Jean Baudrillard  – For a Critique of the Sign of the Sign

“The bygone object derives from the cultural baroque. Its “aesthetic” value is always a derived value: in it the stigmata of industrial production and primary functions are eliminated. For all these reasons the taste for the bygone is characterized by the desire to transcend the dimension of economic success, to consecrate a social success or a privileged position in a redundant, culturalized, symbolic sign. The bygone is, among other things, social success that seeks a legitimacy. a heredity, a “noble” sanction” (Baudrillard, 1981: 43).

Baudrillard ,J. (1981). For a critique of the political economy of the sign. (Charles Levin, Trans.). Telos Press.