{"id":1036,"date":"2025-04-07T13:30:17","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T13:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.camperscorner.net\/?p=1036"},"modified":"2025-04-11T18:15:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T18:15:18","slug":"the-designers-behind-the-40th-anniversary-of-ikeas-stockholm-collection-explain-how-they-did-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.camperscorner.net\/index.php\/2025\/04\/07\/the-designers-behind-the-40th-anniversary-of-ikeas-stockholm-collection-explain-how-they-did-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Designers Behind the 40th Anniversary of Ikea\u2019s Stockholm Collection Explain How They Did It"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The brand is often most associated with low-cost furnishings. But its higher-end line has a rich history.<\/p>\n

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Your earliest familiarity with Ikea may vary, but mine was reading the catalog<\/a> at my best friend\u2019s house around age 10. I was always impressed with the cool stuff her family had, and when I found out you could order it from a catalog, and not just get it from a store (or pick it off the street, which is how my family found much of our furniture in New York City), the intrigue only continued. I\u2019ll always remember the day I got my treasured first item from the brand\u2014a mosquito netting canopy<\/a> for my bed, the ultimate in cool for a middle schooler.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until I went to college that I got to fully avail myself of its offerings. Driving to the Chicago suburbs to pick out a coffee table and a desk for my new apartment felt like true adulthood, despite the fact that the car we drove to get there didn\u2019t have power steering, a radio, or air-conditioning<\/a>. This is the association that might stick in the minds of many Americans when they think of Ikea\u2014the first time you\u2019re able to buy furniture of your own, and it better be cheap, but it\u2019d be nice if it was chic.<\/p>\n

This solution they\u2019d created for their audience\u2014being able to buy design-y furniture at an affordable price\u2014was once a problem for Ikea. What would they do when their demographic aged out of their wares? That\u2019s why their Stockholm collection was born<\/a> in the \u201980s, featuring leather sofas and chairs, glass-fronted cabinets, and Nordic birch wooden furniture with hidden fittings. “What could the company offer all those people who had grown out of their low pine sofa, taken down their pop and protest posters, and moved their Ivar shelves into the garage?” the website explains<\/a>, of the collection\u2019s history. “They were looking for comfort and elegance, and [founder] Ingvar Kamprad came up with the solution: a \u2018best of Ikea collection\u2019.”<\/p>\n

The company did, and still does, pride itself on the “democratization” of design. “The most beautiful Swedish furniture had long been reserved for a few: the rich,” a 1985 Ikea brochure reads. “Ordinary folk had to make do with poor copies or nothing at all. This doesn\u2019t sit right with us.”<\/p>\n

Since then, Stockholm has been released in seven editions, with the goal of providing “modern Scandinavian design of the highest quality, offered at an affordable price.” And in February, in an experience that would have awed college student-me, I went to, yes, the city of Stockholm to preview the company\u2019s eighth for its 40th anniversary. The new collection\u2014available to shop Thursday April 10th<\/a>\u2014is 96 pieces, and was inspired by both the Swedish capital and the immense nature just outside of it. It\u2019s comprised of rich, deep colors with pops of surprising neons, sturdy woods, velvets, leathers, and smooth edges\u2014a fit for the continued \u201970s moment we find ourselves in.<\/p>\n

During my interviews, I was particularly interested in learning from the designers about how they tailor Ikea\u2019s ethos of price-first\u2014they all start with a price band, and design a piece to match that\u2014to create a higher-end product. In a collection like this, they have the opportunity to use more complex building techniques and more expensive materials, but the design ethos that is used in the least expensive items still informs all their products. (One thing they shared that they don\u2019t have: a master database of all their materials and techniques, because it\u2019s all learned, shared, institutional knowledge.) Because of the company\u2019s scale, they are still able to produce items for low costs that would typically be challenging elsewhere, like the handblown glass vases in this collection, which, when produced at volume, become feasible. Here, in their own words, this year\u2019s Stockholm collection designers describe what they were trying to accomplish in creating five of the collection\u2019s pieces for the masses, ones that manage to feel personal to you.<\/p>\n

These interviews have been edited for length and clarity, and all prices have been converted into USD.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Available<\/a>
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Available in dark turquoise, dark brown, beige and gray\/white, this sofa can be configured into many sizes depending on which sections you purchase. Below it is a handwoven, 100 percent wool rug.<\/p>\n

Courtesy Ikea<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Stockholm 2025 Sofa<\/b><\/h4>\n

Ola\u00ad Wihlborg, designer: <\/b>We can start with the sofa, because the whole collection started with sofas. Because we wanted to find something that sets the tone and that\u2019s also the piece that sets the tone in the living room. It\u2019s a big piece.<\/p>\n

So we started the sketch of the sofa\u2014it was [fellow designer] Nike [Karlsson] and I\u2014and the starting point for me was my sofa at home. I have a sofa from a previous Stockholm collection with a lot of cushion inside. We always fluff these cushions and make them in order for the night. And now we have a lot<\/i> of kids and we have a dog and the cushions are all over the place. So the idea was to do a new sofa that looks the same all the time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite tricky<\/a> to find a shape and a material that also has comfort. It\u2019s easy, it turns out, to be something that is just hard. So I started to find these soft shapes and I sketched the shape in soft materials also. We\u2019ve done the shape in \u00c4lmhult [Ikea\u2019s headquarters] in the pattern shop, and when we finalized the shape and we were satisfied, we sent the shapes to the supplier where we made a lot of samples to try out the right comfort.<\/p>\n

