With the VAJER chest of drawers, designer Tomas Jelinek wanted to move away from the flat drawer fronts that are most common on drawers today. Instead he wanted to make a modern version of the somewhat bulbous, bow-shaped drawer fronts on Baroque and Rococo chests of drawers. This kind of front became too expensive to make out of wood when furniture began being made industrially in the 1950s. So Tomas Jelinek decided to make a plastic drawer front. Plastic makes it possible to produce sophisticated shapes, but that requires costly plastic tools. But since IKEA sells such high volumes, the investment in expensive tools soon pays for itself. And the high volumes mean prices can still be kept low.
Tomas designed a unique chest of drawers with nine drawers and a bulbous, wavy front. It was named VAJER and was available in various colours and sizes up until 2003. Perhaps the best known is the bright red version.
