ForLook Interior Design

There was a time when I was so excited to receive the new IKEA catalogue that I immediately dropped everything else in order to browse through it. But those days are long gone. I only just opened the new catalogue today, having received it more than a month ago. And I’m yet again quite disappointed..

Only a few years ago IKEA offered a fresh approach to Interior Decoration. It was full of new ideas, clever storage solutions – at an affordable price. You remember their “chuck out your chintz” campaign? That changed everything. IKEA was no longer the shop for the design-conscious, or contemporary beings, it became a store for the masses. Some people might call this process democratic, I call it lowering the standard of style.

Even the catalogue itself has turned naff. It used to look aspiring, full of carefully styled spaces I could imagine actually living in - even though, of course everything was from IKEA. In contrast, the catalogue now looks so boring and uninspiring - quite frankly I don’t like any of the sets they’ve created. The rooms they have put together just look cheap; where before they looked stylish, yet were cheap to achieve.

Maybe I’ve just moved on, but I’m not so sure. I’ve noticed that they have discontinued most of those furniture and decorating elements I used to think could add a designer’s touch or the wow factor to a room – for example, the black kitchen doors or the PAX Lomen wardrobe doors. Obviously they were not popular, i.e. they didn’t appeal to the masses. This is a shame. The designers at IKEA should get back to their drawing boards and start designing forward-looking furniture & ornaments rather than simulating other designers’ successes - the new Vika Fintrop table is rather heavily influenced by John Reeves’ Louise table , don’t you think??? They ought not to be concentrating just on selling to the sheep-minded people of the world but should return to being trend-setters rather than trend-followers.

The only thing I quite like is the new RUBRIK range of glass doors and drawer fronts for kitchen units. They come in black, white and emerald green set in aluminium frames. These combined with the ABSTRACT, SOLAR white (with integrated handles) or RUBRIK stainless steel doors, could create a very trendy kitchen indeed!

Another bit of good news is that you can now order things online - still not the full range of their catalogue but at least IKEA is trying to join the 21st century!

If you have any comments about the new IKEA catalogue or IKEA generally, please feel free to share them with us!