IKEA is for dreamers
Meet the woman behind the 'atmosphere store' who practiced the art of possibility and pioneered the study of how we live.
My 13-year-old is on the cusp of his next birthday, next grade, next season of life.
His fashion sense and interests change every six months, but he’s old enough to start thinking about what life might be like when he’s not a kid anymore.
That’s when IKEA comes in.
IKEA is notable in the retail world because of its immersive shopping environment that involves a winding path through the store that includes dozens of display rooms.
I was in college when I went to IKEA for the first time (in San Diego, I think) and bought a trash can and a lamp for my dorm room. Austin’s IKEA opened the same year I moved here, but it was still mostly just a place to get cheap furniture.
But in the early 2010s, I started getting curious about my Swedish heritage, so trips to IKEA took on a different meaning.
I lived in South Austin, so it was a special occasion to drive to Round Rock with my kids and buy heart-shaped waffles, lingonberry soda, and smoked salmon once or twice a year.
But we don’t go to IKEA for the food anymore.
Over the past year, now that we live in North Austin and are a lot closer, I’ve been going to IKEA every couple of months, sometimes just to sip on a coffee in the cafe and work on my laptop.
But my favorite trips are when I have one of my kids with me and we use the store as a way to spark conversations about what life might look like for them in the future.
When Avery’s with me, we flock to the couches. He’s been asking for a couch for his room for a while, so we do “research” on the couches, just like the “research” we used to do on the Transformers and Ninjago toys at Target when he was a little guy.
He sits on each couch, and I can see him imagining how this particular piece of furniture would feel in his room. We look at the specs on each design, its dimensions, price, fabric, durability, style. We declare our favorites and then change our minds.
We ask each other “What if?”
That’s one of the most powerful questions a kid, a teen, or anyone hoping to harness the power of their own imagination can ask themselves.
On my recent trip to Sweden, I stumbled upon Lena Larsson, the woman whose work led to the development of IKEA’s signature style and forever changed the relationship we have with our homes, no matter how far we live from Stockholm.
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