After two years of research, creative meetings around the world and design, IKEA has finally launched at Design Indaba Festival in Cape Town ÖVERALLT, the new capsule collection created with ten African designers from Ivory Coast, Egypt, Kenya, Senegal and South Africa. Available on IKEA markets worldwide from May 2019, the collection includes hanging shelves, crockery, chairs, baskets, textiles, an organic tote bag in the name of these three elements: identity, sociability and sustainability.

According to IKEA’s creative leader, James Futcher, ÖVERALLT wants to be “a palette of socializing tools”, a combination of furnishing components that invite to exchange, sharing and creativity. “We want to encourage people to gather around a table, eat, tell stories and spend time together,” says Futcher, whose original idea was to blend modern African rituals with the Scandinavian home living.

“I’m obsessed with braids” – the fiber baskets designed by the Senegalese fashion designer Selly Raby Kane “represent creativity, power, art and a codified language” as well as the collective ritual of braiding one’s hair with each other. The plywood chair by the architect Issa Diabaté reflects the African approach to life indoor and outdoor with no use of glues or metal joints but only wooden joinery. The modular stool and bench by Nairobi-based designers Bethan Rayner and Naeem Biviji are inspired by the concept of community: they can take different shapes according to the need, from straight to curved. The seating is shaped in a V shape to improve comfort and visual harmony.

The rocking chair and the footrest by Bibi Seck remind her mother’s garden in Dakar: extremely comfortable and relaxing. Finally the rugs, blankets and pillowcases by the South Africans Laduma Ngxokolo, Renee Rossouw and Sindiso Khumalo come from their traditional folklore reinterpreted in contemporary ways, inspired by graphics and South African cities. The sustainable tote bag and carpet by the Egyptian duo Reform Studio originates from industrial waste of potato chips silver bags: the young designers studied carefully the production process and started weaving tiny stripes of this highly polluting materials in their pieces.

A collaboration that “opens up new avenues for everyone involved, and it creates a new voice for the continent”. A continent that not only has a its designers, but they are  brilliant and claims a prominent place in the international design scene.