We have a spring core with the springs inside the center, and then we cover it with a cold molded foam shape. That makes it also very durable. The cold molded foam will keep up the quality over a very long time. You can use the modules separately also, so you do not need to connect them. You can have them like an armchair also.<\/p>\n

Karin Gustavsson, creative leader: <\/b>We knew from the beginning we wanted a velvet.<\/p>\n

Wihlborg: <\/b>We started with velvet because we wanted the soft feeling.<\/p>\n

Gustavsson: <\/b>The colors pop much more in the velvet. And then the velvet is, I think it\u2019s like 90 percent recycled polypropylene. And it\u2019s a really good quality, high-quality velvet. We have a full textile team who develops the fabrics for us and they are so tested\u2014they need to last a long time. And also not to be too much for dust. It\u2019s antistatic. And the blue one came because we said we need a pop color\u2014we need something to pop.<\/p>\n

Everyone thought it was crazy. And then we did a brown one and everyone said, “Brown? Gray and black.” Because I love brown. And now it\u2019s so trendy<\/a>. And then we made the beige ones<\/a>. Everyone\u2019s so grayish otherwise. <\/p>\n

Wihlborg:<\/b> The cover is removable so you can wash it. And the boucl\u00e9 came up when we made the armchair. For that one, it\u2019s more tricky to find the fabric that we can cover this shape with. And that\u2019s why we started with the boucl\u00e9 and then when we saw the armchair, we said we need to have the same on the sofa.<\/p>\n

Gustavsson: <\/b>It\u2019s so Scandinavian, it\u2019s a little bit like this snow feeling. And it\u2019s not too boucl\u00e9\u2014it\u2019s quite a dry fabric.<\/p>\n

Wihlborg: <\/b>We always have the price in mind when we start, not the exact price [but a range]. When you have that, you can see immediately, oh, we can\u2019t go too big, we can\u2019t go with that material. And you have a certain amount of money to spend. Of course sometimes you need to step out from that. But then you also have to explain why.<\/p>\n

Gustavsson: <\/b>We knew that Nike\u2019s sofa was going to be, for us, a bit expensive. It\u2019s $1,899.<\/p>\n

Wihlborg: <\/b>It\u2019s more expensive than this one.<\/p>\n

Gustavsson: <\/b>We thought, for us, it was a bit expensive. And here you start at $1,299.<\/p>\n

Wihlborg: <\/b>For two.<\/p>\n

Gustavsson: <\/b>So you could say you get this one for $1,299 and then you add a mid-seat for $400. So it\u2019s a quite good price for this one. Even to make a four seater, which you often cannot afford. The thing is also with this one, in a normal flat in London or Tokyo, you cannot bring a big sofa into the house because of the elevators. And you\u2019re on the 12th floor, you cannot have someone carry [it up]. This one you can easily take piece by piece in the elevator. It\u2019s also convenient for moving. We even did home visits just to see.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>
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The other sofa in the collection is made of cotton\/linen, leather and solid pine.<\/p>\n

Courtesy Ikea<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Stockholm 2025 Sofa<\/h4>\n

Nike Karlsson, designer: <\/b>This sofa was really hard to make because I had so many different directions, but we ended up designing what we wanted to have. Then we met the supplier and we started to discuss: How should we build up the construction? How should we build the comfort?<\/i> I said that maybe when we do this high-end product, could we also maybe try to reduce the amount of foam? Because foam is hard to recycle. And then the supplier came up with the idea of coconut fiber. They had it in other products\u2014not for Ikea\u2014but I thought it was something that we had in the \u201950s or something that didn\u2019t exist anymore. So that is what we have on the armrest, in between the frame and the fabric, is coconut fiber. And then in the seat portion we have this pocket spring. And then on top of that, they have, instead of foam, latex [from trees]. And that is super durable. When it comes to sit on it, it keeps the shape. So now we can offer this sofa with a 25-year warranty, because it is so durable.<\/p>\n

The fabric, that was the trickiest one, because I was so worried that we couldn\u2019t develop a new fabric for this sofa in the quality that I really wanted to have.<\/p>\n

Paulin Machado, designer: <\/b>You\u2019re picky. <\/p>\n

Karlsson: <\/b>It\u2019s so important what kind of fabric you can offer on the sofa. And then we also worked with the small pillows, how to make comfort without bird feather down or something like that. That is so nice. But you can\u2019t do that, because of the animals and also people are allergic. These cushions are built in three layers. We have this block in the center with latex. And then we have fiber on that. And then we started to get a really nice feeling when you touch it, but it still, there was something wrong, because it didn\u2019t sound right. So then they asked, \u2018What is it that sounds on a feather pillow?\u2019 It\u2019s the cotton fabric that you have that is woven really, really tight. The pen crunch, it\u2019s the crunch [of the feathers]. Could we add that fabric to get the right noise?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>
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The glass pendant lamp comes in two different styles, one horizontal, the other more vertical.<\/p>\n

Courtesy Ikea<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

See the full story on Dwell.com: The Designers Behind the 40th Anniversary of Ikea\u2019s Stockholm Collection Explain How They Did It<\/a><\/b>
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