PAST FORWARD
When brands look back in order to move forward.
In 1960, John Steinbeck set out on a long journey across the United States with his dog Charley. He traveled through cities, small towns, motels, and gas stations to take the pulse of his country and understand what it had become. From this journey came a book: Travels with Charley.
His conclusion was alarming: signs of local identity were fading, replaced by creeping uniformity. Accents blended together, storefronts looked the same, landscapes flattened. In this standardization of language, faces, and places, Steinbeck saw a deep cultural loss. “I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction,” he wrote.
What he observed in 1960s America seems, in many ways, to have been confirmed today - and has spread into many other fields, including branding. Just like the territory, brands too are becoming smoothed out - visually, culturally, symbolically.
In recent years, they have embraced a dominant aesthetic: blanding. Behind this portmanteau (bland + branding) lies a well-known recipe: sans-serif typography, all-caps logos, black or monochrome palettes, removal of distinctive signs. A visual strategy designed for the digital era—first adopted by tech, then by fashion and other industries. A uniform minimalism… at the cost of uniqueness and brand DNA. A study by agency Collins found that, out of 100 DTC brand logos launched since 2015, 70% were considered “visually interchangeable” by consumers.
But the tide is turning. Since 2022, a reverse movement has started to emerge. More and more brands are revisiting their history, both in imagery and storytelling. Even new players sometimes invent a history from scratch. A step back that gets people talking… and more importantly, one that resonates.
Think of it as the Stéphane Bern version of branding.
𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝐴𝑁𝐴𝐿𝑌𝑆𝐼𝑆
How betting on the past can benefit different industries
AN INCREASE IN SALES
In a saturated market where attention is fleeting, memory becomes a direct economic lever. Retro sells, more, and at higher prices. A UserTesting / Talker Research survey (February 2025, 2,000 US adults) reveals that 71% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that sparks childhood nostalgia, and they would be willing to pay an average of 32% more for products tied to their memories.
A POWERFUL EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT
The goal behind this trend: to capitalize on heritage, reactivate collective memory, strengthen an identity seen as authentic, and play the card of cultural nostalgia. Research on nostalgia psychology has shown its effects: it boosts well-being, familiarity, trust, and loyalty. “It takes the consumer back to their youth, to the good old days. All these things are very therapeutic. They simply help us to unwind,” explains Purvi Shah, lecturer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Business School. All the more so in a context of collective uncertainty. Hence the success of mobilizing political slogans that play on this feeling of loss - “Make America Great Again,” to name just one.
A SIGN OF QUALITY AND RELIABILITY
Brands that lean on their history enjoy an immediate credibility boost. In a market flooded with short-lived novelties, heritage becomes a guarantee of durability and seriousness. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer (2023), 67% of global consumers say they trust a long-established brand more than a new one, even if the latter is more innovative.
REFERENCES THAT APPEAL TO YOUNGER GENERATIONS
Yes… nostalgia also works as an active cultural code. According to a Spiralytics study (December 2022), 80% of young people look for brands that resonate with their nostalgia. And GWI reports that 37% of 16–24 year-olds say they feel nostalgia for the 1990s… even though they never lived through them. This is known as “fauxstalgia.” Millennials and Gen Z adopt references from past eras as a generational language, a marker of identity, and a rallying signal on social media. “Ok boomer”… could it be on its way to becoming cool?
𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝐸𝑋𝐴𝑀𝑃𝐿𝐸𝑆
How are brands revisiting their past?
RETURN TO HISTORIC LOGOS
After a decade of streamlined, uniform, minimalist logos, major luxury houses are now reviving their older graphic signs - richer in history, personality, and emotion. A movement that often coincides with the arrival of new creative directors, marking true shifts in eras.
At Dior, out goes the austere sans-serif popularized by Maria Grazia Chiuri. From his very first show this spring, Jonathan Anderson brought back an old serif logo in lowercase, directly drawn from the archives. A way of rooting his vision within the brand’s heritage.
In 2023, Daniel Lee reintroduced the equestrian knight from 1901, abandoned during the 2018 rebrand. Its return, paired with a serif typeface designed with Peter Saville, reconnects the house with its British identity and founding story. Today, the emblem appears everywhere: campaigns, accessories, jewelry - even standing alone as the brand’s Instagram profile picture. After a brief exile, the knight has reclaimed its horse - and its primary role: to say who Burberry is.
The phenomenon goes beyond luxury. In streetwear, Adidas officially announced in 2025 the comeback of the Trefoil, first introduced in 1972 and replaced in the 1990s by the Performance logo with three diagonal stripes. Long reserved for the Originals line, it was decided in 2025 that it would become the brand’s second official logo. A strategic choice: this heritage symbol resonates strongly with Gen Z, having become both a generational and cultural code. Just look at new ambassador Angèle posing on Instagram with the dual-logo collection to grasp the impact of this very hot comeback!
