Since the first Ikea store opened in the UK back in 1987, as a nation we have become hooked on the brand’s ethos of creating affordable, thoughtfully-designed pieces for the home. It’s a concept Ikea calls democratic design, and the next step in its progress is the opening of city stores that bring the experience directly to where people are. And few locations are more bustling than London’s Oxford Street.
The area may have taken some knocks in recent years – in fact ever since the closure of Topshop (the immense retail space measuring 5,800 square metres across three floor, which Ikea has taken ownership) talk of its demise has been common – but the opening of this new store on 1 May may prove the beginning of its renaissance.
Taking the concept that London first saw with the opening of Ikea’s Hammersmith store in 2022 and adding some extra gloss, this is the truly Swedish shopping experience we all love, distilled to its essential elements.
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Walk in on the ground floor and you are met by ‘curated shops’ – edits created by real Londoners that represent the diversity of the capital. Throughout the year, new Londoners will be approached to create their own selections. Head down the escalator and straight ahead you will see the Swedish Deli, a 130-seat restaurant selling all the Scandi tastes you expect from the brand (staggeringly for central London, you’ll be able to purchase its famous main courses for just £4.95), as well as a colourful showroom that presents living spaces that will resonate with urban dwellers, filled with about 6,000 products (just over half of which you’ll be able to take away immediately).
For larger pieces of furniture (the ones you can’t comfortably fit in the brand’s iconic blue bags), you will be given the option to have them delivered to your home or numerous pick-up points across the city. Unsure what you can pick up straight away? Anything with a red tag means a green light.
Head down to the final of this epic space’s three storeys and you will find the Market Hall – a utopia of glassware, tableware, cushion, rugs, bedding… All of the affordable home essentials.
As well as these most recognisable of Ikea experiences, there are also new things to be discovered. There’s a Live Studio – a 25-square-metre box surrounded by screens that will be used to broadcast live events and host interactive experiences. When we saw it, it was a child-friendly forest scene to which kids could add their own drawings. Pleasingly there is also a focus on the store’s Re-Shop and Re-Use section, where you can shop returned secondhand products and discontinued Ikea pieces, giving them a second life.
This latter focus is an extension to the sustainability credentials that have been so important to the store’s renovation. Ikea fans have been waiting for this city store to open for quite some time, but the wait is perhaps more understandable when you learn that Ikea has removed the use of gas from the store entirely, running it instead using a new high-efficiency air-source heat pump on the building’s roof and that 99% of the waste produced during construction has been diverted from landfill – more than 1,000 timber pallets were sent to be recycling into new pallets, and almost 20 tonnes of plasterboard offcuts went to British Gypsum for incorporation into new products.
Of course, that’s all very impressive, but the main attraction will be the novelty of picking up a blue ‘Frakta’ bag or tiny pencil in the centre of London. We’ll see you for a dash around the Market Hall this weekend. ikea.com
