IKEA’s New Collaboration Is Hypebeast on a Budget—And It’s Available Soon

Every June, IKEA gives us a behind the scenes look at how collaborations come together at its annual Democratic Design Days. The downside is that we then have to wait multiple years for said collabs to arrive in stores. But for those who have been patiently waiting since 2017 for OFF-WHITE’s Virgil Abloh and his millennial-focused collection to drop, the wait is almost over.

The limited-edition collection, called MAKERAD, will be available in stores across the US on November 1. MAKERAD “takes classic minimalist designs and builds on them with the artistic references and deconstructive elements typical of Virgil’s work. His iconic quotation marks can be found throughout, and are used to add a sense of irony and inject humor into everyday objects,” according to a press release.

“The essence of the project we’re working on is about the millennial spirit,” Abloh says in a press release. “Function is specific to every individual, but the ethos of the collection is to add an artful quality to anonymous objects. In the same way you might hang a piece of artwork on your wall, an artful quality can bleed into objects like a chair, table or rug. That was my initial problem to solve when creating this collection.”

Abloh loves to elevate the basic and bring the high-brow down to earth, which is clearly visible throughout the line. Take, for example, the receipt rug: a simple slip of paper is elevated to something worthy of display. “The receipt is a trademark in itself that has been transformed into art. I think that this rug can just as easily be on a floor or hung on a wall—in both scenarios, the rug highlights the entire story which IKEA embodies,” Abloh says.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the backlit Mona Lisa; one of the world’s most revered paintings turns into lighting, “blurring the boundary between functionality and art.”

MAKERAD also features some classic examples of modern Swedish furniture; there’s a solid pine daybed, a lovely dining table where the legs just click into place, and a windsor-esque chair that features a quirky surprise: a doorstop on one of the legs.

“My first home was carefully thought-through and very empty,” Abloh says. “You come to realize that making a space feel like a home takes an intangible quality. It’s not just about a chair or its form, functional things like that. It’s about creating something with character that feels lived-in. That’s the challenge.”