IKEA shows inflatable chair

IKEA used Milan Design Week to unveil an inflatable easy chair that sat in a sketchbook for more than a decade before reaching the floor. (ikea.com) The chair is part of the upcoming IKEA PS 2026 line, which IKEA previewed on April 20 with two other pieces: a rocking bench and a three-directional floor lamp. The display is inside the company’s “Food For Thought” exhibition at Spazio Maiocchi in Milan, running April 21 to 26. (ikea.com) (ingka.com) IKEA said designer Mikael Axelsson first drew the idea in 2014, then kept revisiting it until the company found a workable version for the tenth PS collection. Wallpaper reported the Milan showing as the world premiere of three PS 2026 products, a collection IKEA says returns 31 years after the first PS launch in 1995. (ikea.com) (wallpaper.com) The object fits the role IKEA has long given the PS line: a place for more experimental products than its core range. IKEA described PS as a collection built around “Democratic Design,” and the company said the wider tenth edition will launch in May 2026. (ikea.com) (thenordroom.com) The chair also lands in a Milan season full of playful domestic objects and reworked familiar forms. Wallpaper said IKEA’s exhibition links living and eating through a sequence of rooms, while Dezeen described the inflatable chair as a return to a 1990s design language. (wallpaper.com) (dezeen.com) This is not a simple plastic blow-up seat from the late 1990s. Dezeen reported that Axelsson’s version places inflatable chambers inside a metal frame, and other coverage described a textile skin over the structure so the chair reads more like upholstered furniture than pool gear. (dezeen.com) (yankodesign.com) That construction addresses a problem IKEA knows well from its earlier inflatable experiments. Homes To Love reported this is IKEA’s first serious return to pneumatic furniture since the A.I.R. range in the late 1990s, a period when inflatable home furnishings were cheap, light, and often short-lived. (homestolove.com.au) IKEA is using the chair as a preview, not a nostalgia reissue. In Milan, the company paired it with new PS pieces and a food-centered installation, turning a 2014 sketch into a 2026 product tease just weeks before the full collection arrives in stores. (ikea.com) (wallpaper.com)