The elegant glass-door cabinet was one of the first products presented in the new STOCKHOLM collection, the hallmarks of which were high-class materials and timeless design. STOCKHOLM was aimed at a somewhat more mature customer group. Ingvar Kamprad originally intended to launch a top-of-the-line collection.
The chosen designers were Karin Mobring, who had studied under Carl Malmsten, and Tomas Jelinek, who had roots in what at the time was Czechoslovakia and was trained in the Central European furnishing tradition. The two were comfortable working with both tradition and modernism. This is what Tomas Jelinek himself said about the STOCKHOLM collection: “STOCKHOLM should emit a certain calm and harmony. Simplicity. Each piece of furniture in the collection should really subordinate itself to its environment. You should buy STOCKHOLM as individual pieces so that they can blend in with other interiors, fill empty spaces and form a harmony with the furniture that’s already in the room. We have devoted great care to working out the details, making them sleek and elegant, decreasing the thickness of the material and hiding all the fittings. Many people want to call STOCKHOLM timeless, but it would be vain to strive for timelessness. The only thing that one could strive for is not to commit oneself to a particular time, epoch or style. To keep it all very neutral.”
The STOCKHOLM collection 1985 also included an armchair, a floor lamp and a chair. The prices were slightly higher than usual for IKEA, but still far lower than what the competitors charged on ‘Fashion Street’. The entire collection was presented in the 1986 catalogue under the heading “New classics”.
Over the years, several subsequent STOCKHOLM collections have been developed. Still today it stands for quality and timelessness, and is often described as a tribute to Scandinavian design.
