Second, we don’t do “vintage style” or “shabby chic”. It’s just not us and unfortunately those terms have become increasingly confusing and misleading. We really don’t want people to buy something that really isn’t what they think it is, so we’ll be as straightforward as we can be about the integrity of an item, any renovation we have done, etc. We probably won’t be mentioning Annie Sloan paints here! 😉

Why Anything In Particular? As a customer you can often be asked “Are you looking for anything in particular?”. The answer is almost always “no, not really”. It really could be anything in particular, as it’s often the case that the intended item is unknown, but will absolutely be known when it is seen. It could be anything, and specifically not something in particular or it very well might be! Hence, the name… About the Products We only buy things we like, and we don’t have any particular focus or speciality when we are seeking items. So, it’s definitely worth having a proper browse of what we have on offer, just in case you find that “perfect” (or perfectly imperfect) thing. In this example, you're saying someone has been angry or upset for a few hours or for a day or two. Nicely designed and well made things. Things that aren’t reaching their potential either due to neglect or simply because people feel they are disposable, not repairable or just not worth bothering with. Things that are the weird, wonderful and quaint items of the past, whether that’s recent or otherwise. Finally, adding “-style” to any of these preceding terms generally indicates it’s an item manufactured very recently, often very cheaply and in mass numbers, and intended to imitate a past style. It’s a reproduction.The first means that you're not hungry. The second one means that you don't have one specific kind of food that you want. First, we try to describe items as accurately as we can, bearing in mind that determining the age of an item or discerning its origins is sometimes dangerous. If we’re sure something is old we’ll tell you. If we know its origins we’ll tell you. If we’re not sure then it won’t be labelled as such. Above all, we suggest appreciating each item for attributes other than age or provenance. So, Anything In Particular came to be and means rummaging and scouring and otherwise seeking out good things, unwanted things or just interesting things. A happy side-effect of this is hopefully that a) there are customers who like and buy such items and b) that the cost of shoe leather and/or petrol (and the odd cream tea or toasted teacake en route) can be covered.

It’s important to be careful about the terms used – there’s no wish to mislead anyone – but since the terms aren’t precise, please do feel free to comment about any item’s description or labelling if you think it is incorrect or potentially misleading. It is certainly a strong intent to use “antique”, “vintage” and “retro” as responsibly and accurately as possible! We also create re-purposed and upycled items – using vintage resources and materials – which we have available in the Anything In Particular Etsy shop. Vintage” (usually, though not always, applied to clothing or non-furniture items) is generally used to describe items which are representative of a general stylistic era but which are less than 100 years old. How old they need to be to be worthy of the name is debatable – you will find “vintage” applied to anything from 20 years to 50 years! The key thing is that “vintage” represents something more than age alone: it’s an aesthetic or social/cultural valuation too, which is why “vintage” is often appended with a year or set of years, e.g. “vintage 1970s” to indicate the era it is representative of.

Word History

Anything In Particular was born out of a joy of finding things and seeing value in things that other people might not do. It came from a desire to do “something different” and have a different focus from what can sometimes be the struggle of day-to-day existence. Further along the continuum, an item is renovated if there’s a deficit or defect which renders it either unusable for its original purpose or which dramatically affects its original aesthetics. This doesn’t normally mean trying to return an item to its “showroom” state, but rather get it to the point where its functional and aesthetic qualities can be re-appreciated. Patina – the effects of age and use on an object – is often left “as is” as that’s part of an item’s story but there are times when it’s a distraction from that story, in which case it is sensitively dealt with. Other aims are to keep things interesting and fresh, have a bit of fun with presentation, and generally make it as enjoyable as possible. Cleaning vs. Fixing vs. Renovating vs. Re-purposing vs. Upcycling (vs. “Shabby Chic”)! Another difficult area is the labelling of items. It’s generally accepted that “antique” means that an item is over 100 years old and holds some kind of artistic value above and beyond mere age.

When you say "I'm in the mood for ___", it really just means "I want ___". But saying you're "in the mood for" it makes it sound like it's a temporaryfeeling. This works well when you're talking about food, because you want different food on different days, depending on how hungry you are and what you've eaten recently: So, you might expect some foraging for good items, whether that be jewelry, clothing, small items of furniture, curios, household objects, or whatever it might be. We really don’t know, and that’s part of the joy… Retro”, on the other hand, usually means a comparatively new item paying homage to the styles of a former era. Confusingly, it can also be used for relatively old items (20 years-ish!) which have a geeky or nerdy character… you were warned that this was difficult!

Linguee Apps

In particular" means "specifically" or "especially". If you want "something in particular", it means that there's one specific thing that you want.