Three decades after Ikea first arrived in the UK, urging its population to chuck out their chintz, there are now few homes left without a birch veneered side table, a blue plastic laundry bag, or a shaky shelving system. Ingvar Kamprad, the Swedish company’s founder who has died at the age of 91, leaves behind not only a planet covered in blonde-wood bookcases and allen key-assembled chairs, but also one with a completely different attitude to furniture and shopping.
When the first customers were welcomed into a sprawling blue warehouse in Warrington in 1987, handed a stubby pencil and left to roam its assembled worlds, it was a retail experience like no other. Ikea’s winning formula was to lead you through curated rooms – thereby suggesting other things you might not have realised you wanted (and probably didn’t) – before allowing you into a “behind the scenes” warehouse of cardboard boxes piled high. This cleverly fused domestic stagecraft with the feel of a discount, no-frills cash-and-carry, leaving shoppers in no doubt that they were getting a bargain.
Ikea’s founder Ingvar Kamprad in 1965.
Ikea’s founder Ingvar Kamprad in 1965. Photograph: Inter Ikea Systems BV
Overnight, furniture was transformed from being a thing of weighty heirlooms to be passed on to grandchildren, to something more fleeting and disposable. The decision to buy a new sofa was no longer momentous, but something that you might change in a few years, or update with a different coloured cover.
In terms of design, it’s generally simple, functional, cheery stuff – a winning combination that, as the interior of practically every UK home attests, is hard to resist. The Ikea model also reflects the society it serves: a house is now rarely a home for life, but a temporary base, until a rent increase or shift in circumstances forces you to move on without hauling all your furniture with you. Not that you would necessarily want to, given the inevitable creaks and dents some of Ikea’s products develop after a few years of use.
Like a high-street fashion store, Ikea has been able to change with the seasons and evolve its lines according to tastes. Warrington’s opening display from 1987 had many favourites (a pair of Klippan sofas frame a couple of Lack coffee tables on a white tufted rug) but they are sporting dazzling 80s styles: the sofas are decked out in a jazzy costume that combines tribal patterns with a raver’s rainbow palette of pink, orange, purple and lime green.
‘A raver’s rainbow palette’: Ikea’s 1980s products.
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‘A raver’s rainbow palette’: Ikea’s 1980s products. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
The 1990s saw the collection whitewashed with a wave of blonde wood and neutral tones, while in the 2000s Ikea branched out, featuring more collaborations with named designers, in a bid to appeal to an increasingly savvy audience. – “for the fiercely independent” – contained a folding sofa that can hang on a wall, a pillow that becomes a quilt, and a self-watering pot that helps keep unattended plants alive for two weeks.
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Recycled materials also loomed large – a crucial aspect for a company that already consumes 1% of all timber on the planet and has been accused of fuelling our throwaway culture. Ikea’s motto – “To create a better everyday life for the many people” – is inscribed on the wall of , and Kamprad is one of the few who can claim to have democratised design.
Many before him pledged to bring high design to the masses, but few managed it. The doyen of mid-century modernism, Charles Eames, declared his job was to get “the best to the greatest number of people for the least”, yet his simple plastic dining chair sells today for £350. Restaurateur and lifestyle tycoon wanted to place contemporary design within the reach of everyone, but his eponymous shops now represent the pinnacle of overpriced luxury homewares.
Ikea tells the opposite story, with its cheap and cheerful products gaining such an iconic aura that others have flocked to copy them. When a high-end Spanish fashion house designs a homage to your 40p plastic shopping bag and tries to flog it for £1,600, and your DIY self-assembly principles inspire an whole genre of , you’ve probably done something right.
