IKEA’s Limited-Edition Collection ‘Markerad’, co-created with designer Virgil Abloh to hit the Hyderabad store on Nov 19th!

by Suman Gupta

An uber cool set of ‘collectibles for the many people’ to make your first home a statement. Limited in time, not in accessibility

Mumbai, November, 2019: IKEA, the world’s leading multichannel home furnishing retailer, announced today that it will be unveiling Markerad, a limited-edition collection, targeted at young people on November 19^th! The thought is to bring affordable yet well-designed home furnishing products, without breaking the bank!

For young people moving into a new city – starting university, starting their first job – it means creating their first home. IKEA is curious about their needs. The company is also curious about the best, about the present, the new, what happen right now in popular culture. IKEA decided to therefore collaborate with the cross disciplinary creative Virgil Abloh, who in his works combines high culture references with street cred to add value to both parties. IKEA wants to keep exploring this clash, this mashup, and learn how it can address two audiences: real young people and the design crowd.

Where is the meeting point?

IKEA wants to explore contemporary visual culture and how it affects design. It wants to find out if its obsession with design meets youngsters’ emotional and functional everyday living needs. That spot is where it is truly interesting.

What is Markerad all about?

The collaboration, which started in 2017, is aimed at offering a provocative viewpoint on how young people consider design, and how they live with design and art at home. The result is MARKERAD, a collection of unique, innovative and inspiring furnishings and decorations, which are all conceptual collector’s pieces, as well as functional and commercial home items for everyone. The ethos of the collection is to add an artful quality to these functional objects.

Products that bring with them a whole set of values, a world of references, a promise. The necessaries for people creating their first, maybe temporary home, maybe somewhat communal. The collection contains pieces of furniture to make a statement at home; daybed, table, chair, mirror, lighting, bed textiles, cabinet and accessories. he finds inspiration from many different genres and epochs – from the Swedish folkloristic pinnstol, to Scandinavian modernism, French Dadaism and today’s contemporary art and fashion scene.

Explaining the thought behind this collection, Mia Olsson, Country Communication & Interiors Manager for IKEA India explains, “Starting your first home, developing your own space can be both exciting and challenging. Temporary housing, small space, thin wallets but still with a longing to express yourself through beautiful objects and design. This reality for many young people made us curious to explore the first home and how to make it inexpensive and fashionable.”

About Virgil Abloh: Virgil Abloh is an American designer, architecture grad, DJ, creative director and founder of the Milan based street wear brand OFF-WHITE. Recent collaborations have been with global brands such as Nike, Levi’s, Jimmy Choo and more. Virgil has a huge interest in design and architectural history and has a wide network of internationally renowned architects, designers, artists and influencers. He is one of our times’ greatest influencers for millennials. From June 2018 Virgil Abloh has been the artistic director for the men’s wear at the fashion house Louis Vuitton.

Markerad starts selling at the IKEA Hyderabad store on November 19^th. Be there before its gone!

About IKEA and IKEA India:The IKEA vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people through its well-designed, functional and affordable, good quality home furnishings produced sustainably.

The Ingka group currently has 367 IKEA stores in 30 countries with a sales volume of 37.1 billion euros. 838 million customers visited IKEA stores in FY18, and 2.35 billion people visited IKEA online. Our 158400 co-workers from all over the world are the inner strength of IKEA, sharing fundamental humanistic values of togetherness, humbleness, simplicity, cost-consciousness and common sense.

The Ingka Group has been sourcing from India for over 35 years for its global stores. There are 60+ suppliers with 45,000 direct employees and 400,000 people in the extended supply chain in India today. The first IKEA store in India in Hyderabad completed a year in August. The group has now entered the Mumbai market with an online first approach even before setting up physical stores. It will extend its online presence to Hyderabad and Pune during 2019. The Ingka group plans to open many meeting points with a multi-channel approach across Indian cities with the ambition to reach 100 million people in the coming few years.