Thirty-one years after IKEA first introduced the PS collection in Milan, the Swedish brand has returned with its tenth edition, and the headline piece is unexpected: an inflatable chair. Not the sagging, squeaky PVC relic of the nineties, but something re-engineered from the ground up. The PS 2026 collection, previewed at Milan Design Week ahead of its full global reveal on 13 May, is a statement about what democratic design can look like when given room to experiment.
Designed by IKEA's Mikael Axelsson, the chair is the product of an obsession that has persisted inside the company since the nineties. Multiple attempts at air-filled furniture fell short over the years, and when Axelsson decided to try again, most of his team shook their heads. He hand-welded twenty prototypes, including one made from a tractor tyre, before finding a solution: two adjustable air chambers housed within a tubular chrome frame, giving the chair structural stability and a compact silhouette. The chair arrives flat-packed with a manual foot pump and has passed every durability test IKEA runs on its armchairs.
The material logic is central. As Axelsson puts it, air is free and everyone has access to it. The fabric exterior in deep emerald green resolves the old problems of slipping and squeaking, bringing the piece closer to conventional upholstered seating while using a fraction of the material. The decision to include a manual foot pump rather than an electric one was deliberate: an electric pump would have pushed up the price and left the buyer with electronic waste once the chair was assembled.
The PS 2026 collection does not stop at the chair. Dutch designer Lex Pott contributes a three-directional floor lamp, born from the question of what happens when you cut a steel cylinder at 45 degrees and rotate the pieces. Two angled intersections transform the lamp into a spotlight, a reading light or an uplight depending on how it is rotated. The function lives entirely in the geometry, and the design is available in chartreuse yellow, deep burgundy and cobalt blue.
The third preview piece is a rocking bench by IKEA designer Marta Krupinska, built from solid pine with curved runners. It is playful functionality in its purest form: it works as a bench, but the runners have other ideas. As Krupinska observes, from the first prototype people could not help themselves. They would sit down, start rocking, then call someone over. Furniture should not take itself too seriously.
The PS collection has always been where IKEA's most experimental design takes shape. First launched in 1995 to challenge the design world's exclusivity, it made Scandinavian modernism accessible at a price point that was itself the statement. The 2026 edition continues that mission, centring on playful functionality, objects with clear purpose elevated by expressive details that invite touch and engagement. If the inflatable chair is any indication, the full collection, revealed on 13 May at Democratic Design Days in Almhult, will be worth the wait.