In the food industry, a recent case shows how a logo change can even turn into a state affair. Just a few days ago, Cracker Barrel unveiled a minimalist logo. The result? Scandal. Outraged conservatives, political backlash, furious tweets… all the way to a public intervention by Donald Trump, who urged the brand to return to its original logo - and got his way. The chain canceled the rebrand within days. A spectacular U-turn, even on the stock market, where the brand “jumped 6.7% after announcing the return to the traditional logo.” Hello Charles III, can you do something about Jaguar?
REISSUES OF PAST COLLECTIONS OR PRODUCTS
Many brands are reissuing, for a capsule or limited edition, some of their most iconic past collections. In thrift shops, on Pinterest or TikTok, old logos and archive pieces circulate, get collected, commented on, and turned into cult objects - fueling a sense of community around the famous If you know, you know. Faced with this spontaneous viral success, brands are increasingly following the trend and reproducing these original pieces.
Ralph Lauren has relaunched its cult capsules Stadium (1992) and Snow Beach (1993), made iconic by hip-hop culture. The result: everything sold out as soon as it went online.
In summer 2023, Decathlon posted on X an image of a tracksuit from its 1985 catalog. A vintage wink that could have remained anecdotal… until a user asked how to get the collection. The community manager replied: “10,000 retweets and we’ll bring it back.” The threshold was reached in under four hours. On launch day, the rush was so intense that the site crashed in less than 30 seconds.
And the list could go on: Adidas and the 1964 Stan Smith, Havaianas and its 1962 Tradicional flip-flop, Coach with the 1972 Mailbox bag, Tommy Hilfiger’s 1986 Coca-Cola logo sweatshirt, Versace’s 1991 pop art collection… “The current appetite for vintage has fueled the rise of second-hand platforms like Vestiaire Collective. But brands don’t want to remain spectators of this trend: it’s only natural that they too start making the old new again,” explains Gachoucha Kretz, professor of fashion marketing at HEC, in an article for Le Monde.
In this context, archive reissues - often launched in ultra-limited editions - become markers of rarity and accelerators of collective desire. For some, they even turn into a ticket to a small fortune, with pieces reselling for up to ten times their original price.
Some brands go even further by betting on true originals. At the reopening of its Marais boutique in Paris, Lacoste set up a dedicated archive corner. There, visitors could find a curated selection of vintage pieces chosen by multidisciplinary artist Julien Boudet. “His sharp eye for fashion and his passion for Lacoste led him to select items that marked the history of the Crocodile brand, able to seduce fashion enthusiasts in search of collector’s pieces,” the press release explained.
ARCHIVES, MUSEUMS AND BRAND HISTORIANS
Brands like Dormeuil rely on their history as a true lever for storytelling and differentiation in their market. This lineage is embodied first in their visual identity. No blank slate here: during its 2021 rebrand, the house chose to keep its coat of arms, simplified, along with its founding date, a reminder that even extends to its Instagram handle: @dormeuil1842.
Archives also play a central role in the brand’s communication strategy. If, like us, you’re lucky enough to visit their showroom, you’ll find precious period books cataloging their fabrics. More accessible to the wider public, their archives also unfold on Instagram. As Victor Dormeuil told us, this approach particularly appeals to a younger audience (the majority of their followers are under 40), drawn to retro aesthetics, vintage ads, and the authenticity of heritage. So go follow them - there are plenty of stories to discover from this house, which can proudly claim a tagline featured in a book dedicated to it: “When the history of a fabric merges with the fabric of history.” So… when’s Dormeuil: The Series dropping on Netflix?
In the same vein, other houses are choosing to open up their archives digitally to a wider audience. Armani, for example, now offers the chance to explore more than 50 years of creation online: over 200 collections, 5,500 runway looks, and 30,200 documents accessible from home. A spectacular achievement - this heritage library turned virtual - where any fashion enthusiast can dive into the Armani universe like a living encyclopedia of contemporary fashion. Well… maybe we’ll put that digital detox on hold for now.
Some iconic brands even go as far as opening their own museums - this time in real life: a way of turning their heritage into an immersive experience. For example, the IKEA Museum (Älmhult, Sweden) is located on the site of the very first store from 1958. Full recreations of Ikea interiors by decade (50s, 70s, 90s…), where visitors can quite literally “step into” a vintage catalog. A perfect example of how a commercial history can be transformed into collective cultural memory… right down to the story of the famous IKEA meatballs.
A profession I discovered while writing this article is that of the brand historian, directly integrated within companies. At Levi’s, this role is held by Tracey Panek: guardian of the archive pieces, she documents, authenticates, and tells the brand’s story through them. Her work spans from exhibitions to social media videos, and even supporting designers who draw on the archives to reissue models. For the 150th anniversary of the 501, she curated an exhibition with the earliest Levi’s, dating to 1873 !
As The Best Marketing Newsletter Ever reminds us, relying on these brand historians (or even passionate fans) helps ensure nostalgia doesn’t get reduced to a lazy shortcut that flatters collective memory without any real depth.
USING PERIOD CODES AND AESTHETICS
Other players are reviving era-specific codes and aesthetics. This is the case for spirits brands like Festif Liquer, which draws inspiration from visuals of the late 1920s, or Giorgio Armani, who shot his latest campaign in lo-fi VHS format—capitalizing on the nostalgic aura of a vanished medium.
