Ikea's PS range: Will northern style come south this winter?
Two high-profile meetings were held between representatives of Ikea and Cork County Council in late 2016 with individual town councils pertly vying for attention.
Blarney, Mitchelstown, Little Island, Mallow, and even the Amgen site in Carrigtwohill were mooted as possible locations.
Ikea’s new order and collection store in Carrickmines has signalled change, but has not yet addressed the ongoing frustration of southern shoppers forced to plough hours up the M50 only to return, strangled by volume with even a roomy car.
Individual shopping facilities appear sporadically in the classifieds with vans on call to pick up your flat-pack dreams, but if you want the slack-jawed wander, and the Swedish salmon lunch, it’s still Ballymun or Belfast.
What marks Ikea out from other terrestrial shops, is the retention of the public’s excitement in their insanely affordable products.
The Irish store remains one of their best-performing outlets in Europe and the consumer devotion to Ikea’s crisp, evolving design is by and large well deserved, with genuinely comfortable beds a top seller.
A seasonal trip through the 31,500sq ft Ikea blue and yellow hanger, though exhausting, is an event, a treat, a surprise.
Their room-sets, catalogue and online look-book suggestions offer the most interesting and comprehensive home collection of Scandi-chic available in Ireland. Annual sales figures released for the year up to the end of August 2016, totalled at least €152.5m.
The launch of Ikea’s core PS range causes a ripple of excitement every three years, and in February it’s the turn of PS 2017, its ninth launch.
Trumpeted as being aimed at the “fiercely independent free-thinkers” on Ikea’s glossy pages, PS 2017, like most of its interiors ballast, is equally engaging for the totally design-terrified, underpaid, conventional family with genuine financial, spatial, and ergonomic challenges.
I find the inspirational press releases and drama-crammed advertising of Ikea just distracting.
Still, with their new design from 17 bright young creatives; that brilliantly realised inclusive spirit for the ordinary man, woman and child navigating the world of the well-put-together — I will allow their commercial chirp of ‘the wonderful everyday’.
Lighter Ikea seating pieces have a slightly dorm-room feel. Still, pieces like the two-seater, foldable sofa by Jon Karlsson continue to tease out the outdoor/indoor fashions of last year, where we bumped our dining sets over the threshold and loosened up those jaded room tableaus.
Movable chairs allow for keen versatility. Where space is squeaking, this little couch hangs on the wall — great for teenage flop spots and conservatory gatherings, €145.
We all have that dumping chair, and in the hall, why not use a matching Karlsson chair to pull off shoes and throw down a mac? €95.
Nike Karlsson’s six-bay storage unit with hinged flap doors is taken from collapsible factory pallet shelving. It recalls veterinary cat cages to my eye, but again, useful in the hall for soccer balls, hats, gloves, and cleaner summer shoes.
Banked, the cages set up on dainty legs look great for robust books and piles of magazines revealing a gorgeous paint or textured wall covering. They flick open on unpacking which I do like, and are left rough and unpolished €75.
In the hall or in the bedroom, Gustav Carlberg’s valet will thrill or shock. It’s a very pop art metal hanging tree with short arms and a top dish for casting keys. Fifties fans will simply have that deliberately human form in twos and threes, but that three leg base on casters could prove a tripping hazard in a narrow lobby, €25.
Furniture on the move, rocked and rolled, is a key theme for PS 2017, the reorganising and reimaging of space as a regular, even weekly occurrence, not reserved for a house move.
Make a hide for your office with Mikael Axelsson’s room divider stolen from the bellows of an accordion in galvanised steel and plastic.
“The material is lightweight and sound-absorbing, and the design makes the divider stable while forcing the sound to bounce around, which absorbs even more sound,” Mikael reveals.
Having sprung several perfectly preserved Ikea Poang laminated armchairs out of the local, civic collection site, I remain a huge fan of their incidental, cheap seating.
Familiarity, contempt? Much of it goes unrecognised for its design and quality and it has populated every starter home across the country.
The rocking chair for PS 2017 by Marcus Arvonen delivers a half sphere of low-slung canvas cradled by a lightly honed powder-coated metal frame that allows this chic hammock to be pulled about with two fingers.
A perfect vessel for their new range of quilted throws, although I suspect it’s overly gymnastic for 50s+ to mount up and ride.
Drape yourself into this or any low bouncer or rocker for a good swooping lash across the shop floor, tilting your head to a potential screen if it’s for the living-room, €295.
Other members of the design collective have taken from the appearance of 3D printing/knitting techniques used for decorating and breathing mesh on sneakers, in a new range of modernist armchairs by Sarah Fager.
Be aware, however, of the wonderful, everyday misery of puncturing any resin mesh textile. (€165)
Few could resist the upturned faces of IKEAS new PS 2017 Table Lamps from the collection, inspired by skyward gazing military search lamps, €59. The dark blue version is likely to fly for washing walls and ceilings, as denim blue seizes the colour charts for spring of this year.
Ola Wihlborg’s Floor Lamp, I find unbalanced in form (perhaps I’m being a sad, old bag here) but the poseable, flexible cord is likely to draw a following for its assured quirkiness and it’s also dimmable, €89.
I’m more turned on by Matali Crasset pendants in white cages which can be put anywhere and even stacked. Fab-u-lous, uplifting Viking fare and just €25 to be plundered in February.
SPRING SUCCESSES 2017
- Mouth blown in the same mould, no two of designer Iina Vuorivirta glass vases will be exactly the same, €10
- LED lights in cages by Matali Crasset inspired by railway lamps can serve safely anywhere alone or stacked, €25 each
- These three-part self-watering plant stands have a metal base in powder coated steel, €20 each.
- The refreshing feel of camping is channelled here with seating pads laid over pallets. €39 each.
- Fold it, hang it up and take it outside when the sunshine allows. Metal side tables from Jon Karlsson in white or pink, €39
- IKEA play a strong hand in storage and these unfussy beech and white painted steel, low-level shelves with upright corner poles are a winner for PS 2017 at €85.
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