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VHS REWIND
VHS tapes are making a comeback, both in niche collections and as a design motif
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We
have only fond memories of the VHS era, from rifling through piles of
black plastic cartridges pasted with lovingly hand-scrawled labels to
diligently filling drawers with neat rows of those cardboard-covered
rectangular masterpieces. We still troll our personal archives for
those catchy '80s Juicy Fruit commercials and to watch that classic HBO intro we so miss. But just as cassette tape homages have been infiltrating the
design world
and influencing the lo-fi movement,
it looks as though the Video Home System is finally getting its due as
well. VHS collections are becoming prized, and films that never have
been released on DVD are especially treasured. (We're talking about
you, Maurice Sendak's Really Rosie!) Thanks to this new movement, the iconic VHS tape is also making appearances in art and upcycling projects.
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VHS Hard Drives: Bored with the sleek contemporary facade of your external hard drive? Etsy shop CentennialMerchant
upcycles discarded VHS tapes into hard drives that can be displayed
with geek pride, or camouflaged in a row of other tapes to keep your
top-secret information under wraps. Offering up to 640 GB of unique
storage, currently the hard drives are available in Star Wars and Top Gun editions, but CentennialMerchant will create custom designs by request as well. Our worn-out copy of Overboard
can now be reborn as storage for our most important digital files! Just
be sure that the VHS you're sacrificing for a modern makeover doesn't
hold any amazing found footage that you'd regret losing. Yesterday's VHS tapings could be tomorrow's viral video sensation.
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VHS Still Lifes: When hearing "VHS" and "art" in the same sentence, some may think only of the over-the-top box covers that were designed to grab our attention on the shelves of local rental joints. Luckily, artist Hollis Brown Thornton
has wider vision. We're coveting his nostalgic renderings of VHS
stacks, with every detail perfectly captured in permanent marker and
acrylic, down to the era-appropriate movie titles on the labels.
Thornton's images are available both as prints and laptop, hard drive, iPod, and iPhone skins
to give your modern devices a more retro look. Who would've thought
that the sight of those multihued Polaroid stripes would one day strike
a sentimental chord in the hearts of former '80s children everywhere?
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VHS Notebooks: There is just something about those cardboard VHS sleeves that we recollect dearly. Maybe it was the dramatic character photos,
the rambling film descriptions printed on the back, or the fact that we
never cut ourselves slipping one off a tape the way we have trying to
pry open a plastic DVD cover. Now, your favorite VHS covers from the
'70s and '80s can live on as a RocknMama's recycled notebook
via Etsy. Both sides of each box are used, so you can flip over your
spiral during a meeting and read that "Warren Beatty is at his sexiest"
in Shampoo or get a quick refresher on the plot of A Star is Born. We love this creative use of discarded materials - if only we could figure out what all these Jerry Maguire tapes are being collected for...
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* References to products and services in trendcentral do not imply our endorsement, but rather are intended to provide objective insights into emerging trends and examples of those trends. trendcentral is published by The Intelligence Group, a trend research and consumer insights company focusing on youth culture. For more information on our services, or to subscribe to our syndicated Cassandra Report studies, please contact Noelle Weaver at 212-277-5244 or via email at nweaver@intelg.com.
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