Kit Neale for Ikea - A Brief Chat With The Fashion Designer On His SS17 Ltd SPRIDD Collection
If you've got a teenager, a student to kit out before you send them off to uni, or if you are just a fan of bright and trendy prints, then Kit Neale's collaboration with Ikea (on sale next February in the UK) might just be for you.
Colourful, bold, and blatantly aimed at the yoof, the 28 year old East London-based fashion designer has worked with Ikea on a limited edition collection titled SPRIDD. The result is a riot of cartoon-like prints of mushrooms, facial features, volcanoes and punctuation marks, with a real early 90's influence. These prints are spread across a range of homeware items such as mugs, plates, cushions and bedlinen, as well as t-shirts, duffel bags and even tents (a first for Ikea).
The ultra-durable wax cotton floor runners (that can even be used outside) - £20 each. Bath towels - £10 each. Lampshades - £3.85.
Kit Neale was at the press launch for his SPRIDD collection, and talked me through some of the items. The range of cushions (£8 for a small, £10 for a large) are a mixture of both embroidery and printed images. He picked out one of his orb cushions and shows me how the orbs are embroided, but the rest of the cushion is a print. "There are so many details that you don't notice until you take a closer look - like the rubbery parts on a cushion or the scale of a big fish on a duvet cover," said Kit.
Kit's favourite cushion in the SPRIDD collection is the exclamation/question mark, below centre (£10)
Although incredibly cheap (£20 for a rug, £20 for a bedlinen set, and an amazing £35 for a two person tent), don't expect SPRIDD not to last for the duration. Kit told me that unlike the super fast world of fashion he usually works in, SPRIDD took two years in the making due to Ikea's quality control (Kit told me that they left his cushions in direct sunlight for 6 months to make sure they didn't fade).
Cups, bowls and plates start at £2.75.
My son is only 2 years old, but I'm definitely going to be kitting out his room in some SPRIDD posters and the durable rugs next year as he is already growing out of the 'nursery' vibe. And if that 'mums on tour' pledge to return to our Glastonbury hey-day also comes into fruition, then I'll also be investing the exclamation mark tent!
BEST OF THE REST:
Other Ikea collections for SS17...
Thank you to Ikea for inviting me to check out their new collections, and thank you to Kit Neale for taking the time out to chat.