IKEA’s Colorful New Nytillverkad Collection
When a brand with IKEA’s enormous worldwide influence makes a big design statement, the world listens. At Milan Design Week in April, IKEA announced Nytillverkad, the company’s newest range of furnishings. With the IKEA Nytillverkad collection, the Swedish design giant celebrates its 80th anniversary by reimagining an assortment of its iconic designs. The range of revamped historical furnishings in bold new colors and more sustainable materials will be available in July 2023. The initial group will include 20 pieces. IKEA says we should expect the company to release more updated classics (including pieces from the disco period) later in 2023 and beyond.
Everything Old Is New Again
Milan Design Week is the world’s biggest annual design event. Nearly 300 designers, design studios, and brands showed interior and fashion designs in April this year in the Northern Italian city of Milan. Because of the company’s popularity, IKEA’s announcement of Nytillverkad (which is Swedish for “newly made”) was one of the show’s most reported-on interior design announcements.
The new collection of Scandinavian home furnishings underscores several of the year’s hottest interior design color trends. The subdued grey and white color stories so popular in recent years have been taken over by bright, bold colors from nature—lemon, lavender, mint, and vibrant aquamarine. The IKEA Nytillverkad collection shows that even practical, everyday household items can be enlivened with a dose of exciting color.
While the use of trendy colors makes the news feel very timely, the big stars of IKEA’s “new” line are based on historic designs in IKEA’s archives.
A Big, Bold Color Story
The first big interior design trend of 2023 is the turning away from the past decade’s deluge of black, white, and grey interiors and pale woods. Homes are turning toward colors that are anything but subtle, and IKEA’s new line boasts lots of these bold, joyous hues.
As we reported in our recent 2023 interior design color trends feature, this year’s top tones are largely warm colors, though cool, dark greens, blues, and purples are also trending. We see a definite move toward richness and vibrance. Neutrals are warmer, and earth tones are showing up all over. Colors from nature—tangerine, black cherry, honey, pale sky and intense royal blues, lavender and plummy purples, and all sorts of greens—are blooming in home interiors. And now, classic IKEA furniture designs are getting amped by color, too.
Some designers are sticking with more relaxed natural tones. However, the IKEA Nytillverkad collection takes a wilder road, choosing bold and saturated colors, and contrasting intense warm and cool shades to really make things POP.
Seventies Style Is Back
The second big trend of the year is midcentury modern (MCM) revivalism. Within MCM, the new emphasis is largely on seventies style. One new IKEA Nytillverkad plant stand (or small table) with a modern take on midcentury style is the KULTURSKOG. Originally the BALJA when it was designed in 1957, this practical stand will come in standard black as well as mint green. The JERRY, a pale wood-topped stool from 1973, has also been reinvented. As the DOMSTEN, it comes with mint green, tangerine, or periwinkle painted legs.
That seventies vibe continues with the redesigned SMED coat stand from 1978. Now named BONDSKÄRET, this rack has burst the bonds of its original boring color. While it is available in black, you can now get it in twinkling periwinkle or kapow-bright Sicilian lemon yellow. The coat tree has eight curved branches all around, and sits on three legs of varying heights. It tucks easily into a small corner to carry more than its share of cold-weather clothes.
The BONDSKÄRET coat stand positively sings in the periwinkle version. Periwinkles and lavenders are making their way into more companies’ designs in 2023. The lavender-blue shade Veri Peri, which was the 2022 Pantone Color of the Year, is still spreading further into home design in 2023. Designers say the trend for mauve, lavender, periwinkle, and pinks (both bright and pastel) will keep blossoming all year. Expect the lively, lovely lavender and pink trend to continue into 2024.
A Reimagined 1950s MCM Table
IKEA uses many simple, timeless shapes and profiles in their furniture ranges. These shapes make their furniture more versatile. The company finds it easier and cheaper to manufacturer, pack, and ship them. Although some of their products feature bright, bold colors, most of us tend to think of IKEA furniture in pale wood finishes, or black or white. The Nytillverkad collection adds color-blasted versions of shapes made popular in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
For example, the LÖVET table, introduced in 1956, was a classic MCM side table. Its near-half-circle tabletop had a cut with a gentle curve on the nearly straight edge, making it more interesting than a standard half-moon. It rested on three thin, tapered legs.
Starting this July, the LÖVEBACK table, a modern twist on the original LÖVET, will be available in royal blue, vibrant tangerine, and mint green. Each table’s dainty leg ends in a stylish gold metal tube. So chic! The LÖVET would make a fun living room side table, bedside table, or children’s play table. It also makes a good coffee table for a small space. But two might be even more exciting when displayed in a contrasting pair.
Are These Furnishings Earth-Friendy?
IKEA says it has updated these products’ metal components to make them more sustainable and technologically advanced. The company is definitely hearing customers’ concerns about sustainability. Textiles in the new line are made from recycled cotton and post-consumer recycled fibers. New technologies allow IKEA to use steel that produces 50% lower carbon dioxide emissions. The collection’s packaging is using paper instead of plastic wherever possible. And pieces are being designed and fabricated to be easily disassembled and carried, to avoid breakage during moving. But, as always, IKEA’s much appreciated efforts at sustainability must always be considered alongside the size of their carbon footprint.
The company has made significant efforts to use more sustainable materials. IKEA also limits packaging. It makes items as small as possible, so they take up less weight and space in shipping containers. This helps IKEA use less petroleum-based fuel to ship products.
Consumers need to live more sustainably, too
IKEA products are the home interior world’s version of fast fashion. They’re meant to be cheap and simple. And that makes them easier to discard. It’s not earth-friendly to fill the world with lots of furnishings that will last much longer than they’re wanted. We run the risk of buying things we’ll discard as soon as they go out of fashion—or even before. So, yes, we may be tempted to buy inexpensive flat-pack furniture like the items in the IKEA Nytillverkad collection. But if we do, let’s commit to finding ways to use them well. Let’s repair or repurpose them when necessary, and reuse, rehome, or recycle them sustainably, too.
You Can Be Stylish and Sensible
We’re loving the vibrant colors and patterns in the IKEA Nytillverkad collection. They’re joyous and fun, and their vividness is a welcome change. That said, we recognize that adding bright, trendy colors to furniture does make them likely to go out of style more quickly. We hope their classic, simple, practical shapes will inspire future owners to repaint them when they get shabby or their colors lose their luster. Or, better yet, maybe buyers will find ways to keep loving these colors and incorporating them into their homes in fun new ways long after their trends have passed. We have our fingers crossed.
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IKEA’s new Nytillverkad collection updates historic pieces from the company’s archives using bold, trendy colors. IKEA also includes patterns like KRYPKORNELL, which they updated from the BLADHULT pattern designed in 1980 | IKEA