This logic extends beyond the commercial realm to include territorial identities. In 2023, the city of Los Angeles unveiled a new tourism logo. Far from an institutional design, it chose a retro script inspired by hand-painted signs, Ocean Pacific T-shirts, and Dogtown surf-and-skate culture. With its California sunset colors, the logo evokes VHS vacations, faded neon lights, and a mythological 80s aesthetic. A perfectly executed revival, designed primarily to appeal to millennial and Gen Z tourists, according to the brief.
But beware! the exercise can backfire. J.Crew learned that the hard way. The brand posted 80s-style visuals on Instagram, parodying its old catalogs. The problem? These images were actually AI-generated, without any disclaimer. Internet users quickly spotted anomalies: odd details, clothes that didn’t exist on the site… and the criticism came fast: “You could have recreated the vibe of your old catalogues by hiring REAL people, but instead we have to be subjected to this soulless AI crap.”
The takeaway: nostalgia only works if it rests on a perceptible authenticity. Fake retro or unacknowledged AI risks breaking trust and turning nostalgia into rejection.
INVENTING OLD SIGNS
And what about new brands without heritage? No problem! As Elisabeth Goodspeed writes, “Heritage design may be art history without footnotes, but consumers, it seems, are less concerned with the authenticity of a brand’s legacy than the feelings of nostalgia and reliability that such narratives evoke.” In other words: it doesn’t matter if the heritage is real, as long as it feels like a reassuring past.
Aimé Leon Dore, for instance, borrows from retro sportswear, vintage tailoring, and 1980s Americana to build the image of a house with heritage - as if it had always existed in the photo album of New York culture… even though it was born in 2014.
Vacation, the American sunscreen brand, goes all-in on 80s parody: pastel packaging, absurd slogans, cursive typography, and grainy VHS-style ads. Everything is fake, and that’s what works! The universe is coherent, funny, and packed with references. By cultivating a radical nostalgic aesthetic, Vacation creates an artificial patina of heritage… but one that is emotionally effective. The brand doesn’t imitate the past, it reinvents it as a shared fictional backdrop.
In the alcohol industry, Elisabeth Goodspeed notes how common this “patina of the past” has become: art deco typography, old-style bottles for Balholm fruit wines and spirits. Historical authenticity doesn’t matter : the retro look alone is enough to create an imaginary of quality, craftsmanship, and reliability.
In tech too, this strategy is creeping in. The logo of Mistral AI, in 8-bit pixel art, echoes the early days of computing and video games. A choice that goes against Big Tech’s sanitized codes, evoking a more pioneering, free, and artisanal age. It suggests a more human, alternative kind of AI. That pixel, far from being just a visual effect, becomes a powerful cultural code: it speaks to early adopters, internet nostalgics, and “geeks” looking for a counter-model.
TO CONCLUDE
I’d like to wrap up by (re)quoting Elisabeth Goodspeed (and I highly recommend her article on the subject). She shows that brands’ return to the past is rarely 100% faithful- it’s often a recomposed fiction. She cites the example of Burger King’s rebrand by Jones Knowles Ritchie: presented broadly as a “throwback” to the 1969 logo, it was never truly meant as a tribute. The identity was based on a mash-up, blending multiple eras and styles.
She then references Michael Diaz-Griffith’s concept of “Strange Historicism”: a blurred history where the authentic and the fake coexist without hierarchy. Nostalgia is no longer about going back, but about becoming a living material that shapes new hybrid memories. That’s exactly what’s happening today. Gen Z isn’t resurrecting the past—they’re editing and remixing it to make it their present.
Gap’s Better in Denim campaign (Fall 2025) is a perfect illustration. Visually, it channels the Y2K aesthetic (low-rise jeans, MTV-style choreographies, Kelis’s Milkshake), but it isn’t a faithful copy : rather a stylized remix. Fronted by the girl group KATSEYE, it delivers a fantasized, condensed version of the early 2000s, resolutely contemporary.
Thus, nostalgia can be either a lazy commercial crutch… or a fantastic creative playground. Brands, consider yourselves warned: the spotlight is on you.
𝐿𝐴 𝑅𝑈𝐵𝑅𝐼𝑄𝑈𝐸 '𝐼𝑀𝐴𝐺𝐸 𝐶𝐻𝑂𝐼𝑆𝐼𝐸'
With Western Mechanics, Alex Prager revisits history painting in the style of Géricault or Delacroix… but in a pop Americana version: US flag, globe, underwear drying in the wind. In this carefully staged chaos, bodies intertwine, oscillating between drama and comedy.
As often in Prager’s work, past and present collapse onto each other: the heroic sublime of classical painting meets the clichés of everyday American life. The result is a recomposed history, both familiar and artificial, where irony holds up a mirror to our time.
My name is Marine Aubenas and in Indice Insights, Studio Indice’s bi-monthly newsletter, I decode the trends and shifts shaping culture, brands, and contemporary lifestyles. Observe. Understand. Share. That’s what guides me every edition.