Welcome to the decade of dial-up delight
Think back to the click-whirr of a loading dial-up modem, the clack of a tamagotchi keychain and the flicker of Top of the Pops on a bulky cathode-ray telly. The 1990s weren’t just a chronological waypoint between neon-soaked 1980s excess and the always-on 2000s.
They were a brief, brilliant bubble of analogue innocence. Now, as TikTokkers trade tips on folding phone antennas and Gen Z redditors hunt eBay for functioning Walkmans, Regency Hampers has set tongues wagging with a purely hypothetical – but mouth-watering – “1990s Nostalgia Hamper”. Think of it as a wicker portal to the era when Friends ruled Thursday nights and everything tasted faintly of E-numbers.
Why the ’90s suddenly feel so 2025
Cultural historians point to a tidy 30-year nostalgia cycle, yet the current 1990s revival feels unusually eager.
It’s comfort food for uneasy times. Gen Z never experienced a world before Wi-Fi, so the 1990s appear almost mythical – low-stakes, colourful and analogue. Other social phenomena might be contributing to this. Namely, lockdown-era boredom which sent people rummaging through attics for retro games and algorithmic serendipity – TikTok’s knack for serving GrainyCam clips of The Big Breakfast to teens who didn’t know Chris Evans existed before Captain America.
Fashion, of course, has been first to pounce on the trend revival. Walk down any British high street and you’ll spy:
- Animal prints swaggering across midi dresses, nodding to Mel B’s leopard-print reign.
- Mum jeans and baggy pants, replacing sprayed-on skinnies with slouchy, low-slung swagger.
- Crop tops teamed with high-waisted trousers, recreating the Spiceworld silhouette without the auto-tune.
- Chunky sneakers and combat boots clomping down the pavements exactly as they did outside Camden’s Electric Ballroom circa ’97.
The result? A generation seeking second-hand Nirvana tees while Snapchatting their brunch. If the ’90s taught us anything, it’s that contradictions can coexist – like pairing a tamagotchi with a Game Boy Pocket on the same keyring.
Lift the lid: a flavour time capsule
Regency Hampers – not content with posh Stilton and artisanal charcuterie – asked a gleeful “what if?” What if you filled a luxury hamper solely with snacks that once dyed playground tongues bright blue? Cue the 1990s Nostalgia Hamper.
- Hooper’s Hooch – The alco-lemonade that made legal drinking taste illicitly like squash.
- Pimm’s No. 6 – A vodka-based Pimm’s that finally found its crowd during Britpop summers.
- P.B. Crisps – Peanut-shaped shells hiding salty-sweet PB filling – briefly imported to the UK in ’96.
- Dairylea Tri-bites – Cheese-ish triangles individually wrapped for maximum lunch-box clout.
- Fruit String Thing – Unravelled like edible skipping rope; guaranteed sticky fingers.
- Corona Soft Drinks – Lemonade or cherry cola brewed in Wales and delivered by pop-man lorries.
- Lilt Mango & Mandarin – Limited-edition ’96 riff on the “totally tropical taste”.
- Mackintosh’s Weekend Selection – Psychedelic chocolate menagerie far wilder than its Quality Street cousin.
- Cartoonies – Biscuit pockets oozing chocolate, each stamped with goofy animal faces.
- Rowntree Cabana – Cherry-coconut-caramel chaos wrapped in milk chocolate – now extinct but mythic.
When we shared this list with friends, it sparked “a minor stampede” of nostalgic DMs. People would probably love for someone to make this real, however P.B. Crisps haven’t been produced since Gladiators was prime-time telly!
Taste buds, meet memory lane
There’s solid science behind the sudden swarm of hamper hankerings. Oxford researcher Professor Charles Spence calls it multisensory nostalgia: the idea that flavour, smell and texture act as wormholes to autobiographical memories. A whiff of Lilt’s tropical fizz can yank you back to a caravan holiday in Tenby; one bite of a Cabana bar and you’re in the back seat of Dad’s Mondeo, seatbelt digging into your neck on the M6.
Modern palates may lean artisanal – some of Regency’s best-loved food hampers now pair Wainwright’s Artisan cheddar with bottled real ale – but many Britons secretly crave the unrefined thrill of bright-packaged gimmick snacks. According to market tracker Mintel, limited-edition retro reissues reliably spike sales by up to 30 percent, fuelled by social-media FOMO and the simple joy of shouting, “I remember these!”
Could a comeback be on the cards?
There is precedent: Hooper’s Hooch tiptoed back onto shelves in 2012, proving that even lapsed alcopops can find new life in a craft-beer world. Nestlé toyed with reviving the Cabana bar in 2020 after a viral petition hit 20,000 signatures, though nothing has materialised.
Lilt itself was absorbed into the Fanta family in 2023, sparking outraged tweets from purists. With consumer appetite clearly bubbling, perhaps 2025 will see the triumphant resurrection of Cartoonies – or at least a boutique chocolatier doing an artisan homage.
Heritage brands are sitting on treasure troves. If they don’t revive these recipes, an indie maker with a clever Kickstarter will. Imagine a small-batch P.B. Crisps made with organic peanut butter – or a vegan Cabana bar crowdfunded in six hours. Stranger things have happened (see: Crystal Pepsi’s cameo at Selfridges last year).
Fun beats finesse – sometimes
Will we really trade 24-month-aged Cheddar for neon-yellow cheese triangles? Not permanently. But Regency Hampers’ whimsical hamper shows there’s room – perhaps on Boxing Day, once the Stilton is spent – for a round of unapologetically kitsch treats. The 1990s remind us that food can be jokey, packaging can be garish and pleasure needn’t be artisanal to be memorable.
So don your leopard-print bucket hat, lace up your Doc Martens, pop a tamagotchi on charge and picture it: Christmas morning, your posh wicker basket clicks open – and there they are, glinting like Top Trumps in tinfoil. One bite, one sip and you’re back in a world where the biggest worry was taping over last night’s Eurotrash by mistake.
Now, fancy a game of Snake II while we wait for Teletext to reveal tomorrow’s weather?
