Can IKEA Make Fast Fashion Even Faster?

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Complex Original

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King of college dorm rooms and 20-something couples trying to save money everywhere, IKEA has the affordable furniture segment on fucking lock across the world. But now, there's chatter about the brand veering into clothing. A Swedish business thinker guy, Stefan Engeseth, pegs the company's next move as the perfect remedy to the cyclical nature of the fashion industry. Naturally, the style blogs have eaten it the fuck up.

In classic IKEA fashion, Engeseth predicts the clothes would be flat-packed and modifiable at home just like the furniture it already peddles. Then, his theory heads a little bit toward a more dystopian vision, saying IKEA could offer more unisex clothing options rather than dividing along gender lines and more like an "IKEA member." Okay, um, that's just a little bit weird. Disregarding the 1984 Oceania uniform, Engeseth makes at least a little bit of sense. IKEA thrives on smart, resourceful packaging and design, which is already an enormous part of fashion design.

Could you imagine the first generations of IKEA clothing design? You'd pick up a "Børn" shirt and you'd have to buy all these extras, like buttons, cuffs or collars and then piece together an actually functional shirt to wear. It's almost like you're making your own shirt from the materials provided, which is, you know, why tailors and seamstresses have existed in the first place for hundreds of years. What a novel idea. It feels like Engeseth doesn't know that we don't want to make clothes, but buy them already assembled.

I don't know about you, but I cannot wait until IKEA follows in the footsteps of its Swedish brethren and fast fashion juggernaut, H&M. Here's to a society of clones, wandering around in a daze as if the earth was one gigantic warehouse.

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