IKEA Launches New Armchair That "Doesn't Look Inflatable"
IKEA recently previewed three new products from its 2026 PS (PostScript) experimental collection, the most eye-catching of which is an inflatable armchair with a structure that is almost indistinguishable from being inflatable, to be officially released at the company's annual event on May 13th.
This new product, named “PS 2026 Easy Chair,” consists of two independent, adjustable air chambers covered in a grandmother green fabric and paired with a wrapped carbon steel metal frame. Unlike many cheap, bulging inflatable furniture popular in the 90s, its design aims to present a more stable and closer-to-traditional furniture visual and user experience while maintaining the advantages of an inflatable structure. The metal frame helps the air chambers maintain their shape when stressed, avoiding obvious bulging when sitting, and, by adding weight, reduces the chair's tendency to "bounce around" the room like a balloon when bumped. IKEA has not yet announced the price, but says the chair has passed all durability tests for its armchair products.
This is not IKEA's first foray into inflatable furniture design. The IKEA Museum website specifically reviewed the company's explorations in this field, calling early attempts "a creatively failed endeavor." In 2000, IKEA launched the Rolig inflatable armchair and the Innerlig inflatable sofa, but due to their high price and leaky valves, these products often deflated slowly within days and ultimately failed to gain a foothold in the market. Since then, the company has turned to launching several inflatable furniture products in its children's line, which have been relatively more successful. However, IKEA internal designer Mikael Axelsson has always hoped to revisit this direction, and views the new inflatable armchair in the PS 2026 collection as a systematic response to past experiences.
In addition to the inflatable armchair, IKEA's preview of the PS 2026 collection also includes two other strikingly designed new products. One, created by designer Marta Krupińska, is a bench made of solid pine with curved rails at the bottom, making it similar to a "rocking horse" rocking bench that can accommodate two people sitting side-by-side. The other, from designer Lex Pott, is a multi-segment tubular floor lamp with a body composed of several sections, each of which can be rotated 45 degrees to change the direction of light projection, including vertical downward illumination to meet reading needs.
As planned, these new works will all be presented as part of the 2026 PS experimental collection, continuing the series’ consistent positioning of exploring the boundaries of home design with bold material use and structural experimentation.