IKEA X FASHION | Walter van Beirendonck cooperation


June 2016 Ikea will launch a new collection made in collaboration with some well known fashion designers, and I love to see Walter Van Beirendonck creating five prints for IKEA, which will be rolled out on a whole collection of interior design objects. I loved to learn more of his work, the Antwerp Six, and meeting him in Reykjavik where we both visited DesignMarch, shared the same hotel and bumped into eo a few times, only discovering the last night we both speak the same language. In a video released by IKEA, the Antwerp Six designer says that his textiles are based around a concept he calls Wondermooi |Flemish for “beautiful”| 


Walter:”I came up with a story about characters living in the clouds,” he said, “and the sun and the moon which were very sad because there’s so much going wrong in the world. They’re crying and big tears are falling down and the clouds get big holes. The cloud people really start to panic, ‘What’s going on? Our clouds are broken! And that story, in fact, became a story with different characters and also by the end, different patterns. Every character had a very specific pattern and specific look; I used this to create different ranges of prints and fabrics.”

Van Beirendonck’s collection is the first in a line of collaborations with other fashion designers like Katie Eary, a London ‘street wear’ designer who will create a line of cushions and bedding. Martin Bergström balances between fashion, art and dance music. He is able to design something unexpected and innovative like the current Svartån collection showed in these pictures.