What if Bored Ape Yacht Club Existed in the 1970s?

Imagine walking down a busy high street in 1974. Between the record shops and the laundrettes, you spot something unexpected: a art & collectibles called Bored Ape Yacht Club. It shouldn't exist — not for another few decades — but here it is, fitting in perfectly among the brown brick and hand-painted signage of the era.

Ape portraits on every wall, macrame and curiosities behind glass. An exclusive members' club disguised as a neighbourhood gallery, where the price of admission was owning one of the ten thousand hand-numbered prints. The back room hosted cocktail parties for holders only, and the membership card was a laminated Polaroid of your ape, worn around the neck on a leather cord.

The Details That Sell the Illusion

Every Modern Retro storefront is built from the visual language of the 1970s — warm tungsten lighting, Kodachrome film tones, wood panelling, and period typography. Here's what makes the Bored Ape Yacht Club store feel authentic:

• Gallery walls covered in framed ape portrait prints
• Macrame wall hangings and curiosity cabinets
• Members-only velvet rope leading to a back lounge
• Warm wood floors with Persian rugs in earthy tones
• Glass display cases with numbered collectible figurines

The Absurdity Factor

Part of the charm of Modern Retro is the contrast between what a brand does today and what it would have been in the 70s. Bored Ape Yacht Club as a art & collectibles is wonderfully absurd — the kind of shop you'd walk past without a second glance, never knowing that decades later it would become something entirely different.

That tension between the familiar and the impossible is what makes these images work. They're not parodies — they're love letters to an era when everything was a bit more tactile, a bit more human, and a lot more orange.