Frosta Stool

IKEA is the world's largest furniture retailer, but its origins were far humbler than its global footprint suggests. Founded in 1943 by 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad in the Swedish village of Älmhult, the company began as a mail-order business selling pens, wallets and picture frames. It wasn't until 1948 that the IKEA catalog started featuring furniture, altering the course of modern domestic design.

IKEA is rooted in democratic design, or the belief that well-made, beautiful objects should be accessible to everyone. This philosophy took shape in the 1950s when IKEA began working with independent designers to develop its own furniture lines. The pivotal innovation came in 1956, when IKEA introduced flat-pack furniture, a practical solution born out of necessity when designer Gillis Lundgren removed a table's legs to fit it into a car. This single insight reshaped how the world thinks about manufacturing, shipping and the relationship between consumer and object.

The 1970s and 1980s are now widely considered the golden age of IKEA design, a period when the company regularly collaborated with outside designers before transitioning to entirely in-house production. These decades produced some of the brand's most collectible pieces, and vintage examples are today actively sought after by collectors worldwide. Karen Mobring's safari-influenced seating — including the Diana, Natura and Amiral chairs — captures the organic, relaxed spirit of the era, while Noboru Nakamura's Bore chair and Lundgren's Pixi lounge chair round out the most coveted 1970s offerings. The 1980s brought a sharper, more industrial sensibility through Niels Gammelgaard's work in wire and tubular steel, among them the Enetri shelf, the wire Jarpen chairs and the foldable Ted chair, as well as Tord Björklund's Skye chaise and Klinte armchair.

Beyond these core collaborators, IKEA has worked with some of the most significant names in 20th-century design. Kai Kristiansen, Ettore Sottsass, Verner Panton and Mats Theselius all produced pieces for the brand, and rare examples of their IKEA work are among the most prized finds for collectors today. More recently, collaborations with designers such as Ilse Crawford, Tom Dixon and Hella Jongerius through its IKEA PS (“post scriptum”) collections have continued to push the brand into more expressive territory.

IKEA has also shaped retail culture itself. Its sprawling, maze-like store format — introduced in Älmhult in 1958 — transformed shopping into an experience, complete with room vignettes, a Swedish café and a one-way path designed to inspire. The brand has since expanded to more than 60 countries, while its annual catalog, once one of the most widely distributed publications in the world, became a cultural artifact in its own right.

IKEA continues to balance its founding tension: mass production in the service of good design. As Kamprad once put it, "to design a desk which may cost $1,000 is easy for a furniture designer, but to design a functional and good desk which shall cost $50 can only be done by the very best."

Find a range of vintage and collectible IKEA chairs, shelving and furniture on 1stDibs.

Stools are versatile and a necessary addition to any living room, kitchen area or elsewhere in your home. A sofa or reliable lounge chair might nab all the credit, comfort-wise, but don’t discount the roles that good antique, new and vintage stools can play.

“Stools are jewels and statements in a space, and they can also be investment pieces,” says New York City designer Amy Lau, who adds that these seats provide an excellent choice for setting an interior’s general tone. 

Stools, which are among the oldest forms of wooden furnishings, may also serve as decorative pieces, even if we’re talking about a stool that is far less sculptural than the gracefully curving molded plywood shells that make up Sōri Yanagi’s provocative Butterfly stool. 

Fawn Galli, a New York interior designer, uses her stools in the same way you would use a throw pillow. “I normally buy several styles and move them around the home where needed,” she says.

Stools are smaller pieces of seating as compared to armchairs or dining chairs and can add depth as well as functionality to a space that you’ve set aside for entertaining. For a splash of color, consider the Stool 60, a pioneering work of bentwood by Finnish architect and furniture maker Alvar Aalto. It’s manufactured by Artek and comes in a variety of colored seats and finishes.

Barstools that date back to the 1970s are now more ubiquitous in kitchens. Vintage barstools have seen renewed interest, be they a meld of chrome and leather or transparent plastic, such as the Lucite and stainless-steel counter stool variety from Indiana-born furniture designer Charles Hollis Jones, who is renowned for his acrylic works. A cluster of barstools — perhaps a set of four brushed-aluminum counter stools by Emeco or Tubby Tube stools by Faye Toogood — can encourage merriment in the kitchen. If you’ve got the room for family and friends to congregate and enjoy cocktails where the cooking is done, consider matching your stools with a tall table.

Whether you need counter stools, drafting stools or another kind, explore an extensive range of antique, new and vintage stools on 1stDibs.