Ikea collaborates for the second time with Virgil Abloh, one of the most influential designers of contemporary fashion, known as the current creative director of Louis Vuitton (men) and founder of Off-white.
“I’m really glad that MARKERAD is now ready to meet with people and I look forward to see how these everyday objects will enter people’s homes and hopefully add an emotional value to them. Because that has been the ethos of the whole collection. In the same way you might hang a piece of art work on your wall, art can bleed into objects like a chair, table or rug. That was my initial problem to solve when creating this collection together with IKEA.” With these words Virgil Abloh defines the essence of this collaboration, putting into play, deliberately or not, the kind of Dadaist logic that has always characterized his work as a creative.
Writings with minimalist and ironic tones, which represent a distinctive trait of the designer, are the inevitable element that also characterizes some “MARKERAD” products, like the white numberless clock with the inscription “TEMPORARY“, the green fuzzy carpet with the writing “WET GARDEN“, the Ikea paper bag that read “SCULPTURE” and the toolbox with “HOMEWORK” written on it. But that is not all!
Among the most unusual and ingenious items in the collection there is also the low-pile rug in the form of a IKEA MARKERAD receipt, an object that the designer himself defined as “a brand in itself that has been transformed into art”.
And if you think there’s not enough art in this, Abloh also created a LED-lit wall hanging print of the Mona Lisa’s painting, including a USB port on it to charge the phone, a humorous paradox of functionality and art.
We do not want to reveal all the surprises of this fantastic collaboration that plays on adding an artistic quality to anonymous objects of our everyday life, but we can tell you that in less than a month “Markerad” will finally hit the stores.
The launch date of the long-awaited “MARKERAD” capsule collection (ie “marked” in Swedish) was announced. It seems that the collection will be available in the American Ikea stores and in those of Milan and Rome from November 1st 2019 and will be available online from November 11th.
The happy union between the Swedish furniture brand and the fashion designer is not only, as expected, available in limited edition but has limitations. In fact, customers will be able to purchase only one item for each type of product in the “Markerad” collection.
While waiting, in case you missed Virgil Abloh’s first collaboration with Ikea, take a look at the article IKEA MARKERAD X OFF-WHITE.
