it takes real talent to do it well, and good materials, too (except maybe in a poster). Otherwise, it looks cheap.
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