London Photo Gallery - Art Exhibitions & Special Events December 2024

216 Oxford Street (November 2024 - March 2025)

IKEA opened a pop-up shop named Hus of FRAKTA on Oxford Street with a small exhibition about its famous blue bag. Their press release stated nearly half of UK households own one with 31% keeping theirs for over 5 years. Named frakta, which means "to freight" in Swedish, its history goes back to the 1960s when IKEA started selling more small home furnishing products. In the 1980s, studies on customer behaviour in stores revealed tremendous difficulty to haul the smaller products to checkout, so a search for a larger bag was born.

The designers wanted a bag big enough to carry rolls of wallpaper and up to 50kg, and worked with a Taiwanese factory to find a suitable material, polypropylene, which was used for rice bags. The first batch of yellow bags were rolled out in Hamburg in 1989. Eventually, the blue one were also created which were sold while the yellow ones stayed in the store.

You can personalize one with your initials for only 50 pence (medium size), which takes just minutes. While you wait, there is an exhibition and small shop out back to explore.

To get your special edition bag, fill out a form with the letters you want, the colour, and where to place it on the bag. A staff will confirm the order and scan your loyalty club membership to get the discount.