Core77

Ikea, the Swedish manufacturing giant that sought to bring clean, affordable (if not durable) design to the masses, is having as rough a time as anyone in the current economy. The Guardian's Helen Brown looks at their chances of survival:

So what do those of us in our 30s and 40s (Ikea's target customers) make of the company that furnished our 20s? Will we remain charmed by the style and the price, or will we desert them, either for more expensive, new stuff, or budget vintage buys? I bought a G-plan sideboard the other day--solid wood, beautiful design--for 35 pounds on eBay. Even Ikea couldn't make that quality for so little money.

And yet there are many alluring products in the new collection. As the designers show me around, I realise how brilliantly the company consistently personalises the industrialised, how cleverly they invest each product with a character of its own. They've started using red birch alongside regular birch to make mushroomy little stools that will retail for 45 pounds. With its unpredictable patterning, red birch is usually rejected by furniture makers and ground up for chipboard. But here it is loved and honoured. This is what Ikea does best: finding the unwanted and selling it to us as special.

Read the entire article here.