I’ve been opshopping since I was a teenager.
Like most teenagers, I didn’t have a lot of money, but when I became a student, I somehow had even less money.
One day I was walking down the street and saw an old 80s-style cassette deck – a two-speaker silver boombox. It had been sitting out in the rain, sitting on the wet grass.
Anyone would look at it and think it was rubbish.
Realistically it probably should have been ruined.
But it looked cool. So I took it home and put it in the hot water cupboard for two weeks.
And lo and behold – it worked.
I made an audio cable for it so I could plug my phone in and use it as a speaker. This became our little portable sound system. That’s the thing I really remember as hooking me on the idea of finding something and restoring it.
It was the first time I’d really taken something old and used it for a new purpose.
That boombox had RCA inputs – obviously never designed for a phone or an MP3 player – but that’s exactly what we used it for. And honestly, it sounded pretty good.
The idea behind it has always been simple:
Taking something old that we could honour,
and making something new out of it.
That doesn’t always have to mean a restoration.
And the piece itself doesn’t even have to be old – although those are some of my favourite projects.
It’s more about the mindset.
Taking an old technique, an old concept – whether it’s nostalgic or just experimental – and using it in some kind of project that’s applicable to today.
Sometimes that means bringing an old object back to life.
Sometimes it means using an older way of doing things to solve a modern problem.
Either way, it’s about respecting the past, but not being stuck in it.
These days Refit Retro is my outlet for all of that.
Some projects are proper restorations.
Some are total experiments.
Some are just me seeing something and thinking, “I wonder if I could make that work again?”
But they all come from the same place – the belief that old things still have value, and that with a bit of creativity they can have a place in the present.
You can follow along on YouTube to see what I’m working on, commission your own project, or, if you just enjoy the content, you can always buy me a coffee.
However you ended up here – welcome to Refit Retro.
