So far as interior design is concerned, there is a lot of interest in various retro eras for individual rooms. A sunny retro kitchen from the 50s is a very popular look. Dark wood and leather serves for a manly den from the 20s. Space Age chrome and glass living rooms are instantly enchanting.
Since a lot of the actual furnishings from these eras has long since gone to the landfill or decayed into uselessness, much of the current replica lighting is gratified in the form of reproduction items. This is especially true of the electrical fixtures needed to complete the look.
Even if they are still available, archaic wiring and energy-gobbling light sockets make them a double risk for any new home furnishing project. What is needed is something that looks exactly like an old fixture but has all the modern necessities such as low wattage bulbs or LED arrays in place of the old tungsten filament bulbs. Something that has safe wiring and modern grounded plugs to ensure that you don’t burn your house down just for the sake of perfect retro veracity.
In many other instances, even if a fixture were available and could be upgraded to modern standards, it is no longer advisable to do so. Some of these light fixtures are now valuable antiques or even objets d’ art that become worthless if altered from their original condition. There are plenty of near-perfect replicas out there that will serve the purpose even better than an original in most cases.
Break an original Tiffany lamp and you’ll be depressed for weeks. Break a replica and oh well, it happens. With replica lighting fixtures you can have all the retro charm, all the modern energy efficiency, and never have to worry about ruining a priceless artifact by having pillow fights with your kids.
If you decide to switch to a different era, it will not cost you a first born child to buy new replica light fixtures either. In many cases, redecoration is triggered by finding that one perfect piece you want to build a room around. You are not bound by the iron rules of the retro gods to stick to one era.
If you want to veer off into eclectic kitsch and crate a new era of your own, that is perfectly acceptable as well. The key is that retro fixtures place these decisions within anybody’s budget.
