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"vintage" v.s. "antique"....."’復古"　v.s. "古董" (by Andy Lee)

昨 天在課堂上介紹了 "vintage" 這個字,　有人就問到了以下的問題:　到底 "vintage"　跟 "antique"　有何不同?　基本上就一般使用而言,　“vintage”是一個有關於“更新”或“復古”的詞。它描 述的東西是老到剛好可以再次回到時尚的行列 。 例如：20 世紀 70年代風格時尚，（我不知道為什麼現在會重新流行），所以在70年代的東西可以被稱為“vintage”。 20世紀 80 年代的風格尚未歸返時尚地行列　（或尚未“復甦”，姑且讓我這樣  說），所以我們暫時把它們留在“過時”的類別中。總的來說，它強調“復古”的想法。

而"antique"　則是一個通用術語，指的是任何有真正歷史價值的"古董"，通常是非常非常老，它不需要再回到時尚，也許永遠也回不了時尚。例如，唐朝的“兵馬甬”肯定是"antique"（當然囉　我指的是真品）的藝術作品，而不是一個"vintage"的東西。“vintage”這個詞已經被濫用了很長一段時間 ---請特別小心，尤其是當有人試圖向你推銷東西的時候。

 I actually tried to avoid the word "antique" on purpose in a class I taught yesterday in order to prevent confusion at this stage of learning. But one of my students still dug it out....:-)

In common use, "vintage" is a term to do with "updated" or "retro". It describes something that is old enough to be back in fashion again. For instance: 1970s styles are in fashion again (I don't knows why), so things in the 70's can be called "vintage". 1980s styles haven't yet made it way back to the fashion yet (or has not been "resuscitated" yet, let me just put it this way), so we tentatively leave it in the "out of date" category.　Overall, it emphasized on the idea of the Chinese"復古" The word "vintage" has been misused or abused for a long time---be aware, especially when someone try to sell you stuff.

While antique is a general term means "古董’. Anything has the genuine historical value and usually is very very old. It doesn't need to be in fashion anymore. For example, the "horses & warriors" thing in Tang Dynasty is definitely an antique (a genuine one, of course) work rather than a vintage item.