On sale at IKEA

On sale at IKEA

The items for sale in this photo are ones that portray an easy, affluent lifestyle – the garden chair, popsicle stick molds, fake fruit trees, glass Tupperware containers. The items are featured in bright colors and shining plastic and metals, signs of a bright modern household for the rising Russian middle class who aspires to this image of modernity. Russia’s negotiation with commercial goods from the West has a fascinating history, from the import of foodstuffs and cultural items in the Imperial era to the craze over Pepsi and blue jeans during the latter years of Soviet Rule. In the last twenty years since the fall of the Soviet Union goods have taken on a new importance as a sign of social status and the caché of new prosperity and generational change. A decade ago IKEA stepped into the void between the ostentatious purchases and extreme wealth of the New Russian oligarchs and the continued (supposedly) impoverished masses to provide goods for a rising class of people looking to define themselves anew through consumer goods. With clean, simple furniture that can be adapted in a multitude of ways to suit personal style and needs, IKEA has done just that.

Jenna Louie

"Место под солнцем." Ikea Russia. Accessed May 5, 2014. http://www.ikea.com/ru/ru/.

May 5, 2014