Start by saying that i have a lot of IKEA stuff in my home: glasses, towels, plates, lamps. But IKEA has had a devastating effect in two ways: 1. Wherever the

Start by saying that i have a lot of IKEA stuff in my home: glasses, towels, plates, lamps. But IKEA has had a devastating effect in two ways: 1. Wherever they’ve established themselves, they’ve devastated the ‘middle’ ground of quality-made furniture. In England before IKEA there used to be an immense choice of sofa and furniture makers, many of them producing really well-designed and reasonably priced items, like HABITAT for instance (which significantly was bought by IKEA sometime in the 90s). The large number of choices like this, but even other smaller-scale designers get wiped-out by IKEA’s steamroller. 2. The other problem has always been the way IKEA will copy a design from a smaller designer, and wipe them out that way. These days they’re a bit smarter about doing this, and instead of copying designs and getting the internet backlash they’d suffer nowadays, they partner with cool designers (like Danish Hay) and get ‘cred’ instead. So even though we probably save some money in the short term, we’ve lost a flourishing landscape of smaller and more diverse, and more local alternatives.