A neat armchair with a generous shape, handmade of rattan by skilled artisans. Designer Nike Karlsson was asked by IKEA to develop rattan products for the STOCKHOLM collection of a higher quality than IKEA had ever had before. Nike went to Indonesia to work directly with a supplier that makes rattan products for IKEA. He had brought drawings and product ideas from Sweden, but soon realised he would have to modify them to suit production. The supplier was encouraged to come up with new solutions that made Nike’s ideas possible. This could only be done because the designer visited the factory and was able to work directly alongside the supplier. This is what Nike said about the process:
“Making products from rattan is a very different process to making other IKEA products. It’s usually about straight edges and rapid flows through hyper-efficient factories. Rattan is more about working with people and their handicrafts.”
The armchair was part of the seventh collection called STOCKHOLM, which was about “The beauty of doing things at just the right pace”. The collection was characterised by a classic, traditional, Scandinavian design theme with cautious continental influences. The products have become popular, perhaps mostly among a more mature target group, second generation IKEA customers. The 2017 collection was made of natural, tactile materials like rattan and mouth-blown glass. This reflected the collection’s most important sources of inspiration: the light and nature of Sweden.
“The collection is about well-being, quality and comfort,” as Viveca Olsson, creative leader for STOCKHOLM collection 2017, explained.
The armchair is still sold at IKEA in 2021. It has a comfy seating cushion of high-quality polyether with a real sprung core. The back cushion is filled with polyester fibre balls, and the seat and back cushions have cotton covers.
