Looking for how to decorate a vintage store? We give you 10 tips to give a retro style to your establishment.
Vintage style not only continues to be a trend in interior design this 2025. It is also very popular in the decoration of premises, where it is often combined with retro and industrial styles, among other aesthetics, to transmit an eclectic spirit. Bars, pubs, cafes, restaurants, nightclubs and hotels, among other hospitality businesses, opt for combining these styles to create very personal environments, those that far from going unnoticed are characterized by being spaces with ‘soul’.
Spurred by the crisis, which has led to the recovery, recycling and updating of old furniture and pieces, the vintage style resurfaced with force a few years ago to become a fashion that, today, is far from being a passing trend.
Decorating a vintage store, generates many possibilities when it comes to creating cozy interiors and with character generating that many people join this aesthetic.
Making a difference is a challenge for any business and the vintage style allows you to create unique environments in which the decoration is an essential part of the experience. But how do you make the locale part of the attraction?
To answer the question, as simple as it is complex, we summarize 10 keys to decorate a vintage room with an eclectic personality. We begin with the first five in this first installment, which will be followed by a second part:
The first step in making your place vintage, is to look for furniture that fits that style.
When decorating a vintage bar you can opt for a style inspired by the past, with classic Louis XV or ‘Mid Century Modern’ style furniture . The British style furniture, with capitals and elegant finishes will achieve a modern and chic air. If you prefer a more natural and romantic atmosphere, it is best to opt for wrought iron, wicker, wood, etc. pieces;
If you want to recreate an industrial atmosphere, metallic finishes are ideal. For a rustic touch, choose wooden furniture with pickled paint, for example.
The possibilities, as you can see, are many: capitonné bars, vintage sofas such as the Chester, armchairs with simpler and retro Eames-style lines, chairs and benches of the Tolix type… but also recycled or recovered furniture.
To facilitate the choice, we show you some models of the vintage furniture collection that we are designing in Fiaka Ambient with retro pieces inspired by the 70s and icons like the Chesterfield with an undisputed protagonist: the capitonné. In addition, we offer the possibility of creating unique pieces, custom-made furniture for the decoration of premises, such as those designed for Bellagio Granada.
One of the defining characteristics of a vintage store is its combination of the old and the contemporary. For this reason, we recommend combining updated classics, restored or retro pieces with modern ones in the decoration of premises with this aesthetic, so that the present and the past merge to create a space where the different periods meet again and dialogue with each other.
Let yesterday be reinvented with more modern and chic touches to coexist with the latest trends. All with a defined purpose: to mark the difference and character of the business.
We recommend an eclectic ambiance that combines different styles and even different pieces -chairs and tables of different lines and colors, for example- to emphasize the uniqueness of the venue.
Ideally, the clientele should identify with the business. To achieve this, there is nothing better than to make her feel at home’ by recreating charming corners recreating charming corners that evoke home, childhood or history without sacrificing comfort and modern advances.
The details change everything in the decoration. In the case of vintage style they are of vital importance.
Velvet, patterned or leather curtains and cushions; large hanging lamps, such as chandeliers, floral motifs, vases, mirrors with patina or rococo moldings, posters from the 50s, 60s and 70s, etc. will help to personalize the decoration of the room in question. Your choice will depend on the ‘message’ you want to convey with your interior design or the mood you are looking to evoke, which brings us to the next point.
Choosing a theme around which the décor revolves can help create a unique space for the audience. Literature, travel, cinema, music can inspire interior design, making it easier to choose the right furniture and details.
Your choice should not be fortuitous. It will depend on the cuisine to be served, the target audience and the brand image to be built. In an organic and vegan food bar, for example, recycled, rustic or Provençal pieces will help emphasize the line. If it is a designer kitchen, furniture with more elegant and chic lines, with buttoned upholstery in capitonné, becomes a good alternative.
By recovering furniture with history, the decoration of a vintage store looks to the past to bring the essence of yesterday to the present. And it does so in a way to make you feel ‘at home’, to evoke the home through furniture and decorative elements ‘close’, somehow endearing or simply unique for having survived the passage of time, which ‘load them with memories’ despite being alien to the customer.
As we mentioned in the previous post, this look at yesterday coexists with contemporary elements or is modernized in the case of recovered furniture (vintage) or inspired by another era (retro pieces), so that past and future meet again to reinterpret each other and together.
This dialectic – which combines antique with modern designs and/or contrasts classic and contemporary – seeks to recreate an atmosphere that is easy to connect with, creating an affinity with the client through a decoration that is as personal as it is cosmopolitan. Ultimately it is about creating a comfortable, cozy and comfortable place where everyone feels ‘at home’.
This is why sometimes ornaments and furniture that are not usually contextualized in a bar, café or nightclub are used, as they are more appropriate for the home or any other space due to their ability to inspire intimate ‘bonds’.
Not only in vintage venues, but also in those of any other style, differentiating environments helps to provide services in a more specialized way, adapting the decoration to the use of the space in question. Small recycled side tables combined with pouffes, retro or vintage sofas and/or Louis XV style armchairs can decorate the part dedicated to coffee, cocktails and drinks, for example. For this same area there are those who opt for modern or industrial style high stools combined with tables at the same height. In the area dedicated to enjoy the gastronomic section in its different aspects, elegant wooden tables can be placed with vintage, retro or industrial chairs. Or a mix of hospitality furniture in different styles.
We already mentioned in the previous article that the creation of a common nexus linked to a theme (musical, cinematographic, recreational, sports, etc.) can help to combine different styles. The restaurant Trece, which is also a fashion showroom, is a good example. This maxim is also valid for unifying environments and spaces.
Unique, recovered and recycled pieces are part of the leitmotiv of vintage aesthetics. Its use also underlines the personality of the space creating a unique place. Pallet sofas, recycled tables, elegant chandeliers, design pieces… the possibilities are many when it comes to enhancing the character of the vintage space.
In his taste for the past, the vintage style has rescued from oblivion lost currents of yesterday, which have resurfaced with strength from his hand. This is the case of wallpaper, which has been a trend for a few years now. It will also remain so in 2025.
The vintage aesthetic does not only use wallpaper to give personality and style to the walls: antique mirrors, paintings, posters and vintage or retro advertisements serve the same purpose. The moldings and exposed structures -such as beams, pipes and exposed brick- the wooden planks or the slate on some of the walls give an industrial air that combines perfectly with the vintage style.
Candles, candelabras, lamps of different styles, industrial aesthetic bulbs… will give a chic touch to the vintage place, achieving a classy lighting.
In general, but mainly in franchises and stores of the same chain, the ideal is that the decoration of each café, restaurant or hotel reinforces the brand image.
In this way, the design is unified, anticipating what awaits the clientele. Becoming a trusted business, where even before entering, the potential public senses the delights that await inside becomes a very desirable goal.
In order for the store to show its seal, the identity that defines it and differentiates it from the rest, it is best to associate it with corporate colors, the brand itself and a very specific aesthetic that somehow summarizes its specialties, either directly or indirectly. Having customized and personalized franchise furniture and hospitality furniture always helps to achieve this goal. That is why in Fiaka Ambient we have specialized in services such as these to decorate 100% customized premises.
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