First look: Ikea’s new Stockholm collection is a venture into affordable luxury

The Wallpaper* team are on the ground at Milan Design Week 2025 this week and one of the first orders of business is a tour of Ikea's latest Stockholm collection, new items that stay true to the brand's ethos of making homeware that's accessible to all.

Browse the new Ikea Stockholm collection

The latest edition marks 40 years of the Stockholm collection and is the largest yet, including nearly 100 pieces from mouth-blown glassware, handwoven wool rugs and chandeliers designed by three Ikea designers, Ola Wihlborg, Nike Karlsson, and Paulin Machado. This eighth Stockholm collection leans into luxury, without compromising on affordability.

Accessibility is at the epicentre of the collection, and something that designer Paulin Machado explained was a key concern when we met her in Milan. ‘I hope people see the quality, and that they get amazed by the price. Of course, I hope they find their favourite, or something that calls out to them. The first Stockholm collection launched in the 60s for a more mature audience. Now, we wanted to create something which is accessible to all. We want to create quality pieces for young people who can invest in something which they will have for a long time, it will age gracefully and be durable.’

The collection offers an array of pieces, from the curved two-seat sofa in varying shades of brown and velvets, to intricate rugs, wooden trays, glass cabinets, vases, and an elegant pendant lamp.

Materiality takes centre stage of the collection, which designer Machado treasures when sketching out her designs. She drew inspiration from her experience working within textiles and weaving, telling Wallpaper*; ‘I love working with rugs. I am a weaver myself and of course when I get that brief to make a rug, I put my whole heart into it. We used ‘rollakan’ an old Swedish rug making technique, it is a way of doing flat weave, and by using this it helps to transfer a design in an intricate manner.

Designing the new collection didn't come without challenges. ‘It was my first time working with glass and it was really tricky!' explained Machado. 'With textiles I have a background in it and can easily transfer my ideas into production. Whereas glass is such a fluid process which can’t be steered. You have to go with the flow, as you may think it will take a certain shape, but then turns into something else.

‘I really sketched it out exactly how I wanted the glassware to be. I worked closely with our master glassmaker and he would tell me, “Paulin, this will break you cannot do this!” I really had to have a clear sense of dimension and shape. However, being an Ikea designer does come with a lot of challenges and is faced with a lot of “nos”. But personally when I get faced with a lot of nos I get inspired to keep on working the design until I get a “yes”. And that is how you learn and how you evolve.’

For all the designers, nature was at the epicentre of the design process. ‘Nature is the best designer – every colour matches beautifully in the natural world. It was something that I was drawn to on a personal level,’ shared Machado. ‘I used to live in New Delhi and was struck with how disconnected I felt to nature by living in that urban environment.’

‘I kept a nature diary in my phone all the time and had a large sketchbook, which I collected images of the different seasons. The glass was inspired by mushrooms, and the bowl was inspired by an upturned rock in the river. I love moss and the way it looks like a miniature world, and birch was a huge inspiration as well.’

With a world that seems to become more disconnected with nature and more tuned into the digital world, Machado shared how she feels this will impact the design landscape of the future, ‘I think it is not cool when AI does all the fun stuff. Of course, it is a great tool and it can do tasks which are tedious and boring, but I would be sad to see if we lost a sense of humanity within the creative process. We learn from our mistakes, and ideas from this evolve, which is something AI can’t capture. The design process takes time, and if the notion of “AI can fix it” continues, we have to fight back and say “We don’t want AI to fix it”, and leave the fun, creative, joyful things for us to discover.”

The Ikea Stockholm collection is available worldwide on 10 April ikea.com