Ikea isn’t sitting on its hands anymore. Literally. In recent times it launched fashion collections, collaborated with audio brands and won a Red Dot for a coffee table with air purifier. A sign of its ongoing transition from furniture manufacturer to an increasingly well-rounded design brand. As confirmed by the launch of Kåseberga, a collection created with the World Surf League and designed “for those who live in harmony with the ocean”. And therefore in the open air and very much on the beach: a “home” different from the one that Ikea has furnished in recent years. After all, among the effects of recent life between one lockdown and another, one of the most paradoxical is the progressive dissolution of the boundary between inside and outside, between interiors and nature.
“Choose great emotions and low impact” is the motto of surfer Kassia Meador, who together with colleague Rob Machado (and the contribution of 3500 others) has collaborated with Ikea for this capsule collection. If you say ocean, you think of waves, but also of the plastic that suffocates the seas. Dedicating a collection to the ocean today cannot ignore the environmental issue and the tragedy of pollution. Therefore, among the most symbolic objects of the collection we find a fabric bag, a black bag made of 90% recycled polyester. Designed to collect waste on the beaches, bottles and cans, it lets the sand drain away thanks to the large weave of the fabric.
The collection also includes a backpack made of recycled polyester, with various compartments including a waterproof pocket and a padded one, plus the obvious bottle cage, and features a palm tree motif that acts as a red thread throughout all the Kåseberga items. The most striking object of Kåseberga is probably the customization of the famous Frakta bag, already widely used in the standard version, the famous blue and yellow one, to carry equipment and change (standing up, staying inside) by surfers. It has been enlarged and optimized for this function, equipped with a removable internal compartment. It is accompanied by a hooded poncho, also designed to change comfortably on the beach: obviously it will be useful not only to surfers. Both are available in two versions, one with the aforementioned palm leaf pattern, the other with a gradient that tries to capture in a single glance the colors of sunrise and sunset, sand and of course the ocean.
The rest of the collection, whose name is inspired by a Swedish surfing spot, and which uses all renewable and recycled materials, ranges from furniture elements – the modular storage panel is remarkable, the coffee table inspired by the lines of a surf is cute – to barbecue sets, and also includes water bottles, glasses, cooler bags, tents and hats. There is of course the yoga mat, punctum of our life between home and open spaces in the post-Covid.
“Although the collaboration between IKEA and WSL may seem strange, it actually makes a lot of sense,” Ikea’s Range Development Leader James Futcher says of the collection. And it looks perfect for the summer when we’ll be back to traveling on a global scale and exploring even the most beautiful but polluted corners of the oceans - remember the photos of the beaches in Bali where plastic bottles are piled up, or has the pandemic made them disappear from our memories? Twenty-six objects in all to “ride the wave of change”, emphasizes the Swedish brand, with a metaphor that can not be more direct. Hoping that the wave of pollution does not overwhelm us, despite the good intentions.
The name of the collection refers to a small town in Southern Sweden where local surfers gather.