Designing products alongside social enterprises

"Social business aims to generate meaningful impact with a people at the center approach. Unifying the collection under the single brand name MÄVINN enhances this strategic direction even more,” says Nina Elmgren, Commercial Manager at IKEA.  

With MÄVINN, our latest collection created in collaboration with social businesses in Bangladesh, India, Thailand, and Indonesia, the products “are specifically designed to suit ´the skill sets of the artisans, optimizing the uniqueness of their craft. It is a learning, both for IKEA and our SE partners, to build products that stand out – each built with immense love and attention to handcrafted details,” added Simi Gauba, IKEA Product Design Developer.  

Creating products with meaning  

The journey of the MÄVINN collection began in bazaars and local craft markets. That’s where IKEA designers Maria Vinka and Paulin Machado found their initial inspiration. Each object tells a story of the hands that made them. “We wanted to have products that show how they have been handcrafted and to emphasise that someone has put this object together,” says Maria. Instead of uniformity, the designers wanted to celebrate the individual artisans. This initial spark of inspiration was just the beginning of a collaborative process involving many people, locations and materials.  

There are 17 products in the collection including baskets, rugs, a lampshade, an apron, bags, cushion covers, and a wall organiser made in collaboration with five social enterprises Bangladesh, India and Jordan. In addition to using the IKEA Democratic Design dimensions of function, form, quality, sustainability and low price to design the products, other factors need to be looked at when working with social enterprise partners.

Celebrating local craftsmanship 

“When creating a product, it's important to consider the location where it will be produced. For example, if a certain area is skilled in weaving with banana fibre, that is a good material to use for the collection. However, it's also important to think about the need for job opportunities. A more diverse and more sustainable product can be created by combining multiple materials and utilising the skills of multiple communities. This was the approach taken in this project”, says Paulin. 

Visiting each of the production centres and meeting the artisans, understanding their skills and abilities, the designs start to come to life. “We are all united by the universal language of design, the craftsmanship. And this shared understanding is what enables us to create products that resonate IKEA identity being made possible with craft knowledge of the artisan,“ says Arnab. 

Once the designs are set, artisans create the products in the collection using traditional handicraft techniques such as embroidery and weaving. These skills, taught by the social enterprises and passed on from one artisan to another, are the key to becoming self-sufficient and creating a better life for the artisan, their families and the communities where they live.  

And that’s one of the main purposes with collections like MÄVINN – maximising impact and supporting as many people as possible. The name of the MÄVINN collection, which in Swedish means “having the wind at your back”, perfectly describes the purpose behind the collection and how the social enterprises are empowering people in rural areas and vulnerable groups with skills and long-term jobs. 2,595 artisans created the collection supporting over 10,000 livelihoods.  

“Social enterprise setups are unique in their framework. They help to create a synergy between the social need and support artisans with trainings to develop capabilities and create work opportunities in the region,” says Soumya Parvatiyar, Business Developer IKEA Development Centre South Asia. “IKEA collaborates with such partners where people and their crafts are at the centre.” 

One of those artisans is Aarti who came to the social enterprise from her rural village in western India 15 years ago. Over the years Aarti learned and mastered her craft through training sessions and work. She also learned about supply processes and quality requirements. Today Aarti is a cluster manager of 50 other artisans. With her stable income she has a small savings and her children now go to school daily, breaking the barriers faced by previous generations.  

“The criteria we would like to define for a social partner is firstly what kind of social impact they're creating, what kind of business journey they have already established in their setups,” says Soumya. “The other factor that comes in is what kind of product category we want to explore. We started with textile, and we have a couple of suppliers who are working with textiles. But as we grow in the journey of being in the social impact area, we felt we need more product types to make the overall collection more impactful.” 

When IKEA customers meet the final products in IKEA stores, they are not just purchasing a bag or a lampshade or a rug, they are participating in a journey of self-sufficiency. “So much goes beyond a rug that we see at the store,” says Arnab. “We look at it in a way that this is a human-needs product and that's the beauty of it.” 

The collection will be available in stores and online globally from the first week of September.