If you are walking along KLand hear an ear-piercing monophonic ring tone, look around and you might just spot me.

I may be the rare few surviving owners of a cell phone that still blares one note at a time – at a decibel too high for comfort, too.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the shiny new gadgets that seem to get sleeker by the day. And I enjoy hogging other people’s touch screen phones because they arereally a lot of fun.

But for this person, old is gold. And it will always be so.

Yup, I am a bigger sucker for old stuff. I hunt second-hand book stores for used books, not only for the squeal-worthy prices, but also for the creases and dog-ears (or if I am lucky, scribbled notes on the margins of the pages).

I am crazy about the ancient, creepy mansions in Penang, and the pre-colonial shops in Ipoh with its years of glory engraved on its walls. I find Fast and Furious 4 bearable only for its sexy, er, muscle cars (honest!).

The Byrds and The Beetles rock my socks, though I draw the line at their hair. I like my things a little worn, yet still, very much wearable.

I like to know that they can survive a few accidental falls and a few scratches. I like them tough, fuss-free, and unperturbed by spilled coffee…

My taste for the old, however, is hardly unique.

Anyone who has done online shopping or flea-market hopping (is there anyone who still hasn’t?) would know that retro clothing is now all the rage.

High-waist skirts, polka dot dresses, floral blazers and thick-rimmed glasses that our mamas, or even grandmas wore for their Saturday night sock-hop or romantic dates at the Federal Theatre are now back on the racks, and selling really fast too.

Blogshop owners that stock these vintage outfits are often in their 20s, judging from pictures of them modelling the clothes that they are selling. Their customers are equally young.

Whether it is pairing a 60’s piece with this season’s look, or just going retro head-to-toe, a lot of young fashionistas do not seem to be running out of ideas, and are rummaging through their mothers’ closets for more.

Owner of vintage wear blogshop Vintage Biri-Biri, Janyfer Yeoh, told local fashion news site Tongue in Chic that the charm with retro clothing is that they “put a whole new twist to your outfit”.

Fans of vintage outfits also gush about how these clothing are made with real women in mind – they are kinder and more comfortable to curvier women, and the cuts accentuate the feminine figure.

Classic. That’s what it is. And classics never go out of style.

Evergreen and everlasting; that’s what “old” spells. The quality of what we got yesterday, be it in gadgets or fashion, has always been, in my opinion, a class above; there has always been the lastability factor. Older things tend to be made of higher quality and, the cost much, much less.

Newer things thesed days just don’t have the staying power. Here today, broken tomorrow.

Do we miss the products of the good old days? Well, they don’t make things like they used to, do they?

This is my personal call to manufacturers; it is also a plea from friends who’ve had many of their new fancy gadgets broken in no time; enough of products that frustrate more than serve; enough of dodgy quality gadgets that do not justify their sky-high prices; enough of clothes that need a diet and suffocating underwear to get into; enough of half-hearted efforts pretending to be the next best thing just because it is packaged in marketing campaigns and spanking new features.

Yes, I am just one customer.

However, I am speaking out because I believe that many have gone through the same frustrating experiences that my friends and I have with products these days.

Plus, the fact that I have Howard Schultz’s words to back me up makes me feel less small. The Starbucks Coffee chairman said, “In the 1960s, if you introduced a new product to America, 90 percent of the people who viewed it for the first time believed in the corporate promise.

Then 40 years later if you performed the same exercise less than 10 percent of the public believed it was true. The fracturing of trust is based on the fact that the consumer has been let down.”

To the big conglomerates out there, can we trust you to provide services and products with us in mind?

To consumers, are we allowing companies to take us on a repetitive ride of buying, repairing, throwing and buying?

Call me idealistic, but I believe that if companies sincerely put people first in their businesses, profits will follow. But why listen to me?

Listen to Apple Computers and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs, who said, “Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.”

And in the spirit of idealism, I like to believe that powering every brand are real people who

also want to be respected of their needs for quality goods – goods made with a whole lot of pride; goods that live up to their name of being “good”.